FC: U.N. report says governments should guarantee Net access by 2005

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

*********
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

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