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