Bridging the
digital divide
one
keystroke at a time
by Anita Grace
Markala, Mali
for the Ottawa Citizen Feb 26, 2004
In this West African town of mud houses and mango trees, where there are no streetlights, traffic lights or movie theatres, you don't need to tell people what side of the digital divide they are on. Although most homes here have electricity, few of the 10,000 townspeople have phones at home. The only public Internet access is one computer at the mayor's office. It's safe to estimate that at least 90 per cent of the town's population have never used a computer.
"Ici, nous sommes en retard," says Dramane Dembélé. Here, we are behind. He stands beside the town's only paved road, where women walk gracefully, balancing huge loads on their heads, and fishermen pass on rickety bicycles, their hoop-like nets slung over their shoulders.
Graduate Dramane Dembélé, left,
with student Toumani Sidibé (photo Anita Grace)
In October last year, I came from Ottawa to Markala, about 300 kilometres west of Mali's capital of Bamako, to try and lessen the digital divide.
With some experience in communications and website management, I had squeaked through to qualify for Cyberjeunes, or NetCorps, a $4.6 million-per-year Industry Canada initiative that each year sends more than 250 volunteers with tech skills into developing countries for internships of four to six months.
Placed in a five-month internship by Canadian Crossroads International, a non-governmental organization, I am to develop a "cybercentre" in Markala, where people will receive basic computer and Internet training.
But the cybercentre turned out to be five broken computers covered in ant piles and dusty spider webs. Only one old Macintosh has all its working parts, and it cannot get online.
I have been reduced to teaching typing classes on the lonely Mac, showing people how to use a mouse and create text documents. I doubt if more than a few will ever be able to own a computer, or even have a job that requires one.
In a town where donkeys likely outnumber cars by a ratio of 10:1, computer training at times seems ludicrous, and at other times merely a slim offer of hope.
It is hard to tell whether IT development is a real, imagined or imposed need here.
On paper, from the vantage point of a developed country, it can seem real enough. A veritable chasm is widening, as Africa falls further behind in competition with the world market. Technology has become the new economic currency, and without the training and equipment to develop in the field, Mali is getting desperately shortchanged. In a recent study called Where the Butterfly Alights: the Global location of eWork, author Nick Jagger and Ursula Huws came up with a succinct label for Mali and other countries that seem to be seriously at risk of outright exclusion from the emerging economy: e-Losers.
But it is also an imagined need. People here want something they do not understand. Many see computers as a end in themselves, not a means to something else.
"A lot of people talk about informatique, but they have no idea what it is," says Ibrahima Dogola. A young man working in a small cybercentre in Bamako, Dogola teaches classes part-time in basic computer skills.
Informatique is the French word for information and communications technology, and has become a catch-phrase in development work in the last few years, and a dream of many.
"People here think computers are a ticket out of their misery," says Jennifer Cartwright, a NetCorps intern from Montreal working in Mali, in the city of Ségou. "But that's completely false."
 Writer Anita Grace says she thinks her five-month stay made a difference in Mali, although her role evolved into a kind of glorified typing teacher rather than a computer skills instructor. In Mali, Internet use often is restricted to e-mails, chatrooms and visits to rapper websites. (photo Charlie Damon) |
It can also be argued that IT development here is an imposed need, a means to create new consumers in the virtually untapped market of sub-Saharan Africa. If people can be convinced that they need the Internet, suddenly there will be a market not only for computers, but for phone lines, electrical wiring, Internet servers and s on. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last month, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates announced that his company would work with the United Nations to build computer centres in Egypt, Mozambique and Morocco. Mark Malloch Brown, administrator of the UN program, told the Associated Press he hoped Microsoft and other IT companies would treat the developing world as "real markets" partnering with local companies to develop "innovative products and services that are affordable... for so-called bottom-of-the-pyramid consumers." Real? Imagined? Imposed? Most likely, the need here is a little of each. |
PRESSING PROBLEMS
Some people would argue that there are more pressing development priorities
than computer training for Mali.
In this landlocked country which is two-thirds Sahara Desert, less than half the adults can read. Most won't see their 55th birthday. More than 70 per cent of the population earns less than one dollar U.S. a day. Thirty people are infected with AIDS each day, while two thirds of Malian youth don't believe it's a real disease. Open sewage pollutes the streets, children die from malnutrition and well water can be infected with cholera.
"I can see the argument that people need health and education before computers," says Sue Upton, a development worker who has been in Mali for eight years.
Still, she upholds the value of teaching computing here. "But it's all about information," she says. "If we don't keep up, there is going to be an enormous gap."
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan agrees. "A digital divide threatens to exacerbate already wide gaps between rich and poor," he said during an address last year. Information technology, he said, is a force to be "harnessed to our global mission of peace and development."
Similarly, a declaration in December from the World Summit on the Information Society stated that access to information and communication technology (ICT) should be no less important than initiatives for clean water, health and education. "Access to ICT tools will now be seen as part and parcel of all international development propositions," the declaration said.
There are clear examples of information technology making a huge difference in development efforts.
Upton, for example, immediately identifies e-mail as a "complete revolution in communication" for Jeunesse et Développement, the Malian non-governmental organization for which she works.
Prior to e-mail and the Internet, Upton says project workers were forced to write documents and either mail or physically deliver them to organizations that could provide funding. "It was really, really tiring and time-consuming," she says. It also meant that her NGO, which helps youth in difficult situations get training and start-up funds for micro-projects like carpentry, metal work or masonry, was practically limited to finding funding within Mali.
Now, with Internet and e-mail, Upton can easily contact funders in her home country of England. She can also visit websites to research her funding proposals.
"If the Internet was faster and cheaper we'd use it massively," she adds, sitting in her Bamako office where three computers serve a staff of 10 and the Internet is used almost solely for re-mail. If the office could afford to surf for information, they could not only look for more outside funding, but also for information that could be used in micro-projects - such as the best way to dry mangoes or treat cattle diseases.
There is a lot of potential for the Internet here, she says. "But there's a big gap between the potential and how to get there."
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EXPENSIVE PROPOSITION The African Internet Status Report, produced by the Association for Progressive Communications, estimates that in sub-Saharan Africa, 2001 one person in 250 used the Internet. In Markala, that ration is probably more like one in 1,000. By comparison, the world average is roughly one user for ever 15 people. In North America, the average is one for every two. In Mali, the smallest Internet package is 20 000 Francs CFA, about $50. Unlimited access is around 70 000 F CFA, or $175. But with average salaries around 30 000 F CFA, even the smallest package is beyond most people's means, never mind the costs of buying and maintaining a computer, purchasing a phone line or paying the electricity. |
 Despite other pressing issues - less than half of the adults can read and children still die of malnutrition - Mali places a high priority on information technology, a hot topic in development circles lately. (Photo Anita Grace) |
But even if people can afford to get online, the problems don't stop there.
"You've got 80 per cent of the population that doesn't read or write," Upton points out. Those who are literate will find that more than three quarters of the information on the Internet is in English, a language spoken by only one person in 10 in the world, and a very small minority in countries such as Mali.
"Intellectual poverty is worse than material poverty," says Cartwright. "Access to the Internet could help people get beyond their situation, help them gain another perspective."
But with the high cost of surfing, the dominance of English material and the general lack of training on the Internet, the majority of people in Mali use it only for entertainment.
At Cyber Les Papillons, a neighbourhood cybercentre with give computers and a black-faced Santa Claus spray-painted on the door, Dogola quickly lists his clients' most common activities - e-mail, chats and rapper websites. And occasionally, porn-browsing.
What about research?
"Ah, no," he says. He shakes his head. "That is really rare. You don't see people doing research."
In Bamako, an hour online is fairly cheap - only about $1.25. Still, that is five times the cost of an evening meal at the stand across the street. And outside the capital, rates can easily quadruple.
NEED FOR INFORMATIQUE
It's not only the Internet that cannot reach its potential here. Malians
with ICT training also find themselves under utilised.
Three years ago, Dogola, 30, received a diploma in computer programming at Bamako's Institut Supérieur de Technologies Appliquées. The only jobs he has since been able to find involve working in small cybercentres and giving occasional courses in basic computer skills.
"If I think too much about it, I get really frustrated," he says. "I could be doing more than writing down how long someone is on the Internet."
In a country with more than 50 per cent unemployment, getting the training does not guarantee anything. It can leave you further in debt. Dogola considers himself one of hundreds of young people in Bamako who went after ICT training only to find themselves without work at the end of it. "If you go around trying to get a job in informatique just through ads in the paper," he says, you will walk forever and fall by the side of the road." "There are people who can't even find jobs like this."
So with all these problems - the high costs, the Internet's limits, the lack of application for skills acquired - I asked Dogola if informatique development is really necessary right now. He does not hesitate for a moment.
"Bien sur," he says Of course. "If we don't develop this, we are really going to be behind." He acknowledges the importance of literacy and economic development, but hopes these will happen together with informatique. "It would be great if it could all go together," he says.
 Sue Upton and Nouh Haidra, who work for Jeunesse et Développement, a Malian non-governmental agency, examine a shipment from 'Computers for Charity' - an English organization that sends used computers to developing countries. (Photo Anita Grace) |
A LONG WAY TO GO In return, I do my best to pass on what in Canada would be considered the most basic of tech skills. More than 20 people sign up for my classes in December. Two months later, the enthusiasm has not died. Most of the dozen students who completed the course often return to practice typing. People come by daily to inquire about training.
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"People want to understand computers because they are something new," Dembélé explained to me as we walked along the red dirt footpath to the centre. "If computers ever do come to Markala, we will have the advantage or already having learned about them."
Dembélé, 35, has been working with me at the centre since December. When I met him two months earlier, he had never used a computer. Still, he was keen when I offered to show him how to type. Within a couple of weeks he was typing without looking at his hands, and gradually he assumed the role of my assistant, and then fellow teacher.
One of the main objectives of cyberjeune programs such as mine is to ensure their durability. Dembélé's eagerness to not only learn, but teach others, is a positive sign that at least in some ways this 'cyber centre' will continue.
RICH EXPERIENCE
Yet despite the eagerness for computer training in Markala, I still struggle
with my role here.
It is true that I have computer skills that are useful in Mali. But there are hundreds of Malians with the same skills.
I felt ashamed when I explained what I am doing here to Dogola at Cyber Les Papillons. Here was someone who would give his right arm for the chance to develop a computer centre or get a tech internship. And my daily allocation of $10 is half a good month's salary for him, never mind the money it cost for my plane ticket, immunizations and visa.
When I asked him what he thought of people like me coming to do jobs he was qualified for, Dogola dropped his gaze and shrugged.
"Its complex here," he said. "Because of your skin colour, people will listen to you. I could go in and say the same thing, but they wouldn't respect me."
So on one hand, I could say my presence here enables people to receive computer training, to acquire skills to complete in the world economy of high tech.
But on the other hand, my presence disables people like Dogola from assuming these same roles and perpetuates colonial-period attitudes.
Will I have made a difference when I leave? Yes. Was I the best solution for the computer centre in Markala? That's much more difficult to answer.
The only thing I know for sure is that I am richer for the experience. And that just like skin colour, nothing is really black or white.