Title: TECHNOLOGY: Fostering Participatory Democracy Through
Technology

By Gumisai Mutume

MEXICO CITY, Mar 21  (IPS World Desk) ­ An innovative concept to
bring parliament into the living rooms of South Africans is running
against a wall  - how to draw a bigger group of visitors to browse its
web pages.

Latest committee minutes from parliament in Cape Town,
documents such as public submissions, bills and briefings on
government policy and draft legislation are uploaded on the web
page of the Parliamentary Monitoring Group (PMG) within 48 hours
of going through the chambers, but many South Africans are not
accessing them.

Tired of the non-participatory nature of the political climate
they lived under during the 1948-1994 apartheid era, some South
Africans have gone the way of new information technologies as a
way of broadening public participation.

"A participatory democracy is an idealistic concept that one
strives towards - the electorate has to be educated about this right -
- especially in a country like ours where before 1994, participation
was
denied," says Gaile Moosmann of PMG.

"Further we are using a first-world medium in a third world
country ­ a medium that is unused by the majority of our citizens
but at least the community-based organisations should have
Internet access, as do the 9 provincial governments, the many non-
governmental organisations that represent civil society as well as
universities."

The PMG drive illustrates a growing challenge among developing
countries ­ how to harness information technologies already used
in industrialised countries to enhance democratic processes. PMG
was
formed by three non-governmental organisations in 1995 to monitor
parliament. In 1998 it started posting its work on the Internet.

South Africa is home to the majority of Africa's 1.2 million
Internet users but given the specialised nature of the information PMG puts out, the lack of a web-use culture in the country and poor connectivity among the poor, only 120 visitors pass through the PMG site daily.

Only 38 percent of visitors to the site are South African, 40
percent are international while 22 percent are from unknown regions. Moosmann says perhaps their resource is ahead of its time.

"However we are providing a unique record as not even Parliament
has the current capacity to minute its 40-plus parliamentary committees - we are doing this, plus making it available to the public."

A growing issue among development think tanks is how governments,
national institutions, transnationals, and NGOs can be made more
transparent and accountable to those they serve. New information
technologies are increasingly presenting an option.

Jerzy Szeremeta of the UN Development Programme says while
globalisation is under-cutting the welfare state it is also moving the world towards mass democracy and those dissatisfied with the way governments operate can now do something about it.

He says civic groups can use information technologies to start
public discourses which they can access in a relatively affordable
way.
"Dissatisfied citizens (educated, skilled, networked local
citizens acting as global citizens) could do this equally well from the
comfort of their living room," says Szeremeta.

In Zimbabwe a recent e-mail campaign protesting against the 20-
year rule of the government of President Robert Mugabe urges Zimbabweans to bow their heads at 11:00 am each day signifying that Mugabe is in his eleventh hour.

"In the area of politics and government, the Internet provides the
tools for greater transparency, openness, accountability, and the
opportunity for providing marginalised groups the chance to have their voices heard," notes Dr Mohamed Awang Lah a fellow of Academy of Sciences Malaysia.

"But having said that, at the same time when we get too many
voices being heard in that new world, we will find a lot of conflicts. This will make people who are not used to this level of discord very nervous, notknowing how to deal with this unaccustomed level of 'vocalised' confl
ict."

Awang Lah says there seems no way around it -- access to
information and knowledge will become new variables in the political equation previously dominated by military and economic might.

In Peru, the Internet is a growing lobbying tool for indigenous
communities. The Latin American nation of 25 million people has an
estimated 800,000 Internet users, mostly young people, many of whom depend on public access provided by micro-businesses that rent out computers and Internet access at a price range of 65 cents to a dollar per hour.

A few months ago these public booths were estimated to number
2,000 in Peruvian cities and are said to be growing rapidly, exciting those who believe in the democratising potential of the new medium.

"The Internet and e-mail democratise communications and will be
powerful tools for social democratisation, especially in developing
countries," says Gonzalo Mier y Teran, a former leftist political party
activist and web page designer in Peru. "Information will no longer be vertically distributed, it will be horizontal."

Commentators say the Internet is already eroding centralised
power, sometimes to the detriment of national sovereignty. Yet the tool
is enhancing globalisation at a time when the world, particularly
developing countries still lacks the right tools to manage this accelerated change.

Juan Gargurevich a Peruvian university professor of communication
says while the Internet is opening up new channels of
communication it
is still too early to say if it will assist in democratising Peru where
more than half the population is poor, only 12 percent of homes
have
telephones and only seven percent have computers.

In Malaysia only three percent of the country's 12 million people
are online but this figure is expected to grow to 30 percent over the
next five years.
"I always remember the statistic that if we shrunk the Earth's
population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all existing
human ratios remaining the same, 70 would be unable to read and
only 1 would own a computer," says Moosmann.

"That helps to retain perspective on the value of the Internet
currently ­ though I do believe it is the most up-to-date living
detailed encyclopaedia on any subject in the World.
(END/IPS/DV/gm/da/00)


Origin: Rome/TECHNOLOGY/
                              ----
       Copyright 2000 InterPress Service, all rights reserved.
          Worldwide distribution via the APC networks.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L
Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html

----------------------------------------------------------------------------