UNSIA Newsletter Issue 2, November 1998
HITD offers Low-cost Access to Global Knowledge
Only a year and a half ago, information poverty pervaded Africa. Today technology is being used in innovative and productive ways. The HITD component of the Special Initiative is facilitating for Africa low-cost and rapid access to the global knowledge base and to global economic opportunities.
Real life examples of the potential of the information age in Africa include:
¨ the arid lands researcher at the University of Bamako in Mali, whose library has acquired no new scientific journals in her field since 1975, has instant access to the latest research in her field, talks via e-mail daily to other arid lands researchers worldwide, plans joint projects, and secures grants for her research;
¨ the farmer in South Africa using a community telecentre, finds the latest weather conditions in gloomy England and exports his roses accordingly. The government planner in Egypt saves his country millions of dollars through the use of an external debt management database, taking advantage of minute- by-minute fluctuations in exchange rates;
¨ Aster, a tenth grade student at Kokeb Comprehensive School in Akaki, Ethiopia gets an e-mail pal in Lawrence, Kansas (USA) with whom she exchanges daily life experiences, songs, holiday customs, and hopefully later: information on scholarship opportunities at the University of Kansas.