People on the political left have been doing considerable hand-wringing over the "digital divide" lately. One of their concerns is that access to a wide array of digital technologies allows people in the already developed world to learn, earn, and develop yet further, while people in the developing world, lacking that access, fall further behind. It's not that I don't worry about this myself. I do. If you're a regular reader of my columns, you've probably figured out that I worry about practically everything. It's my curse or, rather, it's one of them. The issue that I have with the alarm over the digital divide is that I'm convinced that there are much higher-priority worries in the developing world. My intellectual capabilities are not exceptional (which, of course, troubles me), but I do feel that, being a major worrier, my opinion has a modicum of validity when it comes to assessing what to fret about.

What set me off was a March 15, 2005, article in eWEEK that reported on a proposal to implement a tax on the technology investments made by cities in wealthy nations. The proposal suggests using the tax revenue to buy cell phones and computers for people in poor countries. The tax, which is supported by leaders of African nations, is already in place in Geneva, Switzerland.

Writing about this topic makes me even more nervous than my usual elevated state of angst because I fear that readers will stop accusing me of being a bleeding-heart liberal and start branding me a heartless bigot. To avoid that, let me clearly state that I am very much in favor of helping developing nations to develop, as long as our efforts have a decent chance of achieving the desired results. I believe that the more educated, prosperous, healthy, and happy everyone everywhere is, the less opportunity there will be for hate and violence to breed. A fully developed world would also likely increase material wealth everywhere, including in the already developed countries, as it would open new markets for our goods and services.

That having been said, this tax proposal seems at least partially misguided to me. As pointed out in a couple of articles in the March 10, 2005, edition of The Economist, a high percentage of the people in the developing world live on less than $1 a day. Many are illiterate and are just this side of starving to death. As The Economist points out, even the richest charity on the planet, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the wealth of which was derived mostly from the sale of software, uses few if any of its developing world donations to provide computers or communication devices to those communities. Instead, it uses the money that it sends to the poorer parts of the globe mostly for things like vaccinating people against communicable diseases.

The Economist suggests that cellular phones might be a good investment in these countries, countries where the landline networks are usually very far from extensive, since cell phones tend to be used less frivolously there than in the rich world. In the developing world, cell phones are often owned by microbusinesses that rent them out by the call. Amongst their other uses, farmers there use cell phones to check on prices in different markets in order to obtain the best possible profit for their produce. Like in the rich world, they probably also use cell phones to, inadvertently of course, annoy the heck out of everyone else in public places, but I think that's a small price to pay for development.

What I and The Economist articles question is the wisdom of setting the dissemination of computers and Internet connections as a high priority for the use of aid and development dollars. I do not in any way object to people in those countries having computers, communication devices, or other electronic gizmos. They have just as much right to be thoroughly and endlessly frustrated by incomprehensible, incompatible, and instantly obsolete technologies as the rest of us. It's just that I think that there must be much more productive ways to spend scarce aid and development dollars.

I did a little bit of research and found that, according to the World Bank, 46.4% of the people in Sub-Saharan Africa and 30.4% in Southern Asia lived on less than $1 per day in 2001. In that year, there were 12 countries with more than 50% of their population living below that level. I was fortunate enough not to be born into those circumstances, so I may be way off base here, but I would be willing to bet that if you did a survey in those impoverished countries that asks, "Would you rather have a computer so that you could read the latest celebrity fan blog before you die of starvation tomorrow, or would you rather have some food so that you won't starve to death?" you would find that, with an accuracy of plus or minus 1%, more than 99% would choose food. Since I don't know of any edible computers, before we send them our silicon marvels, maybe we should think about first providing people in poor countries with some nourishment or, better yet, the tools, seeds, and knowledge needed to produce their own food or to create goods and services that they can sell to earn the money needed to buy food.

Although I refer to reading celebrity fan blogs, obviously I am being jocular. I recognize that the Web provides a lot of useful information and communication opportunities that people in the developing world could use to help improve their lives. I just see one problem. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), in 1999 about 31% of Sub-Saharan males and 47% of females over 15 years of age were illiterate. The equivalent numbers in South Asia were 34% and 58%. The regional grouping of the Middle East and North Africa was close to that of the Sub-Sahara, with 25% of males and 47% of females being illiterate. And just being literate may not be enough. Being able to read and write only a language that is rarely, if ever, used on the Internet will not be of much help should you get connected. I don't know how many of the people classified as literate that qualification would exclude from productive Internet use, but it is probably greater than zero.

Maybe I'm forgetting something, but I can't think of much content on the Internet that you can take advantage of without being able to read, other than maybe porn and some, but not all, online games. Call me crazy, which seems to be the assessment of some nonetheless loyal readers, but I don't think that porn or online games are going to do much to improve the well-being of people living on less than $1 a day. I'm about as far as you can possibly get from being an expert on development issues, but I have to believe that building schools, training and paying teachers, buying text books, and making sure that students can afford to learn rather than work all day in the fields or factories will provide a lot more benefit than supplying a few computers and Internet connections.

And, by the way, before I sign off for this week, has anyone given any consideration to the fact that a lot of poor countries do not yet have electricity running into every village, home, and hut? Where they do, the supply is often unreliable. A lack of electricity makes it difficult to put a computer to any more useful purpose than a paperweight. I don't know how much paper someone who has not yet achieved functional literacy tends to accumulate, but it's probably not a lot. Maybe, just maybe, we should think about helping poor countries to build electricity generation and distribution infrastructure before we think about distributing computers there.

Joel Klebanoff is a consultant, a writer, and president of Klebanoff Associates, Inc., a Toronto, Canada-based marketing communications firm. Joel has 25 years experience working in IT, first as a programmer/analyst and then as a marketer. He holds a Bachelor of Science in computer science and an MBA, both from the University of Toronto. Contact Joel at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Before some irate forum poster viciously lashes out at him, he would like to state that, yes, he does realize that he uses a computer to increase his knowledge and earn his living. And he is glad to not have to choose between a computer and food.