Jon Cruz wrote: > Try this link to the World Bank (draft) report... > <http://lnweb18.worldbank.org/ict/resources.nsf/InfoResources/04C3CE1B933921A585256FB60051B8F5> > > best,
Thanks!! The 'misquote' is in this particular PDF file (12.8 kb) - available through the link above: http://lnweb18.worldbank.org/ict/resources.nsf/a693f575e01ba5f385256b500062af05/04c3ce1b933921a585256fb60051b8f5/$FILE/financingICT_MediaRelease.pdf "...The draft report, entitled Financing Information and Communication Infrastructure Needs in the Developing World: Public and Private Roles, suggests that considerable progress has been made in narrowing the digital divide over the last ten years, but much remains to be done. Rapid technological expansion over the past decade has resulted in as many as one half of the world’s households having a fixed telephone line, and as much as 77 percent of the World’s population is under the signal footprint of a mobile phone provider. However, many people in developing countries, particularly Africa, lack access to basic tools of communication..." To a cursory writer under a deadline, certain words leap out here. And those words could lead to the Reuters article in question. The actual report is a 178kb PDF, and can be found here: http://lnweb18.worldbank.org/ict/resources.nsf/a693f575e01ba5f385256b500062af05/04c3ce1b933921a585256fb60051b8f5/$FILE/financingICT_Draft.pdf Notably, it's a 'Draft for Discussion' which leads me to believe that the Media release was just timed to correspond with the WSIS stuff. In my opinion, it probably shouldn't have merited a Media release. The teledensity (fixed and mobile) actually does show an increase in technology usage. While teledensity has almost doubled between 1996 through 2002, other regions have kept pace or and exceeded the pace of the developing countries. The rate of change appears to be increasing in the developing world, which is nice. From a purely academic standpoint, it does look like things are getting better - but bear in mind, this is a matter of meeting the minimum requirements. It also does not reflect *quality*. This is a quantitative look at things. Page 12 has a more qualitative look at ICT throughout the world by region, which is worth taking a look at. Unfortunately, it doesn't have the time factor involved (I think 3D charts are still available in Excel. I'm sure that they are in OpenOffice.org's Calc). This is all actually really good stuff to take a look at, I think. I'm still digesting parts of it, but one trend I have noted is a similar trend in other academic papers - using money as an indicator. The beauty of using money as an indicator is that it tidies things up for academic papers. Personally, I think that the Digital Divide work we all do is actually about increasing the quality of life of people around the world through more contextual technology use. Using money as an indicator of this is incorrect, but how does one measure an improvement in the quality of life? Shall we go around counting smiles? I don't know. It's a problem, but I still think we can find a better metric than money. If that were the case, I could flush a few million dollars down the toilet and claim I spent it on 2400 baud modems for everyone in the country. And then I have to wonder as well - with all this money being spent... how does this affect the average person? People without running water and electricity having cell phones is pretty ridiculous, but that does happen. -- Taran Rampersad [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linuxgazette.com http://www.a42.com http://www.knowprose.com http://www.easylum.net "Criticize by creating." — Michelangelo _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
