6th February 2000

Cyberspace captivates the United Nations

On his summer vacation, so the story goes, he found his way to a mountain top in the Himalayas, the abode of a legendary sage.

"O Wise One!," he told the meditating guru," I have crossed the seas, braved the roughest weather, trekked on foot and climbed the world's highest mountain to see you."

"Is there life after death?, he asked, "Is God dead", he kept pummelling the sage with questions.

After a pause, the Wise One spoke: "Why did you endure all this agony and hardship, my son," he said. "You could have sent me an e-mail message."

The story may sound apocryphal, but it establishes one fact: the world's information superhighway runs all the way from the UN delegate's lounge — now equipped with desktop computers and Microsoft windows looking at the outside world — to the rain forests of Costa Rica and perhaps the ashrams in the Himalayas.

But not everyone is happy with advancing technology primarily because most of the world is still either a blip or even outside its radar screen.

Last month Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that about 3 billion people, roughly more than half of the world's population, have not given a phone call — or even received one.

The leapfrogging technology is apparently not leaping far enough.

The world's developing nations have told the UN: Please don't abandon the radio and the print media — even though the Internet is the wave of the future.

In the US, as in most European countries, if you don't have an e-mail address, you just don't exist in this world anymore.

The UN's Department of Public Information proudly proclaims the growing popularity of the UN web page and the daily updates posted on www.un.org feeding the world with information on a wide range of global issues, ranging from development and human rights to and peacekeeping.

But what good is all this information, one African delegate told the UN Committee on Information last year, when you are not connected to the outside world.

"We have to wait for 10 years to get a phone," he complained, "And probably another five years to get a dial tone."

Last year, a coalition of 133 developing countries — called the Group of 77 — urged the UN not to abandon its traditional means of disseminating information — including the radio — in favour of modern technology.

Such a move, the Group said, would give an unfair advantage to rich nations over the poor.

The world has long been divided between the haves and the have-nots — mostly in terms of economic resources. But this unfair division of the world is now branching out to the field of information technology.

Ambassador Samuel Insanally of Guyana, chairman of the Group of 77, says the introduction of modern information technology has increasingly favoured rich nations and is detrimental to the peoples of the developing world "who are clearly disadvantaged by their lack of access to such advanced technologies."

"The United Nations must ensure that developing nations are more equitably served," he notes.

Last year, the UN recorded some 45.8 million "hits" on its web page compared with 25 million during 1998. But Annan himself has admitted that about 90 percent of all access to the UN web site comes from industrial countries. Kensaku Hogen of Japan, UN Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, says the UN web site has attracted strong interest by the 188 member states.

Accesses to the web site have grown exponentially over the past year with some 150 countries reaching out to it. "While the bulk is still from the industrialised countries, current growth indicators suggest a very rapid and encouraging expansion of accesses from developing countries,'' Hogen said.

But at the grassroots level, the radio still remains the major medium for the dissemination of information for most developing nations.

Annan has given an assurance that he will continue to maintain and expand the use of traditional means of information — including the radio and printed material— because of the constraints faced by developing countries in acquiring information technology.

But what good is the radio if people living in the remote villages of sub-Saharan Africa do not have electricity — or the means to buy batteries.

A new radio has been invented — and currently popularised in South Africa — which works without batteries or electricity.

Like the old alarm clocks and vintage cars, power is generated by either cranking or winding the device.

Perhaps it may take a long, long time before the Internet replaces the radio in most developing nations where the pace of information technology is moving exceedingly slow.