Easterly would not argue against infrastructure investment. I talked to him last week about African internet connectivity in particular, and have no sense that he would disagree with any part of the NYT article. The article says only, lack of infrastructure is a bottleneck to development. Not that foreign aid is needed to string cable throughout Africa.
I taught university students in Africa, and they cannot afford the internet cafe prices, and their schools cannot afford the kind of connection that a proper educational institution would have.
Right now there are four competing proposals to lay cable along East Africa. The surveys have been completed for one proposal and contracted for others, but no cable has been laid yet. The ownership structure of those cables is not yet decided, or at least not yet clear.
I'm curating a website on African higher education that includes a long discussion of internet issues, see www.arp.harvard.edu/AfricaHigherEducation/ and links therefrom. There's a link to the e-journal Balancing Act run out of Britain that provides probably the best updates on the situation. There are also links to commentary by many people, including Eric Osiakwan, the current head of the African Internet Service Providers Association (based in Ghana).
If you need contact information for people, let us know (AfricaHigherEducation@huarp.harvard.edu)
EJM
I think before this discussion gets too heated that posters might stop and ask what people in Africa think about this issue. They are the ones who count, right? And they're not posting on Slashdot because most of them won't take the time to read all 242 comments because they're paying half a days wages already for an hour at an internet cafe.
I taught in Africa in 2006, and I can tell you that I never met a single English-speaking person who did not have a yahoo account, including a Maasai guide in tribal robes who had to walk and hitchhike 40 km to get to a town with an internet cafe. People are desperate for connection. Wouldn't you be?
My students (from all over Africa) and I put together a website on universities in Africa in general and internet issues in particular. That website was some of the background material for the New York Times article. It's at www.arp.harvard.edu/AfricaHigherEducation/. If you go to "student voices" you can read my students' stories and opinions.
The website has several goals beyond bringing the students' voices. One goal is to help explain WHY communications are so expensive in Africa, because of predatory pricing by cable monopolies (and it's worth remembering that some 30% of the ownership of African cables are held by multinationals, including AT&T and France Telecom). Costs are high because, as the NYT article said, governments are too weak to regulate properly and operators charge what they can. If you want to help Africa, write your Congressman and ask for World Bank funding for a second cable, based on an Open Access model. For $250 million you can revolutionize telecommunications in East Africa. That's nothing compared to most infrastructure projects, absolutely nothing.
The second meta-goal of the website was to puncture the false impression that many well-meaning people pick up from the media, that Africans are somehow special and exotic and in need of special treatment. No country, it's worth remembering, has ever developed because of foreign aid. Countries all develop through building business and industry and trade. Rememeber that 200 years ago there were famines in Sweden too. Why are so many Americans in the Midwest blonde? Because peasants in Scandinavia were desperately poor and they left by the boatfull. The best way to help African countries now is to treat them as you would any other countries that are poor, yes, but growing fast (6% per year in sub-Saharan Africa right now), and with the same demands, needs, and desires as anyone else. The greatest help we can do for Africa is to promote that growth.
Slashdot Mirror
Easterly would not argue against infrastructure investment. I talked to him last week about African internet connectivity in particular, and have no sense that he would disagree with any part of the NYT article. The article says only, lack of infrastructure is a bottleneck to development. Not that foreign aid is needed to string cable throughout Africa.
I taught university students in Africa, and they cannot afford the internet cafe prices, and their schools cannot afford the kind of connection that a proper educational institution would have.
EJM
Right now there are four competing proposals to lay cable along East Africa. The surveys have been completed for one proposal and contracted for others, but no cable has been laid yet. The ownership structure of those cables is not yet decided, or at least not yet clear. I'm curating a website on African higher education that includes a long discussion of internet issues, see www.arp.harvard.edu/AfricaHigherEducation/ and links therefrom. There's a link to the e-journal Balancing Act run out of Britain that provides probably the best updates on the situation. There are also links to commentary by many people, including Eric Osiakwan, the current head of the African Internet Service Providers Association (based in Ghana). If you need contact information for people, let us know (AfricaHigherEducation@huarp.harvard.edu) EJM
I think before this discussion gets too heated that posters might stop and ask what people in Africa think about this issue. They are the ones who count, right? And they're not posting on Slashdot because most of them won't take the time to read all 242 comments because they're paying half a days wages already for an hour at an internet cafe.
I taught in Africa in 2006, and I can tell you that I never met a single English-speaking person who did not have a yahoo account, including a Maasai guide in tribal robes who had to walk and hitchhike 40 km to get to a town with an internet cafe. People are desperate for connection. Wouldn't you be?
My students (from all over Africa) and I put together a website on universities in Africa in general and internet issues in particular. That website was some of the background material for the New York Times article. It's at www.arp.harvard.edu/AfricaHigherEducation/. If you go to "student voices" you can read my students' stories and opinions.
The website has several goals beyond bringing the students' voices. One goal is to help explain WHY communications are so expensive in Africa, because of predatory pricing by cable monopolies (and it's worth remembering that some 30% of the ownership of African cables are held by multinationals, including AT&T and France Telecom). Costs are high because, as the NYT article said, governments are too weak to regulate properly and operators charge what they can. If you want to help Africa, write your Congressman and ask for World Bank funding for a second cable, based on an Open Access model. For $250 million you can revolutionize telecommunications in East Africa. That's nothing compared to most infrastructure projects, absolutely nothing.
The second meta-goal of the website was to puncture the false impression that many well-meaning people pick up from the media, that Africans are somehow special and exotic and in need of special treatment. No country, it's worth remembering, has ever developed because of foreign aid. Countries all develop through building business and industry and trade. Rememeber that 200 years ago there were famines in Sweden too. Why are so many Americans in the Midwest blonde? Because peasants in Scandinavia were desperately poor and they left by the boatfull. The best way to help African countries now is to treat them as you would any other countries that are poor, yes, but growing fast (6% per year in sub-Saharan Africa right now), and with the same demands, needs, and desires as anyone else. The greatest help we can do for Africa is to promote that growth.
EJM