EMFA: T1E8 - Empowerment Tool - Garriott

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Theme:  Universal E-mail - Essay #8
Author: Gary Garriott, Director Informatics
        Volunteers in Technical Assistance
E-mail: garyg@vita.org

Email as an Empowerment Tool in Developing Countries

 In international development circles there is considerable
 effort to bring products of the latest web-based technologies
 via real-time Internet access to the poorer countries (USAID's
 Leland Initiative is one example). Even emerging private sector
 companies are glued to technological "leap-frogging" scenarios.
 If you are wealthy and happen to live in a national or regional
 city in one of these countries, it is increasingly likely that
 you may have access to these technologies. Since, however, the
 benefits are skewed toward the elites of society, the much
 sought-after, widespread and measureable impact on poverty
 reduction by information-communication technologies (ICTs) has
 yet to be realized.

 At VITA we find it incongruous to talk of "bottom up"
 development and the necessity of reaching the "poorest of the
 poor" while endorsing the most expensive and elitist
 communications systems. At best, these will permit access to a
 bottomless sea of information that is very difficult to navigate
 and at worst, even when navigable, the information will be
 virtually worthless. Moreover, if the "leap-frogging" scenarios
 continue to fail to ask who's doing the leaping (as well as who
 is being leaped over), the chances are that the skewed character
 of ICT benefits will continue for decades.

 We believe that the use of email technology has the potential to
 make a difference and note that even in the United States
 according to one estimate two-thirds of those on the Internet
 use it exclusively for email. Critical is that savvy
 intermediate organizations, such as local NGOs, know how to use
 the simpler ICTs to meet the information needs of their
 constituencies. Our experience is that even in rural areas,
 email access can make a huge impact in operational terms. For
 instance, a rural appropriate technology institute in Tanzania
 has used VITA's store-and-forward email satellite system in
 unique and innovative applications, including the building of
 aircraft on site for flying deep into the bush for delivery of
 healthcare (see "24 Hours in Cyberspace" by Rick Smolan, a book
 of photo essays on Internet usage).  Increasingly, we also
 believe that email-only access can make huge contributions to
 rural education and access to health information, especially for
 women and girls, who have already shown in African contexts that
 email-based discussion lists ("listservs") seem especially
 appropriate for females. We note that email-based retrieval
 engines, such as webmail (allowing delivery of web pages via
 email), are increasingly useful. (Bob Rankin's "Guide to
 Off-line [email] Internet Access" consists of over 30 pages of
 ways to access Internet information resources via email.)    

 In addition, we think email access in rural areas can help to
 create an information culture and set the stage for more
 sophisticated, informed use of ICTs at a later time, thus
 incubating a future 'market' for more advanced ICT goods and
 services. Our concern is that unless technologies used to meet
 actual needs are scalable, the possibly equity-enhancing
 distribution of ICTs to rural areas will not occur and the
 presumed benefits of the "information revolution" will accrue
 only to the elites, while simultaneously expanding the distance
 between the "haves" and "have-nots."       
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