Here is my comment on the british department for international
development white paper on globalisation and development..
this is the sort of thing I'llbe arguing at Medinfo, osca, and at the
planned idf, bcs meeting
rather than take up these lists with discussion, I have opened
www.communityzero.com/globdev where there is more scope for discussion.
Globalisation and development: comment on the white paper.
At the moment this is the personal opinion of the author. However it
is intended to be part of the material for a meeting to discuss the issues.
1. Background
The IDF and the BCS jointly submitted a contribution during the
consultation period of the drafting of the globalisation and
development white paper (www.globalisation.gov.uk )
We were I suppose unsurprised to receive no acknowledgement or comment
on our contribution.
Since drafting it I have been involved in a DfID funded project on
strengthening the knowledge and information systems of the urban poor,
which presumably fits within the pro poor policy framework outlined by
the white paper? See www.communityzero.com/kisup (I point to this
partly for the sake of openness, and partly because it will frame some
of the comments.)
2. Two thrusts and two areas
There are two thrusts to the paper that we welcome. The first is that
it calls on all people of moral conscience to join a political fight
against cynicism and negativism, (Making globalisation work for the
world's poor is the greatest moral challenge facing our generation)
and second is that all British government policies have to be pro poor.
As information systems designers (the narrow field) and as information
practitioners this gives us two areas to comment: firstly in the
actual process of monitoring and evaluation, what is pro poor and how
is it measured; and secondly in the establishing of our own practices,
how do we do it? By appealing to people of moral conscience, we have
to take an interest too, not only as professionals but in our
political lives.
I must admit I am a little puzzled by this idea of an appeal to people
of moral conscience. I can't imagine that there is anyone alive who
would claim to not be one? Pinochet presumably is one? So is
Mandela? And Thatcher? And Blair. And Short? And Bush. So it
encompasses a wide category with lots of capacity for proof. Good
rich stuff for information systems designers.
But is seems a challenge to which our professional societies must respond.
There is an extra challenge for the information community. The Prime
Minister in his foreward specifies "get increasing access to modern
knowledge and technology". Claire Short in her foreward says she has
"set out an agenda for managing the process in a way that could ensure
that the new wealth, technology and knowledge being generated bring
sustainable benefits to the one in five of humanity who live in
extreme poverty. This is our bundle?
3. Three policy commitments
There are three areas of the Key Policy Commitments which seem to me
our concern:
The UK Government will:
1.. (mine)
oWork with others to manage globalisation so that poverty is
systematically reduced and the International Development Targets
achieved.
o Promote economic growth that is equitable and
environmentally sustainable.
2 (mine)
o Promote better health and education for poor people, and harness the
new information and communications technologies to share skills and
knowledge with developing countries.
o Help focus more of the UK and global research effort on
the needsof the poor, and make intellectual property regimes work
better forpoor people.
3 (mine)
o Work to reduce the contribution made by developed countries to
global environmental degradation.
If you look at
http://www.globalisation.gov.uk/Forewords/KeyPolicyCommitments.htm
you might well pick up other points you would prefer to focus on.
4. Knowledge
The paper says firstly (1.2) "after many years in which development
policy was subordinated to commercial and short term interests" then
1.7 "In the last few decades there has been enormous progress in
development". Hmm. Does this imply 1.2 is good or bad? Is 1.7 true?
In 1.8 it says "Over this period, we have learned a lot about what
works in development and what does not." Have we? Where is this
knowledge? How is it organised? How do we know whether it is true or
false? In 1.13 though the importance of urbanisation is emphasised (so
as I agree I don't dispute). But in 1.15 progress is dependent on
developing country leadership. What does this mean? That the
developing countries are responsible for their own lightbulb changing?
Or that it is the leaders of the developing countries which have to be
developed? And in 1.15 is introduced "global public goods". This is a
lovely concept and we will return to it.
In 1.17 is introduced "movement of goods, services, capital, people
and information", technological advance, technology and ideas, global
norms and values with the link asserted between these objects and
development. 1.18 asserts that around a third of world trade takes
place within transnationals, "between subsidiaries of the same
corporations based in different countries".
Para.24 has another nice touch, the consumption patterns of people in
developed countries are the major source of global environmental degradation.
Para.18 is a call to arms, in support of development and against
marginalisation and impoverishment which depends on the policy choices
adopted by governments, international institutions, the private sector
and civil society. So there we have our role. So what is to be done?
5. Effective government and efficient markets
Given the knowledge organisation problem I've outlined in 4, this
seems to me a vast hostage to fortune. Books have been written, and
will continue to be while all I want is to outline the basis of our
approach. One question only I'll allow myself. If I have a bank
account, an insurance policy, and a pension fund, and you all do, then
in what sense is our collective private activity still private?
Hasn't it become public? In which case private capital is actually
public? Public private is public public?
In 2.57 though there is a point with which I agree so I'll emphasise
it: "Only the state can ensure the provision of key public services".
We come on board in 2.71 for it is asserted that new information and
communication technologies have a role to play in "strengthening the
voices of poor people" and in 70 the policy is determined of
"empowering them to take their own decisions". At 74 the internet
appears for the first time, but in the context of facilitating the
growing pornography industry and the trade in child prostitutes!
6. Sharing skills and knowledge
104 knowledge based systems of production, 105, diffusion of knowledge
and technology to developing countries, 106 high level primary
education for all, 107 read, write or work with numbers 111 a strong
information and knowledge content, research analyse, train and manage,
112 distance learning, commonwealth of learning.
Then bridging the digital divide. 116 "New technologies have slashed
the cost of processing, storing and moving information". The "access
to knowledge and making government machinery work better". 118 "The
Internet and mobile telephones offer poor countries new things to sell"
But under this titles is slipped in (119), " key constraint on
Internet access: is "a legal and regulatory framework for a
competitive telecommunications sector" in which "governments need to
move from state-run telecommunications monopolies with administered
prices, to a regulatory environment which allows competition". So
people of moral conscience have similtaneously to accept that and :
"Only the state can ensure the provision of key public services".
within two chapters. Still, in 120 we hear that the UK helped to
achieve agreement "to a statement of the principles which would
underpin future commercial negotiations" for Internet backbone
companies. (ITU - I need to know more about this.) There is more on
all this in the next few paras. Remember the chapter is called
"sharing" skills and knowledge.
It comes on message (in my world) with a section entitled Encouraging
pro-poor research. This is the section which I can see enables a lot
of what we would want to do.
135 - 149 deal with international public goods and intellectual
property. It says that not enough of the world's knowledge is relevant
to the needs of the poor (135). It suggests there are "international
public goods" (and we would suggest that the world's knowledge
organisation is one of those). It sets up a commission on IPR. It
doesn't suggest that if people want their property protected by actions
of states then they incur obligations. This is the section where
would want most clearly to elaborate our principles and policies.
7. Enough for now
From there on, we enter the territories of main stream development
ideas, in which we have no more competence than anyone else. The
public and the private are the areas I'd chose to debate. Until right
at the end, there is a section on measuring progress - 361 to end.
This is where we come in with actions.
363 proposes to set up development policy forums again. Given our non
involvement last time, one wonders (without holding breath) whether
there will be any change there?
So let us return to our ten points.
Intellectual property obligations
Content and containers
Development Information Plan
Professional societies
Education and training
Methods, tools and models
IDRC International /information development resource champions
Connectivity
Open source
Governance good practice
We can safely say, that DfID still doesn't understand the nature of
information and while some of the points we argued for are there in
some guise or other, and there is certainly the space to make the
arguments, maybe we have made 10% progress? The creating sparks
manifesto proposed an annual audit. Maybe we'll come back to this in
five years?
ends
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