DEVELOPMENT: Information Revolution Bypasses Africa – U.N.

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 30 2001 (IPS) - Revolutionary changes in information and communication technologies have largely bypassed economically troubled Africa, according to a new U.N. report.

“Computer penetration is less than three per 1,000, and just one person in 1,500 has access to the Internet compared to a world average of about one in 40,” says the report, ‘Implementation of the Programme for the Second Industrial Development Decade for Africa’, which is to be taken up by the U.N. General Assembly in the next three months.

The study points out that only 2.5 percent of the world’s television sets are in Africa.

The shortfall in communication technologies has severely affected the U.N.’s second 10-year programme for the continent’s industrialisation, which began in 1993.

The programme has fallen “very short of expectations” and has been derailed by several other factors, including rising debt burdens and the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Africa’s external debt is estimated at more than 360 billion dollars despite various debt-relief measures. At the same time, more than 25 million Africans are living with HIV and a further 17 million have already died of AIDS – three times the number of AIDS deaths in the rest of the world.

“These phenomena produced unanticipated structural shifts in policy both inside and outside Africa, while the speed with which information and communication technologies have been advancing created unparalleled pressures on African policy makers, changing the competitiveness landscape in unprecedented ways,” the study says.

“The first step in industrialising Africa is to strengthen its private sector,” says the report. But improving the competitiveness of the private sector will increasingly depend on the pace at which new technologies are adopted.

However, because many African entrepreneurs run small and medium- scale industries, they cannot afford the relatively high costs of installing up-to-date information and communication technology.

“Thus, although they can significantly reduce the costs of communications, African firms are unable to adopt them,” the report says.

It adds that the communications sector in Africa is characterised by poor-quality services, limited access, and high operational costs.

Until recently, the communications sector was largely in the hands of state monopolies.

“The current trend towards liberalisation of communications services is a marked improvement that could influence the availability and diversity of information and communication channels,” the study says.

According to the report, foreign direct investment in Africa rose to 10 billion dollars in 1999, up from eight billion dollars in 1998.

Nevertheless, investment by transnational corporations in Africa comprised only 1.3 percent of global foreign direct investment and 5.0 percent of foreign direct investment in developing countries.

About 70 percent of foreign direct investment in Africa was concentrated in just five countries: Angola, Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, and South Africa.

“Despite the efforts of many African countries to adopt policies to attract foreign investment, the response of the international community has been extremely discouraging,” the report complains.

“This worrisome trend underlines the need for decisive, credible and sustainable steps towards the establishment of an enabling environment to attract foreign investment and to mobilise local private capital, where possible,” it adds.

Meanwhile, Africa has posted modest overall economic performance. At 3.2 percent, its growth rate in 2000 was the third in the world, after the United States, at 5.0 percent, and Europe, at 3.4 percent.

Developing nations as a group registered a growth rate of 5.6 percent in 2000, compared with 3.5 percent in 1999.

Africa’s growth was led mostly by increases in export earnings of the region’s oil-producing countries. Since mid-1999, the price of a barrel of oil has gravitated around 25 dollars compared with 12- 15 dollars in 1998.

According to the report, one of the most persistent challenges to economic development in Africa is the high incidence of poverty. Per capita income dropped from 749 dollars in 1980 to 688 dollars in 1998. Judging by economic trends in the region, poverty is expected to increase over the next 10 years.

At the Millennium Summit last October, the United Nations pledged to help countries halve poverty by 2015.

If this pledge is to be fulfilled, Africa’s overall economy must grow by an average of about 5.0 percent per year, whereas the average growth rate in the 1990s was only 2.1 percent, the report says.