10 July 2001

UNDP Reports on Benefits of Information Technology

The Human Development Report 2001 says that information and communications technology can make major contributions to reducing world poverty.

The report, commissioned by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), analyzes the potential of biotech and information technologies for developing countries.

A July 10 UNDP press release focused on information technology issues says such technology can overcome barriers of social, economic and geographical isolation, increase access to information and education, and enable poor people to participate in more of the decisions that affect their lives.

As an example of the potential of information technology, the report notes new opportunities for political empowerment of the poor, such as the global e-mail campaign that helped topple Philippine President Estrada in January.

The report also points to low-cost computers and low-literacy touch-screens as examples of technologies now under development that have great potential for empowering the poor.

But the report also concludes that many of the most important technology opportunities for poor people have so far been missed because of lack of market demand and inadequate public funding.

The full text of the Human Development Report 2001 can be found at http://www.undp.org/hdr2001

Following is the text of the press release:

July 10, 2001

United Nations Development Program (UNDP)

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2001

New technologies key to reducing world poverty, but market failures impede progress

Mexico City, 10 July 2001 -- At last year's G8 Summit, protestors mocked international efforts to channel technology towards the needs of the poor. "We can't eat computers," complained the leader of a group campaigning for debt relief. "People are dying." To underscore the point, members of the group set fire to a laptop computer on an Okinawa beach. And within international development circles, some have worried that the technology "fad" might distract donors and draw resources from more traditional development goals.

But this year's Human Development Report, commissioned by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and released today, argues that information and communications technology and biotechnology can actually make major contributions to reducing world poverty. UNDP Administrator Mark Malloch Brown warns, "Ignoring technological breakthroughs in medicine, agriculture and information will mean missing opportunities to transform the lives of poor people."

Breakthrough medical technologies have already raised life expectancies quickly and dramatically, even in poor countries without much health infrastructure. For instance, a new oral rehydration therapy (ORT) and improved vaccines reduced the number of deaths from major childhood illnesses in developing countries by about three million between 1980 and 1990 -- an especially impressive achievement given that it came during a "lost decade" when income growth in most of those countries was stagnant or negative. The development of vaccines for HIV, malaria and tuberculosis, as well as lesser-known diseases such as sleeping sickness and river blindness, could also save the lives of millions of people each year in developing countries.

The Report concludes that information and communications technology (ICT) can also make an important development impact, because it can overcome barriers of social, economic and geographical isolation, increase access to information and education, and enable poor people to participate in more of the decisions that affect their lives. In assessing the potential of ICT, the Report notes new opportunities for poor people in terms of political empowerment (such as the global e-mail campaign that helped topple Philippine President Estrada in January); health networks (as in Gambia and Nepal); long distance learning (as in Turkey); and job creation (as in Costa Rica, India and South Africa). Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, the lead author of the Report, argues that this is just the beginning: "ICT is truly a break-through technology for democracy and expansion of knowledge for poor people." The Report points to low-cost computers and low-literacy touch-screens as examples of technologies now under development that have great potential for empowering the poor.

But the Report also concludes that many of the most important technology opportunities for poor people have so far been missed because of lack of market demand and inadequate public funding. Technology creators in the private sector respond to the needs of high-income consumers, rather than the needs of those who have little purchasing power. Public sector funding and incentives for research and development could compensate for these market failures but, says the Report, governments in both developing and developed countries have so far failed to provide the support needed.

As a result, only 10 percent of global health research focuses on the illnesses that constitute 90 percent of the global disease burden. For instance, in 1998 global spending on health research was US $70 billion, but just $300 million was dedicated to vaccines for HIV/AIDS and about $100 million to malaria research. The Report concludes that agricultural and energy research focused on the specific needs of developing countries is also being neglected.

The diffusion of technology has been just as uneven. Developed (OECD) countries have 80 percent of the world's Internet users. The total international bandwidth for all of Africa is less than in the city of S�� Paulo, Brazil. The total bandwidth for all of Latin America is roughly equal to that of Seoul, Korea.

Much older technologies have yet to reach the world's poor either. Electricity, in widespread use since the invention of the light bulb in the 1870s, is still not accessible for some two billion people, a third of the world's population. Two billion people also do not have access to low cost essential medicines such as penicillin that were mostly developed decades ago.

ABOUT THIS REPORT: Every year since 1990, the United Nations Development Program has commissioned the Human Development Report by an independent team of experts to explore major issues of global concern. The Report looks beyond per capita income as a measure of human progress by also assessing it against such factors as average life expectancy, literacy and overall well-being. It argues that human development is ultimately "a process of enlarging people's choices." The Human Development Report is published in English by Oxford University Press, 2001 Evans Rd., Cary, NC 27513, USA. Telephone (919) 677-0977; toll free in the USA (800) 451-7556; fax (919) 677-1303.

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