[governance] New Blogpost: Investment 58-Poverty 14: The UN'sBroadband Commission for Digital Development vs. the MDGs

[Jonathan Cave]

A strained analogy occurs to me; distributing clean needles can help in the fight against HIV, so why not give them to all susceptible people? More seriously, there are worse risks than inequitable distribution of economic benefits, including the inefficiency of extending the market power of concentrated parts of the ICT value mesh, exposing local markets to entrenched global suppliers of goods and services and employers of labour and consolidating the political power of those providing newly-critical infrastructure. Briefly, the static picture's a lot rosier than the dynamic one. Too much/soon?
J.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

-----Original Message-----
From: "Michael Gurstein" <gurstein at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2010 15:52:14 
To: 'Jean-Louis FULLSACK'<jlfullsack at orange.fr>; <governance at lists.cpsr.org>
Reply-To: governance at lists.cpsr.org,"Michael Gurstein" <gurstein at gmail.com>
Subject: RE: [governance] New Blogpost: Investment 58-Poverty 14: The UN's
 Broadband Commission for Digital Development vs. the MDGs

Well put Jean-Louis...
 
Your comments rather parallel my own on the other list...
 
You will excuse me if I'm just a wee bit cynical and skeptical about what a
"huge *win* this is" especially when the defining characteristic of this one
seems to be to jetison all of those few gains that civil society managed to
make as they/we worked our way through the entire process--i.e.
transparency, accountablity, multistakeholderism, and a pragmatic neutrality
around funding mechanisms.
 
Might not this be worthy of a comment/statement by the IGC?
 
M

-----Original Message-----
From: Jean-Louis FULLSACK [mailto:jlfullsack at orange.fr] 
Sent: Friday, October 01, 2010 7:11 AM
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; MichaelGurstein
Subject: re: [governance] New Blogpost: Investment 58-Poverty 14: The UN's
Broadband Commission for Digital Development vs. the MDGs



> This may be of interest...
> 
> M

Of course Michael, it is !

I do share your opinion about the rather problematic relation(s) between
Broadband access and Poverty alleviation, and all this discourse that was
poured on the folks attending the WSIS meetings. This whole process tried
-and is still trying- to instrumentalize ONGs for disseminating ICT gear at
any cost for the POSSIBLE "benefit" of DCs and their populations. Whereas
the REAL benefit goes to the private sector : manufacturers, vendors,
advisers, service providers and operators. 

I think that the economical and above all the financial aspects and issues
of ICT/BB dissemination in DCs, let's say sub-Saharean Africa, should be
thoroughly and objectively analyzed and published. Just as an example : Does
Africa REALLY need eight submarine cables from Dakar to the Cape (there are
three ones in service and by the end of next year there are five other ones
to come) ? At an average cost of 300 to 400 M$, this means a total
investment of around 3 billion dollars ! This is 2 billions too much, or a
hold-up of 2 billions from the basic needs in DCs, i.e. food, water,
sanitation and energy (remember : WEHAB, the Jo'burg UN Develoment Summit
program, nowhere even mentions ICT !). Who will ever carry out such a survey
? Maybe research teams in Universities, through a holistic,
multidisciplinary approach (human, sociologic, economic, financial,
environmental, ...). Why not with you, Michael ? 

In the meantime, this hold-up is sponsored by the UN and -first of all- the
ITU.  

BTW : The CS in completely absent in this "BB4D Commission". This shows how
high is multi-stakeholdership right now, and how inclusive are the two
vice-chairs of the WSIS ... and of the "Commission". As far as the co-chairs
are concerned, the first one isn't actually an example of democratic
governance, and the second is quite simply the wealthiest man in the world
... A methaphor when we consider the billion people still suffering from
poverty and hoping for a better future. 

Best regards
Jean-Louis Fullsack
CSDPTT and CESIR



> Message du 28/09/10 07:25
> De : "Michael Gurstein" 
> A : governance at lists.cpsr.org
> Copie à : 
> Objet : [governance] New Blogpost: Investment 58-Poverty 14: The UN's
Broadband Commission for Digital Development vs. the MDGs
> 
> 
> 
> This may be of interest...
> 
> M
> 
> 
> Investment 58-Poverty 14: The UN's Broadband Commission for Digital
> Development vs. the MDGs
> 
>
http://gurstein.wordpress.com/2010/09/27/investment-58%E2%80%94poverty-14-th
> e-un%E2%80%99s-broadband-commission-for-digital-development-vs-the-mdgs/
> 
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