5.

Contents

1. Introduction

2. Access Issues

3. Benefits?

4. Issues

5. Discussion & Conclusion

6. References

Discussion

So far, practical and pragmatic issues such as access to and benefits from the Internet for developing countries have been discussed. The Internet has been treated a culturally neutral technology. Ihde (1992), however, argues that ICT is both culture-laden and asymmetrical. Schech and Haggis (2000) agree and go a great deal further. In their discussion about development and culture, they question what development is and in whose favour it operates. Using the work of Escobar, Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World, they argue that development is not a means by which global inequalities and power differentials can be addressed (p. 72). They assert that, in fact, it does the opposite: it produces "massive underdevelopment and impoverishment, untold exploitation and oppression" (ibid., quoting Escobar). The development discourse itself is rejected and a 'post-development' discourse sought, "a discourse which will emerge outside of, and importantly, in resistance to Western modernity, to embrace the knowledges, ways of living, and aspirations of those 'objects' of development discourse ­ the poor and dispossessed of the Third World" (ibid.).

Conclusion

This essay has demonstrated that any benefits from the Internet to the poor or disadvantaged anywhere is dependent on their access. It has depicted Internet access and the benefits that can be derived from it in Africa as a complex issue of interest to many organisations within and outside of Africa. It has also suggested that the 'development', from which Internet access largely stems, is seen by some as a new form of colonisation. An outside observer may wonder if the vast sums of money spent on ICT in Africa is warranted in the face such sorely lacking basic human needs as clean water and food. While the 'tinkering' by the West is not likely to solve the problems of Africa, it is suggested that the Internet can indeed benefit the people, for example through the work of those NGOs, whose aim it is to support and empower the people to present their own stories to the world.

The last word is left to an African, Thapisa (1996), who asserts that

Africa should not dread the encroachment of the Internet....It should enter the global information facility on its own terms...by carving out a niche for itself as a user and provider of information. It should give and take. That is, it should give to the world that which is uniquely African that is if there is still any left, and take what it needs. (p. 77)