5. Ensuring Equitable Access and Empowerment

Although the technological capacity to transfer information across large distances has increased rapidly in recent years, there is evidence that if it is not available to all it may simply perpetuate existing social, economic and political disparities. Television and radio remain much more widely accessible than the Internet, especially in Africa. Experiments with telecentres and Internet-linked rural community radio have shown that it is possible to make Internet-based information available to large numbers of people. The challenge is to apply these pilot approaches more widely in developing countries so that rural communities, and their governments, can manage information more effectively and develop communication strategies that are relevant and accessible to the poor.