|
|
Online advocacy principles and case studies within the context of ICT and Conflict Transformation
Discussion paper written for Oneworld South Asia Partners meeting, 3-4 February 2003, Delhi, India
Introduction
Information Communications Technology (ICT) in South Asia, as well as in the rest of the world, is an experiment in progress. Reading the wealth of literature on ICT, it is easy to forget that it is not a panacea for problems facing developing nations. Normative assumptions about ICT tend in most cases to outstrip knowledge of how technology is actually used . ICTs cannot magically liberate people, alleviate poverty, erase the ‘digital divide’, and ensure prosperity. Much of the literature written on ICT does not treat it as one factor amidst a myriad of others that shape inter-state and intra-state relations in developing countries. Furthermore, in planning for and using ICT, many countries often concentrate on ICT itself, rather than what they want to accomplish through it. It must be remembered that ICT is a means to an end, not an end in itself.
This paper will concentrate on the increasing confluence between ICT and Conflict Transformation. Case studies in this field are rare, since ICT and Conflict Transformation is still at an embryonic stage. Interestingly, while NGOs working in the fields of human rights, conflict transformation and governance etc. have been quicker to adopt IT savvy advocacy principles, governments in South Asia are also increasingly aware of the potential of ICTs to buttress interventions, on an official level and grassroots level, to transform ethno-political conflict.
What is ICT? What can it do?
It is almost facetious to ask, given how much has been written on it, what ICT is. Though we may encounter it daily, and only realise its importance in its absence, ICT has been defined by different bodies as being, inter alia:
• A bridge between developed and developing countries
• A tool for economic and social development
• An engine for growth
• The central pillar for the construction of a global knowledge based economy and society
• An opportunity for countries to free themselves from the tyranny of geography
Often touted as the harbinger of a new world order, ICTs are now considered “a viable option for development policy where other needs, such as building roads and hospitals and providing drinking water etc. were considered more urgent.” ICTs are also considered an important tool to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of the UN.
While most of these definitions capture the essence and the potential of ICT, they ignore major challenges facing developing nations entering the ‘information society’ and ‘knowledge economy’. Countries in South Asia for instance, are racked by internal conflict, border disputes and are economically under-developed, socially fragmented and very often, politically weak. While most of the definitions of ICTs come from countries where the exercise of nation building is complete, ICTs are an intrinsic part of the nation building exercise in South Asia, and do not stand apart from it. As such, ICTs are also caught up in the complex web of inequalities and social disparities that continue to be the source of conflict in South Asia.
The crucial question here is of access to technology. While ICT reflects the growing convergence between the Internet, telephone and wireless technologies, e-government is a cruel joke for someone without clean drinking water and digitising government forms and putting them on the internet is meaningless for those who do not have the language skills and computer literacy to use this information.
While this alone does not belittle the potential of ICT, one must also recognise that ICTs can help only if the necessary under-pinning for social reform is present – the respect for human rights, democracy and equitable distribution of technology. The digital divide is nothing more than a reflection in the world of bits, the inequalities in the world of atoms. Peoples who are dispossessed, and live in oppressive regimes, can never harness the enormous potential of ICT.
ICT and South Asia
Providing access to technology is critical for socio-economic development, but it must be about more than just physical access. Computers and connections are insufficient if the technology is not used effectively because it is not affordable, if people do not understand how to put it to use or if they are discouraged from using it or if the local economy cannot sustain its use.
This is precisely why ICT will play, for the foreseeable future, a role limited to complementing interventions by other actors working on the ground to resolve conflict. However, the converse also holds true. Recognition of the future potential of ICT and developing inclusive, participatory long-term plans to upgrade existing access to ICT can help those who have traditionally been excluded from developmental processes take part in the exercise of nation building. One can see this dynamism in progress in the North-East of Sri Lanka, where as part of the wider Regaining Sri Lanka (RSL) framework, basic telephony and the birth pangs of an ICT infra-structure have begun after decades of severe armed conflict. There are already two operators delivering GSM mobile telephony services to the region, a new telephone exchange has been set up, and the Liberation of Tamil Tigers of Eelam (LTTE) is rumoured to be interested in procuring an External Telecommunications Gateway License from the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC), as part of the opening up of international gateways when the state owned telecom company ended its monopoly recently.
|
Tags
You must be logged in to add tags.
|
Writer Profile
Sanjana
Sanjana Hattotuwa is a Rotary World Peace Scholar presently pursuing a Masters in International Studies from the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. The views expressed here are his own. He can be contacted at hatt@wow.lk.
|
Comments
wonderful article Laurent Straskraba | Apr 7th, 2003
thanks sanjana for this wonderul article. it shows so many objectives and possibilities of the net and related issues. the most important fact in my opinion is that the tool is not the solution itself ... there has to be content, people who train others and many other criteria which are necessary for "good governance" and high value impact of information and communication.
kind regards,
laurent
thanks sir Shakti Ghimire | Aug 17th, 2003
thanks sir Shakti Ghimire | Aug 17th, 2003
i want to more artical than that
please send me releated artical (computer)
apexnepal@hotmail.com
You must be a TakingITGlobal member to post a comment. Sign up for free or login.
|
|
