|
|
The digital divide is beginning to close. The flow
of digital information - through mobile phones, text
messaging, and the Internet - is now reaching the
world’s masses, even in the poorest countries,
bringing with it a revolution in economics,
politics, and society.
Extreme poverty is almost synonymous with extreme
isolation, especially rural isolation. But mobile
phones and wireless Internet will end isolation, and
will therefore prove to be the most transformative
technology of economic development of our time. The
digital divide is ending not through a burst of
civic responsibility, but mainly through market
forces.
Mobile phone technology is so powerful, and costs so
little per unit of data transmission, that it has
proved possible to sell mobile phone access to the
poor. There are now more than 3.3 billion
subscribers in the world, roughly one for every two
people on the planet. Moreover, market penetration
in poor countries is rising sharply.
India has around 300 million subscribers, with
subscriptions rising by a stunning eight million or
more per month. Brazil now has more than 130 million
subscribers, and Indonesia has roughly 120 million.
In Africa, which contains the world’s poorest
countries, the market is soaring, with more than 280
million subscribers.
Mobile phones are now ubiquitous in villages as well
as cities. If an individual does not have a cell
phone, they almost surely know someone who does.
Probably a significant majority of Africans have at
least emergency access to a cell phone, either their
own, a neighbour’s, or one at a commercial kiosk.
Even more remarkable is the continuing “convergence”
of digital information: Wireless systems
increasingly link mobile phones with the Internet,
personal computers, and information services of all
kinds. The array of benefits is stunning. The rural
poor in more and more of the world now have access
to wireless banking and payments systems, such as
Kenya’s famous M-PESA system, which allows money
transfers through the phone. The information carried
on the new networks spans public health, medical
care, education, banking, commerce, and
entertainment, in addition to communications among
family and friends.
India, home to world-leading software engineers,
high-tech companies, and a vast and densely
populated rural economy of some 700 million poor
people in need of connectivity of all kinds, has
naturally been a pioneer of digital-led economic
development. Government and business have
increasingly teamed up in public-private
partnerships to provide crucial services on the
digital network.
In the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat,
for example, emergency ambulance services are now
within reach of tens of millions of people,
supported by cell phones, sophisticated computer
systems, and increased public investments in rural
health. Several large-scale telemedicine systems are
now providing primary health and even cardiac care
to rural populations. Moreover, India’s new rural
employment guarantee scheme, just two years old, is
not only employing millions of the poorest through
public financing, but also is bringing tens of
millions of them into the formal banking system,
building on India’s digital networks.
On the fully commercial side, the mobile revolution
is creating a logistics revolution in farm-to-retail
marketing. Farmers and food retailers can connect
directly through mobile phones and distribution
hubs, enabling farmers to sell their crops at higher
“farm-gate” prices and without delay, while buyers
can move those crops to markets with minimum
spoilage and lower prices for final consumers.
The strengthening of the value chain not only raises
farmers’ incomes, but also empowers crop
diversification and farm upgrading more generally.
Similarly, world-leading software firms are bringing
information technology jobs, including business
process outsourcing, right into the villages through
digital networks.
Education will be similarly transformed. Throughout
the world, schools at all levels will go global,
joining together in worldwide digital education
networks. Children in the United States will learn
about Africa, China, and India not only from books
and videos, but also through direct links across
classrooms in different parts of the world. Students
will share ideas through live chats, shared
curricula, joint projects, and videos, photos, and
text sent over the digital network.
Universities, too, will have global classes, with
students joining lectures, discussion groups, and
research teams from a dozen or more universities at
a time. This past year, my own university - Columbia
University in New York City - teamed up with
universities in Ecuador, Nigeria, the United
Kingdom, France, Ethiopia, Malaysia, India, Canada,
Singapore, and China in a “Global Classroom” that
simultaneously connected hundreds of students on
more than a dozen campuses in an exciting course on
global sustainable development.
In my book The End of Poverty, I wrote that
extreme poverty can be ended by the year 2025: A
rash predication, perhaps, given global violence,
climate change, and threats to food, energy, and
water supplies. But digital information
technologies, if deployed cooperatively and
globally, will be our most important new tools,
because they will enable us to join together
globally in markets, social networks, and
cooperative efforts to solve our common problems. |
|
