Al-Ahram Weekly | Economy

		27 June - 3 July 2002 Issue No. 592 Economy	Current issue Previous issue Site map
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875		Recommend this page

Worlds apart
Arab countries need to bridge the digital divide if their economies are to achieve serious and sustainable growth. Dina Ezzat reports

Next month, representatives of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) will meet in Beirut to examine ways of shaking the Arab world out of its IT backwardness. The Beirut meeting is part of Arab efforts to bridge the huge digital divide that separates their countries from developed, and, in some cases, other developing states.
ILO and ESCWA will also look at ways to help Arab states make use of a number of initiatives launched by international organisations to spread IT awareness. These include a World Bank initiative to allocate $8 billion to spreading IT applications in developing countries, as well as Dot Task Force, a G-8 initiative that also aims to widen IT usage in the developing world.
The Beirut meeting is also part of a preparatory process that is leading up to the World Summit Information Society's first gathering in Geneva in December 2003, followed by its second in an Arab capital -- probably Tunis -- in 2005.
It has become abundantly clear that if Arab countries are to ever achieve sustainable economic growth, they must quickly enter and contribute to the digital world. "IT is the only way for Arab countries to make the shift from the traditional economy based on over-consumption of non- renewable natural resources to an IT-based modern economy," concluded a joint UN-Arab League meeting held in Cairo recently on the subject.
Participants at the meeting decided IT is now central to all fields of economic activity, whether agriculture, water usage, education or industry. "IT is simply an essential component to economic growth and development," commented one participant.
Much work, on both the technical and cultural levels, is required before Arab countries can climb closer to the average levels of IT usage in the world, the meeting concluded.
A quick plan of action to eliminate illiteracy and spread an awareness of the culture of IT was recommended by the Cairo gathering. "Indeed, with 65 out of the 289 million Arabs illiterate, it is hard to expect Arab economies to be IT- driven," one participant said. At the same time, the failure to switch to an IT-based economy would simply handicap efforts to combat poverty and reduce unemployment levels.
Statistics offered by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which was represented in the Cairo meeting, on IT usage in the Arab world are dismal. The PC usage average in the Arab world is not only seven times lower than the international one, it is also significantly below that of the developing countries.
Data on Internet usage provide a more shocking perspective. According to UNDP figures, the Internet usage average in the Arab world is 24 times less than the international one and 2.5 times less than the average for the rest of the developing world.
In fact, according to World Bank statistics, IT- related growth in the Arab world has not exceeded 1.4 per cent during the past 15 years. The figure becomes even bleaker, as Arab commentators and policy-makers agree, when compared to the 1.5 per cent growth rate realised by the region's sub-Saharan African neighbours.
"The picture is not totally gloomy," commented Amr Moussa, the Arab League's secretary- general. In a statement addressed to the recent Arab League-UN meeting, Moussa argued that there has been "some progress" in relation to the spread of IT in the Arab world. Still, as Moussa admitted, this progress did not go beyond a limited 25 per cent growth rate during the past 15 years -- an obviously unimpressive figure when compared with the international rate.
"It is true that Internet users in the Arab world have doubled during the past few years, but it is also true that they represent no more than one per cent of the entire Arab population," Moussa said.
Only a handful of Arab countries have covered good ground in accommodating IT as a centrepiece to their economies. The United Arab Emirates is one obvious example. Efforts on a smaller scale have been made in Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia. However, the vast majority of Arab countries are nowhere near possessing the basic requisites for an IT-oriented economy, or, for that matter, an IT-oriented culture.
A number of existing bodies, such as the Cairo- based IT Arab Forum and the Tunis-based IT Arab Organisation, mandated to enhance IT advancement in the Arab world, cannot single- handedly accomplish the task.
Participants at the Arab League-UN meeting agreed that Arab countries need to adopt the necessary measures to institute cyber laws and regulations. In addition to establishing a harmonised legal structure that is able to respond to the requirements of IT advancement, they need to work on improving IT-related infrastructure and human resources. Serious national strategies need to be adopted and implemented if a widening of the digital gap between the Arab world and the outside world is to be prevented.

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