Subject: [fem-women2000 407] UN report on access to Internet
From: lalamaziwa <lalamaziwa@jca.apc.org>
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 04:26:39 +0900
Seq: 407
Forwarded by lalamaziwa <lalamaziwa@jca.apc.org> ---------------- Original message follows ---------------- From: Frank Elbers <felbers@hrea.org> To: huridocs-tech@hrea.org Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 07:08:49 -0400 Subject: huridocs-tech UN report on access to Internet -- ----- Forwarded message from Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> ----- Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 02:20:00 -0400 >From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> Reply-To: declan@well.com Subject: FC: U.N. report says governments should guarantee Net access by 2005 To: politech@vorlon.mit.edu ********* Below article is at: http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/breaking/merc/docs/071816.htm See background from July 1999, "UN wants to tax the Net": http://www.politechbot.com/p-00492.html And "UN retreats from email tax": http://www.politechbot.com/p-00502.html Call me heartless, but as much as I'd like to see everyone in the world hooked up to the Net (which will of course eventually happen, at least for 97%+ of us), I'm not sure that additional taxation or even partial government funding is the way to do it. Technologies take a while to trickle down from the rich to the poor -- who had refrigerators, indoor plumbing, televisions first? The process is a natural, organic one; it takes time, and in the end it's the most efficient way. I don't see much recognition of this in these U.N. pronouncements (though I haven't been able to find the actual text of this particular report online). If anything, the Net seems to be spreading much faster than its related predecessors, which is a cause for not alarm but celebration. --Declan ********* Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2000 18:07:24 -0400 (EDT) To: declan@well.com >From: s-wallace-7@alumni.uchicago.edu Subject: Experts urge U.N. to assure Internet access to all by 2005 Posted at 6:33 a.m. PDT Tuesday, June 20, 2000 UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- By 2005, everyone in the world should have access to the Internet even if they have to walk for half a day to the nearest computer or cell phone, experts said in a report to the United Nations. ``It is incumbent on us, and we feel that it is entirely possible ... that by the end of 2004 a farmer in Saharan Africa should be able to get to a point of access, let's say in half a day's walk or riding on a bullock cart,'' said Chuck Lankester, a U.N. consultant on information technology. But Lankester's panel warned that action was urgently needed to reach this goal and to stop the rapidly growing ``digital divide'' between rich and poor countries. The panel, which included government ministers from Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and representatives of private businesses and foundations, presented its report at a news conference Monday. Currently less than 5 percent of the world population is benefiting >from the tens of billions of dollars of E-commerce, the report said, and developing countries risk not ``just being marginalized but completely bypassed'' by the new global market. ``The panel calls on all actors to unite in a global initiative to meet the following challenge: provide access to the Internet, especially through community access points, for the world's population presently without such access by the end of 2004,'' the report said. [...] The world's seven leading industrialized nations and Russia will review the report when the Group of 8 summit takes place in Okinawa, Japan, in July. [...] Address of original story: http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/breaking/merc/docs/071816.htm ---------------------------------- Send mail for the 'huridocs-tech' list to <huridocs-tech@hrea.org>. Mail administrative requests to <majordomo@hrea.org>. For additional assistance, send mail to: <owner-huridocs-tech@hrea.org>. Archives of previous messages posted to the list can be found at: http://www.hrea.org/lists/huridocs-tech/markup/maillist.html _________________________________________________________________________ fem-Women2000@jca.apc.org for Women 2000, UN Special Session on Beijing+5 Searcheable Archive http://www.jca.apc.org/fem/news/women2000/index.shtml visit fem-net HomePage for other mailing lists http://www.jca.apc.org/fem