By IPS Correspondents
BRUSSELS, Nov 3 2005 (IPS)

The rise of knowledge societies brings new opportunities for developing countries, says a report released Thursday by Unesco, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.

The report ‘Towards Knowledge Societies’ analyses the increasingly important role knowledge plays in economic growth, and says knowledge can serve as a new springboard for development.

It also presents a detailed analysis of the factors blocking the access of many countries to opportunities offered by information and communication technologies.

“The rise of knowledge societies can bring new opportunities for countries of the South,” Unesco assistant director-general Françoise Rivière said at the launch of the report in Brussels Thursday.

“We have to make it clear to societies in the South that they have a variety of underlying knowledge which needs to be brought forward and linked to international knowledge,” she said. “Developing countries have to be the producers of knowledge and not only the consumers.”

Unesco says one of the main obstacles in optimising sustainable human development is the “disparity in access to information and communication technology that has become known as the digital divide.”

”The knowledge divide today more than ever separates countries endowed with powerful research and development potential, highly effective education systems and a range of public learning and cultural facilities, from nations with deficient education systems and research institutions starved of resources, and suffering as a result of the brain drain,” the study says.

Unesco says encouraging the development of knowledge societies requires overcoming these gaps. “There is not a single model of knowledgeable societies,” Rivière told media representatives. “It is up to each society to enhance the value of its local and indigenous knowledge.”

Unesco says local and traditional knowledge are invaluable for agriculture and health.

“This category of knowledge, often found in societies where no written language exists, is particularly vulnerable. With one language estimated to be dying out every two weeks, much of this traditional knowledge is being lost,” Rivière added.

The authors say “knowledge societies” should not be confused with “information societies”. While the information society is based on technological breakthroughs, knowledge societies contribute to the wellbeing of individuals and communities, and “encompass broader social, ethical and political dimensions.”

They highlight the example of Singapore which started out as a developing country of shantytowns at independence and achieved economic growth rates that surpass those of most industrialised nations in just four decades, by promoting knowledge and creativity.

Less well known is the example of Villa El Salvador in Peru, a community of several thousand people who were evicted from capital Lima in 1971. Settled in the desert, they built schools and education centres without outside assistance, and turned their slum into an organised town of more than 400,000 inhabitants.

Unesco says 98 percent of children in the town go to school, adult illiteracy is the lowest in the country at 4.5 percent, and more than 15,000 students are enrolled in the University of Villa El Salvador or in universities in Lima.

“The report opens a panorama that paints the future in both promising and disquieting tones,” Unesco director-general Koïchiro Matsuura said in a statement Thursday. “Promising because the potential offered by a rational and purposeful use of the new technologies offers real prospects for human and sustainable development and the building of more democratic societies; disquieting for the obstacles and snares along the way are all too real.”

The Unesco report says several steps are needed to narrow the digital and knowledge divides between the North and South, and to move towards a “smart” form of sustainable human development.

It is urging governments to expand quality education for all, increase community access to information and communication technology, and improve cross-border scientific knowledge-sharing.

The report also advocates making linguistic diversity a priority, sharing environmental knowledge, developing statistical tools to measure knowledge, and helping policy makers define their priorities.

“The stakes are high, for the cost of ignorance is greater than the cost of education and knowledge sharing,” the report says.

The study is the first in a new series of Unesco reports to be published every two years, focusing on subjects at the heart of the organisation’s mission such as cultural diversity and sustainable development. It comes two weeks ahead of the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) to be held Nov. 16-18 in Tunis, Tunisia.

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