*** 17-Feb-2* ***

Title: TECHNOLOGY-TRADE: 'E-velopment', the New Bait Toward Globalisation

By Ranjit Dev Raj

BANGKOK, Feb 17 (IPS) - ''E-velopment'', short for ''electronic commerce
and development'' is the latest bait being offered to induce reluctant and
laggard countries into the brave, new globalised world, according to experts at the ongoing UNCTAD X conference here.

''We are using e-commerce as a ploy,'' said Bruno Lanvin, head of the electronic commerce section of UNCTAD which on Thursday released
its new publication 'Building Confidence', subtitled 'Electronic Commerce and
Development.'

Lanvin brushed aside sceptics who think that e-commerce cannot quite succeed in many developing countries for sheer lack of infrastructure and
funds, and those that suspect it could further widen the already existing 'digital gap', not to mention the income gap.

Even UNCTAD Secretary General Rubens Ricupero, who launched the publication and the accompanying CD-ROM, said it is ''still too
early to say whether it will narrow or broaden the gap between the rich and the poor''.

But Ricupero said he sees hope in the phenomenal expansion of electronic commerce, which ''constitutes a major opportunity for trade and
development.''

''It can be the source of a significant number of success stories by which developing countries and their enterprises can reach new
levels of international competitiveness and participate more actively in the emerging
global information economy,'' Ricupero said.

Lanvin sees e-commerce achieving much more. ''If we do right with e-commerce we could establish the building blocks for more --
education, governance, marketing, health, environment and everything that is supposed
to go with globalisation adding up to e-velopment.''.

Far from necessarily widening the gap among the information-poor and the information-rich, Lanvin says e-commerce can be an opportunity for
gender equity. He does not see men behind the new machines of the information age.

''It may be subjective judgement, but young people and women, because they have different ideas about knowledge sharing, are going to be
the driving force behind e-velopment,'' Lanvin pointed out.

''Sharing knowledge and building confidence should be the fundamental principles of globalisation,'' according to 'Building Confidence',
which Lanvin and his team put together over two years of research and workshops
held around the world.

The report insists that the vicious circle of underdeveloped telecommunications infrastructure and low level of integration in
the world economy can be broke by e-commerce, and that local governments have
crucial roles to play in this.

''Political will is necessary,'' Lanvin said, leaving it to the self-interest of governments in promoting their own enterprises,
including small and medium enterprises (SMEs), to develop and use e-commerce strategies.

Funding for the vast enterprise, said Lanvin, is no problem, contrary to what critics might say. ''The telecom giants will take care of
infrastructure provided there is enough traffic -- and traffic can be generated everywhere.''

But the optimism of UNCTAD officials about the potential of combining e-commerce and development was not shared by several non-
government groups, who find the talk of information technology allowing poor countries to
leapfrog into progress a case of mistaken priorities.

According to the British voluntary agencies New Economic Foundation and Christian Aid, the absence of infrastructure, banking, electricity
and capital, added to language problems and low prices of commodities, would prevent e-commerce from ever taking off in developing countries.

''E-commerce is not a panacea which allows developing countries to leap-frog over the need to develop basic economic and social
infrastructure,'' said Clarie Melamed, policy analyst for Christian Aid.

''If countries in Africa cannot afford teachers, readily available computer software and maintenance engineers will be a distant
luxury,'' said Andrew Simms of the New Economic Foundation.

They suggested that World Bank President James Wolfensohn, who in his Wednesday speech spoke of the potential of this technology, was
living in a ''cyber-wonderland'' for putting ''too much faith in the potential of information technology''.

Still, Lanvin was optimistic that ''once signs existed that local enterprises are ready for e-commerce, a 'virtuous circle' would
get created and investors would follow, resulting in tremendous impacts on society as a
whole.''

E-commerce, he explained, is not traditional commerce transacted electronically but a whole new culture involving government, civil
service, and business. ''It could revolutionise the way governments and enterprises
work and contribute to national and international welfare,'' he said.

The authors of the UNCTAD report deliberately chose to focus on Africa to illustrate their point. ''A true potential exists for the
expansion of e-commerce exists among African exporters,'' UNCTAD's Lorenza Jachia.

At the same time, she pointed to the continent's long-standing backwardness in infrastructure and the present tendency of
telecommunication providers to maintain high prices for Internet access as impediments waiting to be overcome.

But UNCTAD officials also said countries like South Africa had managed breakthroughs with the technology they have, like connecting to
the Internet via copper wire.

Still, the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa deprecated in a report issued in October the tendency to ''present information and
communications technology as a 'cure-all' tool''  under pressure from various vendors.

''Africa has seen hundreds of information technology projects that are synonymous to pipes without water. . . . The focus on
technology, not information, and emphasis on tools, not people will continue to have drastic
consequences for organisational development,'' the report said.

The UNCTAD report itself insists that current international debate on e-commerce is marred by preconceived ideas and misperceptions. It
advises developing countries to make their own assessments and avoid ''dominant models''.

For the sceptics, asking poor countries to adopt e-commerce is like the old joke about the telephone company advising clients: ''If your
phone is not working, ring this number.''
(END/IPS/ap-wd-if-cr-


Origin: Rome/TECHNOLOGY-TRADE/
                              ----

       [c] 2000, InterPress Third World News Agency (IPS)

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

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

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