Given its increasing potential to provide social and economic benefits to societies, bridging the digital divide has become a priority for governments around the world.
This is especially true for major developing countries like Indonesia, India and China, due to ICT’s ability to connect a vast and diverse population at a speed faster than traditional infrastructure can offer. ICT can be a motor for enhancing public services such as education and health care, as well as promoting entrepreneurship and the growth of the small and medium enterprises that often dominate an emerging country’s business landscape.
In public services, some examples of ICT applications include tele-health, remote diagnostics and distance learning. In the private domain, examples include information services for small businesses and financial services such as microfinance, as well as training and skill-enhancing services.
Indonesia is a country that will especially benefit from further investment in ICT, given its vast geographic scope as an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands. As a developing country, it is blessed with a more than 90 percent gross secondary enrollment ratio. In addition, mobile phone coverage reached 90 percent of Indonesia’s territory in 2010. The potential of mobile phones as a means of bridging the digital gap is immense, as many governments and businesses around the world are realizing.
ICT proliferation in Indonesia is currently concentrated in areas on Java, especially in large cities, but not in the poorer regions and many distant islands. Further, the archipelagic nature of the country poses its own unique connectivity challenges. Across the Association of Southeast Asian Nations member countries, almost 6 percent of the population had access to a computer in 2007. Indonesia stood at 2 percent, while Singapore was more than 76 percent. This is perhaps an unfair comparison, but the fact remains that access to regions other than Java needs to be improved, as does the government’s readiness to use and promote ICT. Data from the World Economic Forum for 2010-11 place Indonesia below India and China with regard to the government’s prioritization and development of ICT.
Fortunately, the Indonesian government has acknowledged the need to connect its far-flung citizens and enterprises through the release of an economic master plan (MP3EI). One of the key priorities under the plan, which spans from 2011 to 2025, is to establish interconnectivity across six economic corridors, including investments in ICT. Three areas of focus under ICT are regulation and policy, human resources and science and technology, as well as infrastructure, which accounts for the largest proportion of investment. Some $440 million is allocated to general ICT investment from 2011 to 2025 and $26.6 billion is allocated to ICT infrastructure.
While infrastructure dominates the focus of future ICT investment in terms of absolute numbers, it is probable that advances in human resources and science and technology, especially with regard to innovation, will be key to making great strides in ICT development. In this regard, the government in its MP3EI has acknowledged priorities such as the need to build data centers, encourage ICT sector capacity building in every layer of society and build domestic applications and digital content industries.
However, further debate is needed to develop strategies for increasing innovation in ICT, especially those innovations that address pressing challenges in rural areas in a cost-effective manner. These innovations have the potential to create sustainable change at a much faster rate, especially in the case of developing countries such as Indonesia.
For example, India, through its innovative use of hardware and software applications, is managing to reach and create an environment of social inclusivity, where the poor and uneducated are able to generate social and economic wealth. The Aakash, at $35 per unit, is the world’s cheapest tablet computer and will give millions of people access to the Internet. It is currently slated to be rolled out for college students across the country. Aside from the economic benefits, the tablet will go a long way toward bridging India’s huge digital divide.
Other innovative ideas that have enabled inclusivity by boosting access and affordability are numerous e-government programs, which essentially provide government services to assist in the many tasks that require time, validation and costs, such as registering of land and property or paying utility bills.
The program Bhoomi eases access to land record certificates for villagers, thus reducing delays and corruption. These certificates can then be accessed by bank officials to provide loans. Gyandoot bridges the digital divide by providing computer services to rural citizens and also generating employment for the youth who man and provide services at the kiosks, while eSeva allows people to pay their taxes and utility bills, deliver certificates and grants some licenses and permits. Akshaya provides computer literacy and other e-government services, as well as employment to rural youth.
These innovations and many others have been developed and rolled out to diverse communities in different states of India. They serve the explicit purpose of providing help and access to those people who are poor or uneducated and thus may not understand the value and relevance of ICT. Studying such policies in India and elsewhere could be of great value to policy makers as they promote innovation in ICT and study how they might further bridge the digital divide.
Bridging the digital divide in Indonesia will be a boon for economic development and the fostering of social capital. It can also help to address pressing issues such as disaster management as more citizens are connected to the information and technological applications that urban dwellers take for granted. Creating the right environment for such innovation is not an easy task, but it is one that merits government priority and further deliberation under this new economic master plan.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Nirmal Nikhar
Quelle/Source: The Jakarta Globe, 06.01.2012
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