E-development

Much is being said and written about how the Internet has revolutionized communications, bringing to reality what the social thinker Marshall McLuhan described some 52 years ago as the global village.

The 2014 yearbook of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), released a few days ago, highlights a less known but equally revolutionary transformative role of the Internet: that of a development enabler.

For years now, the ITU has been issuing its yearbook showing the progress of countries on ICT (information and communication technologies). Eleven indicators of ICT, ranging from mobile phone ownership to the number of households with Internet access, are used to calculate an ICT Development Index (IDI… sorry for all these abbreviations!).

Its latest yearbook has an entire chapter presenting and analyzing results of statistics correlating the IDI with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of social and economic targets for 2015 agreed on by the United Nations in 2000.

The analysis demonstrated significant correlations between the IDI and several of the MDGs, such as infant and child survival.

In healthcare, the Internet helps by allowing greater access to health information. Health professionals use the Internet to share data to monitor healthcare and disease trends. In Thailand, for example, smartphones are used by antimalaria workers to provide information on where the patients are and their status of treatment. Smartphones (and cellphones in general) are important for communications during emergencies.

Other sections of the yearbook discuss how ICT has spurred e-business. In the Philippines, there is an explosion of postings on such sites as Sulit, where you can find practically everything from cars to medicines. Many of the people selling through the Internet are operating out of their homes, and tend to be small- or medium-scale entrepreneurs.

E-government

The ITU yearbook also discusses e-government, and features the results of a global survey showing the leading services offered by e-government sites. The most utilized service is creating a personal online account, followed by paying income taxes, registering businesses, applying for social security benefits or for a birth certificate, paying fines or utility bills, applying for environmental benefits, and registering a motor vehicle.

You can see it’s a mixed bag, with e-government used more often to collect payment and taxes, But even then, there is a plus side in terms of convenience as well as savings in terms of transportation and time lost.

There’s more that e-government can do by way of services. For example, there are government Internet sites, notably those of the Departments of Trade and Industry and of Transportation and Communications, where you can post complaints about spurious business practices. The sites are very active, with numerous complaints posted, but I wonder why the businesses that people complain about—like those whose sales agents approach you and practically kidnap you to try their induction cookers or massage chairs, with outrageous payment schemes—continue to operate in malls.

Government also needs to be more proactive in advising the public on the use of Internet selling sites, which con artists have invaded to sell questionable products, including some rather dangerous medicines. Other scammers don’t even bother to provide anything, and are out there just to get gullible people to remit money.

I am also interested in something broader than e-government, and this is e-governance or how ICT might strengthen civil society. This includes government becoming more transparent, and citizens claiming more public virtual spaces for substantive exchanges of their views on the country’s needs, and how we might respond to those needs.

The ITU yearbook cited some findings from a UN Global Pulse project showing the main concerns from Twitter. “An honest and responsive government” was at the top of the list for Twitter concerns analyzed worldwide.

That reminded me of how social media has been so important in recent mass uprisings seeking to topple unpopular governments, particularly in Arab states. Social media was used not just for mobilizing people to go out in the streets but also for very critical discussions on government. We certainly see some of that in our social media, although all too often, the discussions become counterproductive and are reduced to petty arguments.

Uneven access

How is the Philippines doing in terms of the IDI?

Globally, we rank 103rd out of 166 countries. Some of our neighbors are doing far better: Hong Kong-China (9th), Singapore (16th), Malaysia (71st), Thailand (81st) and China (86th). Almost at par with us are Vietnam (101st) and Indonesia (106th). Trailing behind us are less developed countries like Cambodia and Laos.

In the Philippines, 18.7 percent and 22.7 percent of households now have computers and Internet access, respectively. (The higher figure probably reflects the use of Internet cafes.) In terms of individuals, 37 percent of Filipinos now use the Internet, but we still have a long way to go, with a global ITU target of 60 percent of people worldwide using the Internet by 2020.

The problem with ICT development in the Philippines is that it has been so uneven, still mainly benefiting high and middle-income households. According to the ITU, only 31 percent of our rural areas are covered by at least 3G mobile networks.

Affordability is still a serious problem in the Philippines. Mobile phones are more expensive here compared to most of our Southeast Asian neighbors and China (where those notorious “China phones”—cheap but almost disposable cell phones” proliferate).

Whether for fixed- or mobile-based connections, the cost of broadband in the Philippines is still among the highest in the region. The ITU does point out that geography is one reason for the high costs in the Philippines, Indonesia and the South Pacific islands. Some hope exists for the Philippines: It was only in the yearbook that I learned about a Boracay-Palawan submarine cable which was inaugurated just last year, and which might bring down costs of broadband.

Outside of personal subscriptions and Internet cafes, Filipinos are pretty much left on their own when trying to access the Internet. The yearbook notes that governments can do more to increase access, through post offices and public libraries.

Crucial for the future is how we integrate the new technologies into our educational system. The yearbook has graphs showing the Philippines doing very poorly in terms of integrating ICT into our educational system. Only about 20 percent of our schools (primary and lower secondary) have Internet, with more use of computers to teach other subjects rather than to impart computer skills.

We need clearer agendas and targets from government agencies, as well as the private sector, on how we can use ICT for national development. One glaring finding reported in the yearbook: The gains in ICT seems to have had little impact on promoting gender equality. Not only that, it seems to be creating a gender divide, with more men using, and benefiting from, the new technologies. I’d be curious to see what the situation is for the Philippines.
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