Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1999 20:33:22 -0400
From: Yacine Khelladi <[email protected]>

"... LONDON -- In more than 30 developing countries, doctors and other health care workers rely on HealthNet to save lives. http://www.healthnet.org/

Launched in 1989, HealthNet provides thousands of medical workers in the developing world with e-mail accounts, access to the latest medical research and a way to communicate with colleagues working in isolated areas. Its moderated, free e-mail list has over 11,000 subscribers in more than 135 countries who report, discuss and request assistance for outbreaks of infectious diseases, such as dengue fever in Malaysia or Ebola in Gabon.
Ten years ago, stories like this persuaded international organizations that the Internet presented a new way to help the developing world catch up, leading to investments in more than 100 technology initiatives in Africa alone. But at the dawn of the 21st century, successes like HealthNet are few and far between. In the developing world, the Internet has not delivered on its early promise.
Old hardware, a weak telecommunications infrastructure and in some cases local political opposition have rendered the promised benefits of technology elusive. Such poor results have forced policy makers to question what the Internet can really bring to places that lack essentials such as safe water supplies.
"We are still searching for some good reasons to pack computers into the bush," Vern Weitzel, a United National Development Organization worker in Phenom Pehn, said in an e-mail interview.
"We know it's a good idea but if it is driven by tech-os, it tends to get unstuck in the provinces where the phone lines are a couple of wires held up by a twig and there is nobody in a day's drive who has ever seen the guts of a computer, much less ever fixed one."
The evidence is not just anecdotal. According to the United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development, which spent three years investigating the benefits and risks of information and communication technologies (ICTs), "There are many instances where the use of ICTs is bringing widespread social and economic benefits. However, there are as many instances where ICTs are making no difference to the lives of developing people."..."

http://funredes.org/mistica/english/emec/production/c4/0014.html
Last modified: 17/09/1999