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Poor In Latin America Embrace Net's Promise
This fairly long story in The Washington Post tells how Internet access in Latin America is spreading more rapidly than anywhere else in the world, and not just among the well-to-do. According to the article, rural villagers and urban shantytown dwellers are connecting with the rest of the world, and this is giving some of them hopes and expectations they never had before. Is it possible that near-universal Internet access might do more in the long run than plumbing and other infrastructure improvements to help raise people in developing nations out of poverty?
Electricity, sanitation, water, food, and medical care are all necessities that we in the United States and the rest of the first world take for granted every single day that other not so fortunate nations do not have ready access to. I have yet to hear one subsistence farmer complain about his inability to gain wondrous knowledge from Internet sites such as Slashdot. I do hear about a lack of sanitary water to drink, much less to bathe, or food shortages due to corruption and infrastructural inefficiences causing famine. My parents grew up in 1940s Malaysia, and just thinking about the differences in our experiences makes me thank God that I was fortunate enough to be spared that.
Before you talk about the signs and wonders of the information revolution and how it's going to change the world, take a trip downtown and volunteer at the local John 3:16 to make a difference for someone today.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
When I was in venezuela Cybercafes were all the rage, and it was very 1997Q4-esque (just as the Internet Economy was really beginning to ramp up) there were big banners offering HTML and computing workshops, the middle class tended to own computers and sometime dialup access--a major problem was that the phone company charged per-minute for even local calls, but there were a few wireless/cell companies competing. It makes me happy to see that the problems are being moved past.
I hope it doesn't ruin some of the really beautiful rustic scenery, tho.
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
Perhaps it is time for someone with first hand experience with computers in Latin America to make a statement.
My fiance has family in El Salvador. They are part of the middle class there, something that had been very small in prior years, but is growing rapidly now that the US and USSR have stop paying people to kill each other in El Salvador.
One of her cousins works at Xerox in San Salvador, selling copiers, printers, faxes, all the equipment you need to run a modern business. Another cousin in El Salvador works for Teleglobe, and sells telecom and Internet. Soon there will be fiber optic running into El Salvador to replace the aging satellite Net infrastructure.
My fiance's mother uses Internet email to communicate with her family in El Salvador. It is much cheaper than voice telecom costs (which can be as high as $1/minute).
Driving down the streets of San Salvador, you can see roadside advertisements for various computer training classes.
And this is important, during the civil war, many poor people left the fields because of the danger, and went to the capital (San Salvador) to find jobs. At the time, the government was concerned with the war, and there were all kinds of nutty restrictions on industry. My fiance's mothers cousin who runs a plastic bag factory couldn't sell bags outside of El Salvador.
Now that the war is over, industry of all kinds are flourishing in El Salvador. Trade barriers set up by the government are coming down, and trade barriers erected by the US against El Salvador are (slowly) coming down as well.
Life expectancy at birth in 1999 was 70 years in El Salvador, and literacy is up to 71.5%. There is a long way to go there, but the Internet can help in many ways, ranging from education (such as Net connectivity at the Universidad de El Salvador) to helping industry. Even the government is using it.
Privatization of the state controlled telecom company will also accelerate the improvement of El Salvador's telecom infrastructure that was badly damaged during the civil war.
"So, there're aborigines in Australia who whip out laptops?" (Like, right....)
"Dunno about Australia. But they do talk about tribal villages in the Amazon who regularly check the prices their handicrafts fetch in the galleries of New York."
Total incredulity."They care?"
"And they aren't at all pleased by what they've seen...so far. They're really pissed at all the tourist gringoes who've ripped them off, getting artifacts that represent weeks of good work for almost free."
Strange guilty look....
Point is, one of the things that globalization, including 'net access, is going to do, what it is doing, is destroying much of the romantic notions that the urban progressive intellgensia (of which New Haven has a large community) has had about the rest of the world. Their world is split into three: themselves, a thick shell around them of hostile know-nothings (and their controllers), and a huge world of female/ Third World/ of color/ poor/ lesbian/ non-Christian/ etc. "authentic" peoples, who despite not having access to the academic journals detailing the latest fads in intellectual discourse, think exactly like themselves.
Back in the 1930's and '40's, there was a romantic notion that America's working poor were somehow all unconscious Marxists: that, given half a chance, they'd renounce nationalist fervor in favor of the "Internationale", and superstitious Judeo-Christianity for the spiritual consolations of the progress of history. These diamonds in the rough would have much rather had an functionally spare apartment in a housing project rather than a baroque Victorian castle, simple, clean, clothes rather than ruffly froufrou, and good fellowship rather than material ambitions -- it simply stands to reason that they'd be vegetarians by choice, and appreciate Beethoven. Given a good income, it was argued, a sharecropper would prefer to live like a professor in an Eastern university over the life of a tycoon.
This myth was shattered, not by McCarthy's Red-baiting, but by historical events. Even without a Marxist revolution, the American working class rose in income and real wealth enormously over the 50's and 60's....and what did they buy? Televisions with which to watch, not Shakespeare, but Milton Berle. Tract houses with lawn flamingoes. Gaudy cars from which milady emerged clad, not in elegant homespun, but in loud polyester. Suddenly, the Enemy wasn't the fat guy in the top hat, but Archie Bunker, who wanted no truck with communism, or even communitarianism: he looked out for No. 1. Blacks were even worse: the granddaughters of Southern poverty proudly bedecked themselves with gold chains, designer logos, and platform shoes, and heaped scorn on the affluent whites who were now wearing sneakers, T-shirts, and jeans. It's hard to maintain that the rural poor of Middle America value musical integrity above all else in the face of Dolly Parton. Most of these people above didn't care about communism...they didn't even feel terribly upset by Vietnam!
Since then, this romantic image has become more and more removed from reality as it focuses on more and more inaccessible people, who have progressively come forward to debunk it: Eastern Asians (the same who gave you MSG and Pokemon, perhaps?), Hindus and Moslems (like the clerk at the 24 store?), Native Americans (who operate casinos like Mohegan Sun?), and so forth. About the last refuge they have are the native healers like the (safely dead) historical witches of the Celtic fringe (who --despite being unable to prevent the deforestation of highland Scotland, losing one out of three children at birth, and coming from a society that practised slave-taking and serfdom before Christianity-- were ob/gyn geniuses and identical in ideology to affluent American ecofeminist deconstructionists), and the sainted tribes of the Amazon, whose mastery of lifegiving common- but- neglected- by- the- blinkered- FDA herbs (that cure everything from the common cold to cancer) is equalled only by their supreme indifference to material wealth and scorn of technology.
Hang on, folks, we're in for a very bumpy ride.
teleny, friend of cats.
As many of you may know, in Mexico we had elections last week. Many say that they were the first clean elections ever. The 71-year old regime was defeated - 71 years the same party ruled the country, not anymore...
Anyway, among the loser official candidate's strategies for advertising his candidature was to say that he would teach English and computers to every kid in urban and rural areas... Well, that was among his most foolish affirmations. Cartoonists all over the country started making jokes on him - "Finally we will be able to talk with the indigenous people who still don't know any Spanish - we will talk in English!", a little kid asking the candidate: "Mr. Candidate, Mr. Candidate! Can we have laptops on my village? We still do not have electricity!"...
The fact is, even though Mexico is among the most developed countries in Latin America, the rural areas completely lack the infrastructure needed to use computers... Let alone Internet access. There are still many small and medium sized cities that do not have a local ISP. How dare they say that our rural areas have any better luck? In Latin America, the rural areas have always been unimportant to the government.
Some people criticize these attempts at providing Internet access to the masses in 3rd world countries, arguing that other goods like education, food, and medicine are more important. Although that's true, I have the impression those who have expressed those views in this forum either:
/. B4, there are many levels of underdevelopment; most Latin American countries have gross family incomes 5-7 times better than in Africa and Asia, and many (not all) among the poor masses in Latin America fair better than other, most unfortunate people in other places. Therefore, not just internet access, but other "superfluous-looking" technologies have a more inmediate impact and applicability in Latin America. The average literacy % in Latin America is 80%, with the unfortunate exceptions of Haiti and Guatemala, which are below 50%. It is all too common to see college professionals forced to work as taxi drivers or garbage collectors because there are no openings! I was an accountant in Honduras, and I had to work making saddles. I knew way too many elementary teachers working as bartenders because there were no openings. One of my best friends in Honduras was also an accountant, yet he had to walk barefeet. We have an "excess" of educated, skilled people with respect to what the economy can absorb. It's only in the most remote areas that you will find low literacy, and pervasive lack of goods. Therefore, I don't see how mass Internet access will be irrelevant or inapropriate.
1. Have never been in Latin America, or
2. Use "benign" stereotypes to draw their conclusions, or
3. Have had experience or observed what underdevelopment is like someplace, and based on that, make generalizations about 3rd world countries as a whole.
First and foremost, no pun intended, there are different "levels" of underdevelopment. One cannot compare the average experience in Mexico, Uruguay, or South Africa, with Ghana or Bangladesh. What I'm saying here is not to say who's better and who's worse. Look at it from the point of view of practicality; different levels of underdevelopment will dictate what corrective measures are inmediately applicable or not.
Also, there are places where the most fundamental infrastructures are missing and nearly impossible to introduce; however, many of those situations are not due to extreme poverty. For example, in Northern Nicaragua, where I came from, it's nearly impossible to put electric and telephone cables. However, even the poorest farmer in those regions need to communicate with the outside in order to know how and when and how much of their crops (grains and coffee for the most part) need to be moved to more accessible areas for shipping, as well as to know if an incoming natural disarter like a hurricane is going to take place.
BellSouth, I believe, is doing some work down there to provide cellulars at a low cost to farmers, even the poorest ones, as well as other communication technologies. Bio-gas powered devices are being researched by every major university in Latin America, which combined with wireless internet access will make life easier to those living in remote areas. Granted, they'll need faster access to medical and educational facilities, and refrigerators, but at least they'll have a better medium of communication for their farming issues and businesses. This is not theory; it's a tangible example of how techonology is helping those too poor to live away from their crops high in the mountains.
And, as somebody said in
My only hope is that someday, the standard of living improves everywhere for everybody.
Peace,
Luis Espinal.
http://www.cs.fiu.edu/~lespin03
I live in Peru.
;-) Because of the availability,
There a quite a few reasons that poverty is such
a problem here. Here are some of the biggies.
Number 1: Upwards of 90 percent of the population are almost completely native. As you probably know, the nations that colonized South America were not very nice to the natives. After centuries of oppresion and deprivation of opportunity, a lot of people have a very narrow mindset as to their potential. "Why should I try to do something in a better way when it won't make any difference?" is a common (in many cases, not concious) attitude. So many people are just not motivated to do anything different than what they already know.
Number 2: The government is corrupt and self serving. For example, Arequipa, the city where I live, is in the midst of a slight economic recession because the government, in an effort
to draw more people to the capital (which equals more money for them) raised the taxes for businesses here considerably and lowered them in Lima. Now it's harder for a business to turn a profit. There are many similar examples. Look it up on the web. You'll find quite a bit of info. (Which is not EVER on TV here)
The problem with some of the comments so far is that they assume that until everyone has the basic physical needs (food, shelter, health care) that technology (and the access to it) is not going to do any real good for Jose Sixpack. That's parially right. But, I have news for yah. That ain't gonna happen anyway the way things are going. Not everyone is going to benefit from it right away.
However, some people will. And are. And those people that are using the knowledge and information available because of the internet are becoming aware of ways to do things differently. They're having new doors opened in their minds. Which is where the changes will actually start.
Also, there are internet cafes all over the place.
I mean ALL over the place here. Although usually withouth the coffee
lots of people are using it, albeit mainly for email. But that's important because it's introducing the technology, even if it isn't being fully used yet.
I think Internet access is a win-win situation here. Note: this does not mean that other efforts to improve the standard of living need to be discarded. It's a mistake to think that all effort should be put into one area or to think that two methods are mutually exclusive. Believe me, we need all the help we can get.
There have to be more Slashdotters in South America out there.... their opinions will be the most constructive. So, if you're out there, say something!!!
// Brought to you by letters Q and E and by the number 7.
We tend to see a lot of starving peasants on TV, because the only time that peasants become interesting to TV reporters is when they are starving or cutting down rain forests. But in fact only a tiny proportion of peasants around the world are starving at any given time.
What keeps them as peasants though, and what will ensure that sooner or later Famine will come riding through on his horse, is ignorance. Ignorance of medical care, national and global politics, markets, effective horticulture. Its difficult for us information-rich to imagine just what a limitation it is. Its difficult for them to imagine as well, because frequently they don't know either.
But on the other hand, there have been any number of schemes which parachute some high tech into the middle of a mud hut village. The Aid Workers arrive in their Land Rovers, drop off the kit, take a few pictures and leave. Six months later the kit breaks down and nobody knows what to do about it. Traditionally this has been done with water pumps. In the future it could just as easily be computers.
On the other hand, the image of a bright teenager cobbling together a village computer out of discarded bits has a lot more to recommend it. That, ironically, is a lot more sustainable and a lot cheaper. But its also too random. Somewhere in between must lie a rational policy which gets computers and the necessary educational and support infrastructure into place.
One day there will be an African Reneissance. I just hope I live to see it.
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
The current capitalism system proves to enlarge this gap. It'll be interesting to know if the internet itself will be enough to reduce it, at least to tolerable levels.
Interesting enough, in the G8 countries, it'll probably be harder for the poorer to get internet access - and the world knows that the one who won't master the internet is the one that will be left out of this world. The victims may well be in these countries, if they are not the countries themselves.
People still need food over internet access. Unless they're hoping to order some free food with venture capital powered net coupons and discounts.
Is it possible that near-universal Internet access might do more in the long run than plumbing and other infrastructure improvements to help raise people in developing nations out of poverty?
What is beginning to happen is much like the proliferation of books upon the invention of the printing press. People are being exposed to new ideas (except where blocked, such as "The Great Firewall of China" seen here earlier) and these are letting them see much more than they could have ever realized elsewhere.
Granted, they still need food and the basic necessities of life, before this it was not feasible for them to learn the info they can now get. People often overlook the benefits that universal Internet access could have on our global society. This is one more reason why censorship and regulation of content has no place on the Internet.
It's definitely part of the solution, but it's not the whole thing. Access itself is great, but training people to use it is way more useful. Check out Peoplink, an organization that goes to poorer countries and gives them computers and teaches them how to use them to sell their goods online (I may be missing something else they do, but that's my understanding of it). I think they're a great, great thing because although access may give them "hopes and expectations" (and I'm not arguing those things are extremely valuable), they need training and skills in order to translate those hopes into something tangible and useful.
But again, yay internet! :)
sig:
See the "..for smart people" banners Wired runs here? Look elsewhere guys.
Just read about the founder of Tripod's benevolent venture called GeekCorps which is deisgned to provide tech training and help to developing nations, those in South America and Africa included. Consider taking a sabbatical or doing something to try to help. Once altruism has opened up the user base, real tech companies from these areas can take hold and fuel some of the economy, Bangalore India being an example.
Of course, part of the problem with bringing in computers into places where other things are needed much more is that computers are considered frivolous compared to the more urgent needs of clean water, healthcare, and the like. These considerations aside, the collective community of those who are blessed with large salaries and tech access should be helping in all means possible.
"In individuals, insanity is rare, but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule." -Nietzsche
Or ILOVEYOU. So it's partly the responsibility of the rest of the online community to encourage responsible growth and also show that the real money is behind productivity.
JHK
IBM, Siemans and one other company I don't recall are doing it in Timisoara, Romania alone. IBM's also got a lot of shops in India, too. Software's easy to manipulate on the Internet and gets moved around tax free, and you don't have to muck about with getting someone a hard-to-get worker's visa. My counterparts in Romania were as good as, if not better than most of the programmers I've worked with over here, they're making several times the national average salary in Romania and at least at IBM they were doing shit work that no one here wanted to touch (Like maintaining OS/2 device drivers.) It's like getting someone fresh out of college, only better.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
i grew up in zambia far from the suburbs.
but i too hold tremendous hope for internet to raise the quality of life for the ordinary (not rich like you and i) men and women in zambia.
it's true that we need medicical care etc also but raised incomes from using the internet are a means to that end.
it is true also that your local John 3:16 could probably use a hand once in a while too. but don't call a person arogant for wanting to help in the way that he knows best.
it's not arrogance to think that what you are doing can benifit humanity. it's hope. and we could all do with a little more hope.
Can someone do me a favour and tell me how the 'oil and gas' companies promised to make the developing world better, and whether those promises actually came to be ? And then tell me whether the same thing can happen with the information technology revolution ? So as the multinationals go hunting for new markets in the developing world (whether that world be in developing countries or in developed countries - think about one!), what kind of long term damage is being done.
-- Matthew - matthew.gream@pobox.com, http://matthewgream.net
On the plus side, since they don't control it, they won't be able to fuck it up like they invariably do with the products they make.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It should be noted, for non-Spanish speakers, that Pendejo Sin Nombre, translates roughly as Nameless Asshole. I think Slashdot would profit a great deal from a similar terminology.
That's how Babelfish translates it but a more accurate translation is nameless moron. Otherwise, I agree with you. Slash could benefit from a similar terminology.
Does this
16 comments and already people are claiming that the developing world should have perfect health infrastructures before getting IT. First of all, it's not like there are teams of plumber/sysadmins trying to decide which projects to pursue. Secondly, information poverty can hold back health-related projects as much as lack of money and investment.
Information technology can increase knowledge of health concerns, funding sources, successful development models, social information about human rights and the environment, crop prices, and more. It can provide new training and opportunities, bridging the significant gap between rural and urban life.
If you are really interested and aren't just expressing a contrarian point to be cool, try this World Bank paper on the need for IT in the developing world and the obstacles to introducing it. It's in PDF.
Yogurt
I wonder if the WB has a research paper generator, where you could plug in several topical buzzwords, and the engine will take care of spreading them over the standard thirty pages of neo-liberal drivel about "opening up" the "markets", "liberalizing" the "marketplace", "leveling" the "playing field", and "removing" the "barriers" to "free trade."
One would think that after the debacles in Russia and South East Asia, the WB/IMF duo would have released a new version of the generator, one with a keyword dictionary expanded to use such terms as "social responsibility", "structural reform", "historical and cultural specifics" and a few other variables that would help produce a more accurate output. Instead, as we clearly see with this paper, both the algorithm
if !deregulation
statistics = random
policy(statistics, buzzwords)
print(policy_return)
fi
and the dictionary have remained at the version released in the early 90s.
The result? Foreign conglomerate gobbles up former local monopolist with an investment safely backed by the Western taxpayer via their respective country's equivalent of the Export-Import Bank, splits the profits between corrupt local officials and foreign shareholders, acquires unrestrained access to a miserably paid, subservient (no deregulation in the realm of political oppression) workforce and offsets the inevitable downturn in its stockprice and the welfare of the Western state by opening up a new profit lifeline abroad. Tight plan. Not bad for an old app.
--
Violence is necessary, it is as American as cherry pie.
H. Rap Brown
Many people are missing the point.
One of the largest problems in poverty-stricken areas is education. Basic sanitation, care of diseases, how to keep crops productive, etc. Education does not proceed by trying to teach everyone. Instead you proceed by trying to identify key people and teach them, then rely on traditional networks to spread that knowledge.
Computers in every home is a silly goal. Computers in the third world are far more likely to be like television. A village may only have one with someone who can use it. But that one is a resource for the whole village.
Cheers,
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
"A village may only have one with someone who can use it. But that one is a resource for the whole village" Having grown up comfortably in the Philippines, I have long wondered why the less affluent behaved so differently from the more westernized upper classes. And I think I've figured at least part of it out. They do not take something as truth until someone they trust says it is - i.e. they don't like reading something directly from the source and deciding for themselves. It sounds ignorant and hopeless, until you realize everyone does it to some degree, depending on their grasp of the subject matter. As people who have not had access to decent libraries go online, I believe they will use the internet differently. For example, farmers will not check crop prices and research new agricultural methods on their own; rather, they will get the information off someone they trust, who will in turn get the information off the net. This insulates them from being fooled by scams and disinformation, as their trusted expert (likely a respected farmer himself) would do this for a living and become familiar with the pitfalls, and perhaps even contribute to the body of knowledge he was drawing from. Not too different from the way things work today, except the "expert" is often an outsider paid by a grant from the World Bank and beholden to their (often misguided) policies.
If a kid can't read, he can't use the Internet.
If a kid can't do better than rudimentary math, she can't program.
If a kid doesn't have an education, the the kid isn't going to go farther than the local factory or field. And I think the Internet can help supplement a child's education (and the local infrastructure) but I don't think online instruction can replace the real thing.
The rise and usefulness of the Internet depends on many factors, not just making PCs available or how many miles of cable can be laid.
This is another view of the world.