From Africa Recovery, Vol.12#2 (November 1998), Briefs page

World Bank urges narrowing of knowledge gap

Several African countries have overtaken industrial countries in adopting new telecommunications technologies, observes the World Bank's 1998/99 World Development Report. Published under the title, "Knowledge for Development", the report cites at least two dozen developing countries including Botswana, Djibouti, The Gambia and Mauritius which already have fully digital telephone networks. Many of these countries' telephone networks have completely bypassed the intermediate stages of copper wires and analog technology.

Nevertheless, much of the developing world is unable to access even basic communications technology, due to lengthy waiting lists for telephone installation as well as lower incomes, the World Bank report points out. On average, sub-Saharan Africa has just 1.5 phone lines per 100 people as compared to 64 lines per 100 in the United States.

The report focuses on two types of knowledge -- technical knowledge and "knowledge about attributes" (such as the quality of a product or the credibility of a borrower). World Bank President James Wolfensohn warns in the report's foreword that a further widening of the "knowledge gap" between rich and poor will cause "capital and other resources [to] flow to those countries with the stronger knowledge bases, reinforcing inequality."

"Three key means of facilitating the acquisition of knowledge from abroad are an open trading regime, foreign investment and technology licensing," says Mr. Wolfensohn.

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