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Digital Bridges: Developing Countries in the Knowledge Economy
Computers & Education 42 (2004) 109–110 www.elsevier.com/locate/compedu
Book review Digital Bridges: Developing Countries in the Knowledge Economy John Senyo C. Afele. Idea Group Publishing, Hershey, PA, London, Melbourne, Singapore, Beijing, 2003. 212pp. ISBN 1-59140-039-2 (cloth).—ISBN 1-59140-067-8 (ebook). US$79.95. In a world where knowledge networks and knowledge flows are predominately ‘North to South’ in direction and most of the advocacy for securing the economic and social welfare of developing countries through ICT also comes from the ‘North’, it is interesting to find a book that presents a ‘South to North’ viewpoint on these issues. The author of Digital Bridges, Dr. John Senyo C. Afele, is an African-Canadian biotechnologist who was born in a village in the Volta Region of Ghana, gained his first degree at the University of Ghana, his Masters at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium and his doctorate at the University of Guelph in Canada. He is now a fellow of the Science and Technology Agency of Japan at the National Institute of Agrobiological Resources in Tsukuba, Japan. Drawing on his cross-cultural background, he presents the case for bridging the digital divide and using ICT to bring knowledge, innovation and socio-economic benefit to the poorer countries of the world. Writing in the wake of September 11, Dr. Afele’s introduction to the book is unashamedly polemical. He criticises the bilateral and mutilateral aid agencies for their limited and belated responses to poverty and the HIV/Aids pandemic. He berates the international funding bodies for economic misadventures that have led to protest against globalisation. He laments the time and energy wasted on conferences, special sessions and convoluted bureaucracy. He observes that the USA, acting as a superpower, and indeed any developed nation, risks offending one group or another if it tries to exert undue influence on events in the developing world. He deplores the onedirectional flow of products, services and information from the developed to the developing world. He criticises the world’s major players in ICT for over-capitalising on telecommunications tools and networks and under-capitalising on communications content and services for the ‘have nots’. He observes that the digital divide is only bridged where there is ‘product-push consumerism’. Remote and rural communities may be able to access reality television shows such as ‘Survivor’ and ‘Temptation Island’ but little that nurtures their minds or brings them social or economic benefit. The ‘South’ also comes in for his criticism. He rebukes the developing nations for not ‘splicing’ their ancestral wisdom to modern knowledge to confront the challenges they face in regard to nation building and alleviating poverty, corruption, pressure on the land and human morbidity. He deplores the fact that not only have the countries of Africa and Latin America not benefited significantly from scientific and technological innovation but that they have done little to generate their own scientific knowledge. Africa only accounts for 0.3% of the world’s scientific publications, 0.4% of the world’s R&D expenditure and 0.36% of the world’s scientific potential.
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Book review / Computers & Education 42 (2004) 109–110
The solution proposed by Dr. Afele is the creation of ‘smart communities’ and ICT-based environments that are embedded in the local economy, culture and intellectual capital of the developing countries and allow the community members to deposit and withdraw the various forms of knowledge that will help them create their own futures. He observes that about 80% of the knowledge with the potential to benefit disadvantaged communities is currently irretrievable, either because the people don’t know what it is, where it is, who has it, and how to tap into it, or because it exists only in people’s minds, closed discussion groups, informal notes of meetings, email messages, etc. He therefore envisages the need for new kinds of interfaces that are capable of generating solutions to customised queries and enable users to share and exploit both globalised and localised knowledge. He also sees need for ‘knowledge brokers’ who can identify and nurture latent talents and ideas and groom people for the adaptation of knowledge to local needs and circumstances. Dr. Alefe does not envision a top-down ‘one size fits all’ solution. He is passionate in his belief in cross-fertilising ideas between North and the South and the potential of the Information Age to provide knowledge convergence and knowledge enrichment through networked citizenship. The system he proposes is therefore both horizontal (local) and vertical (global) in its structures and interactions. It not only provides access to Western knowledge but digital documentation of indigenous practices and microenvironments (community, household and individual) that can both inform the local members and enlighten those in the industrialised nations. He argues that the North has much to gain from recognising and translating the indigenous knowledge of the South into its thinking and practices, as already demonstrated in, for example, developments in medicine, pharmaceuticals and arts and crafts. In presenting his case for these global knowledge networks, Dr. Afele considers the needs of the rural and remote poor in developing countries and the African and Latin American diaspora in industrialised countries. In considering the technology and infrastructure called for, he argues for ‘poor people’s connectivity systems’—ICT systems serving entire communities through, for example, WAPs, LANs, WANs, telecentres and information kiosks, and designed and operated for the ‘technically challenged’. In proposing such development, he pleads for partners with synergistic capacities. Digital Bridges is long on rhetoric. But then rhetoric is needed to sway minds and provoke action in line with the aspirations of the G8 Nations’ Digital Opportunity Task Force, the World Summit on the Information Society, and any other groups interested in global equity, security and wellbeing. The book is also broad in scope, taking in issues as wide-ranging as women in development, the needs of youth, e-business, online learning, lifelong learning, educational transformation, preserving cultural identity and protecting indigenous intellectual property, and leadership, governance and partnership in global development. In so doing, it draws upon some surprisingly varied and eclectic sources, including Ecciesiastes and CNN, Plato and Tony Blair, Michael and Ralf Schumacher and Chinua Achebe and Groundhog Day. This is certainly a book to stimulate the thinking of anyone interested in teleconnectivity and knowledge for development. If only it could have provided us with more examples of sustainable applications of these paradigms and technologies and the benefits they have brought to the oppressed and the marginalised. Cohn Latchem Open Learning Consultant, 11 Reeve Street, Swanbourne, Perth WA 6010, Australia E-mail address: [email protected] doi:10.1016/S0360-1315(03)00051-4
Book review Digital Bridges: Developing Countries in the Knowledge Economy John Senyo C. Afele. Idea Group Publishing, Hershey, PA, London, Melbourne, Singapore, Beijing, 2003. 212pp. ISBN 1-59140-039-2 (cloth).—ISBN 1-59140-067-8 (ebook). US$79.95. In a world where knowledge networks and knowledge flows are predominately ‘North to South’ in direction and most of the advocacy for securing the economic and social welfare of developing countries through ICT also comes from the ‘North’, it is interesting to find a book that presents a ‘South to North’ viewpoint on these issues. The author of Digital Bridges, Dr. John Senyo C. Afele, is an African-Canadian biotechnologist who was born in a village in the Volta Region of Ghana, gained his first degree at the University of Ghana, his Masters at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium and his doctorate at the University of Guelph in Canada. He is now a fellow of the Science and Technology Agency of Japan at the National Institute of Agrobiological Resources in Tsukuba, Japan. Drawing on his cross-cultural background, he presents the case for bridging the digital divide and using ICT to bring knowledge, innovation and socio-economic benefit to the poorer countries of the world. Writing in the wake of September 11, Dr. Afele’s introduction to the book is unashamedly polemical. He criticises the bilateral and mutilateral aid agencies for their limited and belated responses to poverty and the HIV/Aids pandemic. He berates the international funding bodies for economic misadventures that have led to protest against globalisation. He laments the time and energy wasted on conferences, special sessions and convoluted bureaucracy. He observes that the USA, acting as a superpower, and indeed any developed nation, risks offending one group or another if it tries to exert undue influence on events in the developing world. He deplores the onedirectional flow of products, services and information from the developed to the developing world. He criticises the world’s major players in ICT for over-capitalising on telecommunications tools and networks and under-capitalising on communications content and services for the ‘have nots’. He observes that the digital divide is only bridged where there is ‘product-push consumerism’. Remote and rural communities may be able to access reality television shows such as ‘Survivor’ and ‘Temptation Island’ but little that nurtures their minds or brings them social or economic benefit. The ‘South’ also comes in for his criticism. He rebukes the developing nations for not ‘splicing’ their ancestral wisdom to modern knowledge to confront the challenges they face in regard to nation building and alleviating poverty, corruption, pressure on the land and human morbidity. He deplores the fact that not only have the countries of Africa and Latin America not benefited significantly from scientific and technological innovation but that they have done little to generate their own scientific knowledge. Africa only accounts for 0.3% of the world’s scientific publications, 0.4% of the world’s R&D expenditure and 0.36% of the world’s scientific potential.
110
Book review / Computers & Education 42 (2004) 109–110
The solution proposed by Dr. Afele is the creation of ‘smart communities’ and ICT-based environments that are embedded in the local economy, culture and intellectual capital of the developing countries and allow the community members to deposit and withdraw the various forms of knowledge that will help them create their own futures. He observes that about 80% of the knowledge with the potential to benefit disadvantaged communities is currently irretrievable, either because the people don’t know what it is, where it is, who has it, and how to tap into it, or because it exists only in people’s minds, closed discussion groups, informal notes of meetings, email messages, etc. He therefore envisages the need for new kinds of interfaces that are capable of generating solutions to customised queries and enable users to share and exploit both globalised and localised knowledge. He also sees need for ‘knowledge brokers’ who can identify and nurture latent talents and ideas and groom people for the adaptation of knowledge to local needs and circumstances. Dr. Alefe does not envision a top-down ‘one size fits all’ solution. He is passionate in his belief in cross-fertilising ideas between North and the South and the potential of the Information Age to provide knowledge convergence and knowledge enrichment through networked citizenship. The system he proposes is therefore both horizontal (local) and vertical (global) in its structures and interactions. It not only provides access to Western knowledge but digital documentation of indigenous practices and microenvironments (community, household and individual) that can both inform the local members and enlighten those in the industrialised nations. He argues that the North has much to gain from recognising and translating the indigenous knowledge of the South into its thinking and practices, as already demonstrated in, for example, developments in medicine, pharmaceuticals and arts and crafts. In presenting his case for these global knowledge networks, Dr. Afele considers the needs of the rural and remote poor in developing countries and the African and Latin American diaspora in industrialised countries. In considering the technology and infrastructure called for, he argues for ‘poor people’s connectivity systems’—ICT systems serving entire communities through, for example, WAPs, LANs, WANs, telecentres and information kiosks, and designed and operated for the ‘technically challenged’. In proposing such development, he pleads for partners with synergistic capacities. Digital Bridges is long on rhetoric. But then rhetoric is needed to sway minds and provoke action in line with the aspirations of the G8 Nations’ Digital Opportunity Task Force, the World Summit on the Information Society, and any other groups interested in global equity, security and wellbeing. The book is also broad in scope, taking in issues as wide-ranging as women in development, the needs of youth, e-business, online learning, lifelong learning, educational transformation, preserving cultural identity and protecting indigenous intellectual property, and leadership, governance and partnership in global development. In so doing, it draws upon some surprisingly varied and eclectic sources, including Ecciesiastes and CNN, Plato and Tony Blair, Michael and Ralf Schumacher and Chinua Achebe and Groundhog Day. This is certainly a book to stimulate the thinking of anyone interested in teleconnectivity and knowledge for development. If only it could have provided us with more examples of sustainable applications of these paradigms and technologies and the benefits they have brought to the oppressed and the marginalised. Cohn Latchem Open Learning Consultant, 11 Reeve Street, Swanbourne, Perth WA 6010, Australia E-mail address: [email protected] doi:10.1016/S0360-1315(03)00051-4