Developing countries stand to benefit from e-commerce, UN report suggests

Developing countries stand to gain great economic benefits from advances in information and communications technology, particularly in traditional sectors such as publishing, according to the E-commerce and Development Report 2002 , which was released recently by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

Digital publishing technology offers fresh opportunities for poorer States by providing their businesses with the opportunity to establish a presence " in a market dominated by the developed-country giants of the culture industry", the report states. By lowering production costs and cutting out middlemen, innovative software generates new markets and enables authors who would not otherwise be well known to expand their readerships.

According to the report, even the world's least developed countries have been won over to electronic distribution, which radically alters relations between publishers, the media and consumers.

The report recommends that developing countries' governments make more use of information technology, encourage educational institutions to provide online classes, and support libraries financially so that they can computerize their publications.

While hailing the advantages of e-commerce, UNCTAD also calls attention to the threats to copyright posed by the new technology, which "allows virtually anything to be copied to perfection".

"Copyright issues aside, online publishing could become a formidable vehicle for development, not just allowing businesses to stake out positions in markets formerly closed to them but also providing wider access to information, especially for academia and research, while at the same time promoting the country," UNCTAD states. "Now all that remains is to make the political decision makers aware of what is at stake."

(Source : United Nations News Service, 18 November 2002)

Asia-Pacific POPIN Update

Various events and activities took place recently at Bangkok, within the premises of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific, which are of interest to the extended Asia-Pacific POPIN family.

Firstly, and to evoke these events in a chronological order, an ad-hoc expert group meeting on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for monitoring and evaluation of population and poverty alleviation programme was held in late September 2002 at Bangkok United Nations Conference Center.

As introduced in the volume 14 no. 2(9) of Asia-Pacific POPIN Bulletin , the two-day meeting intended to review the status of ICT development in the Asian and Pacific region and to identify its current and future application areas to population and poverty reduction programmes. The meeting, attended by 15 experts in the field of ICT and population and development from some seven countries in the region, brought forward a set of concrete recommendations regarding policy options and/or strategies to narrow the "digital divide" in adopting new technologies for population, poverty and development.

The meeting identified several areas of concern such as the slow growth in the development of telecommunication infrastructure, the low level of affordability and the relative lack of capacity. It recommended priority actions in 13 areas including government support, policy and political will; legal and regulatory systems; and monitoring and evaluation.

The report of the ad-hoc expert group meeting is available online at the following URL:

 http://www.unescap.org/pop/5appc/backgrounddocs/Report_of_EGM.doc

The second recent event meaningful to members of the Asia-Pacific POPIN was the convening of the Asia-Pacific POPIN consultative workshop in early December. The workshop, held from 9 to 11 December 2002, was organized in conjunction with the Fifth Asian and Pacific Population Conference that kicked off on 11 December till 17 December.

The objective of the gathering was to review the work of the regional, subregional and national POPIN activities as well as to redefine the role and work of the network in the future. It was attended by 18 participants representing 12 POPIN centres in Bangladesh, China, Fiji, India, Indonesia, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Malaysia, Nepal, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Viet Nam. Various non-governmental organizations, the United Nations Population Fund and the United Nations Secretariat were also represented.

The highly participative workshop put forward various recommendations in the field of information sharing; human resource development/capacity building and database development, among others. It also looked closely into the network's future developments, emphasizing greater self-reliance and autonomy and expressing concerns over the sustainability of the activities.

The report of the aforementioned workshop is available from the following URL:

http://www.unescap.org/pop/popin/report.doc 

As for the content of the Asia-Pacific POPIN website 

http://www.unescap.org/pop/popin/index.htm

 it is to be noted that the population and family planning database of the site, dedicated to laws, policies and regulations, now provides information on a larger number of countries. Information has recently been added on countries such as India, the Lao People's Democratic Republic and Mongolia. Updated information is now also available on China.

Gender equality through ICT

A workshop on "Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment in the Information Society: An Asia-Pacific Perspective" will be held from 11 to12 January 2003 at the United Nations University in Tokyo. This activity is one of the side-events of the Asia Pacific preparatory meeting for the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) scheduled for 13-15 January 2003. The workshop aims to provide an opportunity for a multi-stakeholder discussion on gender issues in the themes of the WSIS and to develop recommendations to promote gender equality in the information society as well as women's advancement through the use of ICT.

This event is being collaboratively initiated by a number of organizations including UNESCAP, UNESCO, Asia Pacific Women's Information Network Centre (APWINC), Sookmyung Women's University, Republic of Korea; and Association for Progressive Communications Women's Networking Support Programme (APCWNSP). Japan Women's Watch (JAWW) is the local partner and host.

For more information, please contact Hiroko Hashimoto

hiroko-h@jumonji-u.ac.jp

Empowering women through information and knowledge: from oral traditions to ICT

An international conference related to the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) will be conducted at the University World College in Paud, Pune, Maharastra, India. The conference is entitled "Empowering Women through Information and Knowledge: From Oral Traditions to ICT" and will take place on 10 June 2003.

Women's information and knowledge is broadly interpreted for the conference so as to include information and knowledge created by women, for women or about women. It covers contents of and processes involved in academic, social and creative situations. This information and knowledge is presented in varying forms and viewed from varying disciplinary and ideological perspectives. It is communicated and made accessible in a wide range of formats, from traditional media to the use of modern information communication technology.

The conference will be a residential one, with a contribution of invited an contributed papers. The conference is sponsored by SNDT Women's University and Centre for Women's Development Studies in New Delhi, India. For further information, please visit the website http://www.globalknowledge.org/

(Source: We! No.24, October 2002) 

A wake-up call for librarians?

In its November 2002 issue, Library Journal.com, an electronic offshoot of Library Journal , the American "oldest independent national library publication", is featuring an interview with Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) cofounder John Perry Barlow.

Described as one of the world's greatest thinkers on technology and culture, also dubbed the "Internet Guru", J.P. Barlow rose to fame with an article published in 1994 in Wired magazine; "The Economy of Ideas" -- a powerful piece on the nature of information in the age of technology.

This article was followed some six years later by "The Next Economy of Ideas" released in October 2000.

A former lyricist for the famous Grateful Dead rock band, J.P. Barlow popularized and applied to the World Wide Web the science-fiction word ' cyberspace'. He presently works with the EFF Foundation, an organization representing the public's interest in the digital world and is also a fellow at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

In his interview with Andrew R. Albanese, Associate Editor of the Library Journal , J.P. Barlow talks about this "place" called cyberspace, where people come together without "bringing their bodies".

"I thought it was fascinating for people to come together in a space where they couldn't bring their bodies. That was 1985, which is pretty early. And there really wasn't anyone else writing about this - the ' sociology' of cyberspace. No one seemed to view cyberspace as I did - as a place. And no one had that vision I did that sooner or later everyone in the human race would be part of it", says J.P. Barlow.

Speaking about "the progress of his work, helping the world get online, especially developing countries", he explains: "I was in Africa this year. I went into a cybercenter, and there were probably 500 people in there 24 hours a day. Every single terminal was constantly occupied. That's significant. I was also in Cambodia, and every place I went to there I could get e-mail. This is going on everywhere. Now… this has a great deal to do with the stuff librarians are interested in, which is access to human knowledge and the capacity to spread it…."

He continues, referring to the evolving role of libraries:

"I think physical libraries will be even more important in the future. Communities need that physical element. But libraries will have to be places where people do more than go to get books, because a lot of what people want they will be able to get online. Libraries will be places where people will go to exchange ideas, and librarians will be even more essential than they are now, guiding people to information, knowing where to find it. I look at the potential for librarians and for libraries as being venues for all manner of salons, where the objective is not silence but conversation".

Speaking about the interactive and dynamic nature of information, J.P. Barlow adds further: "Even with their physical books in their traditional libraries, librarians have always had a holy mission to see that information was available. Now they have the opportunity to see that information is everywhere. That is enormously exciting".

But this renewed "mission" comes with a string of new problems and legal issues, J.P. Barlow acknowledges; "copyright violations, keeping pornography from minors, and all the other kinds of proscribed materials that are, as many librarians would argue, still part of the overall ecology of ideas". "So, unfortunately, right now there is also a great deal of tension", he says.

The interview concludes with the issue of intellectual property, an " oxymoron" according to J.P. Barlow. "I believe that something is property if you can take it away from me and I won't have it any more. This is not true for expression or thought….. Cyberspace is the ultimate great jungle of human thought. For us to fence it off would be a repudiation of everything and everyone who built it to this point".

The December 2002 issue of Current Cites , the online publication of the Library of the University of California, Berkeley, also featured the recent interview published in the Library Journal.

"Anyone who needs to defend the right of society to access and use information and ideas (and that means you if you're a librarian) should know what Barlow has to say", notes the editor of Current Cites

Note: The interview published in the November issue of the Library Journal can be read online at

http://libraryjournal.reviewsnews.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint& articleID=CA256583

or access from

 http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/CurrentCites/cc.current.html

UN panel examines boosting information, communication technologies in Africa

 The United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, said recently that he was pleased that a United Nations expert group on information and communication technologies was using its latest meeting to focus on developing such know-how in Africa.

In his opening remarks to the third meeting of the UN Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Task Force, the Secretary-General said while such technology was not "a magic formula that is going to solve all the problems," it was a powerful tool for economic growth and poverty eradication, which could help African countries integrate into the global market.

"By making the development of ICT one of the priorities of the New Partnership for Africa's Development, African leaders have shown that they are committed to seize the opportunities of the digital revolution," he noted.

The two-day meeting of the ICT Task Force at UN Headquarters in New York is to discuss the action plan for the African Digital Diaspora Network. It will also review progress made during its first year and set out its future strategy and work programme.

In his remarks, the Secretary-General said there was a "vast potential" for investment growth in the developing countries, as information and communication technologies could help turn this potential into concrete opportunities that would help the poor work their way out of poverty, while at the same benefiting the world community as a whole.

But bridging the digital divide, in Africa and elsewhere, was a formidable task that required not only leadership, but also a major commitment of resources. What was needed, Mr. Annan said, was the use of low-cost technologies to provide cheap, fast, and eventually free access to the Internet.

"Now is the time to think of partnerships and initiatives that will make a difference on the ground," he said.

Source: United Nations News Service, 30 September 2002