le networks in combination with simple Java software have achieved is impressive on its own. Compared to the technologies available to us in the western world it is, of course, ridiculous.
How long until we bridge the digital divide in internet usage and use the technology we have to create a connection between all parts of the world, allowing access to the same network of information to everyone? It seems like the obvious next step after the mobile phone wonder. Making e-readers available in schools with the possibility to download books, sending and accessing health data via WiFi, are just two concepts which could make current efforts easier, faster, richer in information. The Web Foundation believes that making certain information available could enable local entrepreneurs to build up businesses relevant to their country, or help farmers trying to grow vegetation in harsh environments. The latter became the Web Alliance for Regreening Africa project, an attempt at growing trees and crops in the desert by spreading the knowledge to do so to thousands of farmers. This knowledge is mostly local. When serious droughts severely damaged farming conditions in many rural communities in West Africa in the 1980s, a number of innovative locals in Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali developed techniques to rehabilitate large areas of degraded land. With this kind of knowledge already existing, it is the sharing of it that comes as a challenge. The project tries to achieve an efficient sharing of ideas by exploiting the available infrastructure of internet cafes in larger towns, mobile phones and radios.
Is this the way to use information technology in development work? For now, yes it is. Making good use of the technology already available to share information is the most efficient way to make an impact. It is basically the spreading of knowledge that is successfully fighting some of the developing world’s most urgent challenges. Diseases, fought by aggregating health data. Bad education, fought by providing the invaluable content of books. Hunger, fought by sharing knowledge to grow crops. The key word in this kind of help is ‘sustainable’ – sharing knowledge isn’t charity, it is setting the basis for self-help. NGOs around information technology are certainly working towards using the tools they have in the best possible way. But until the technologies we take for granted have become truly ubiquitous, the divide in information access will stay insurmountable.