Our Common Humanity in the Information Age. Principles and Values for Development

DIGITAL DIVIDE & OUR COMMON HUMANIT Y
Katherine Sierra, Vice-President, The World Bank
It is a pleasure for me to share some thoughts on our common humanity and particularly 
the role that information and communication technologies can play in enhancing 
development and fighting poverty.
When the 19th century American philosopher Henry David Thoreau was informed that 
long-distance telephone communication had been invented, he asked what purpose this 
would serve. He was told that, for example, New York could now speak to Texas. “What 
if New York has nothing to say to Texas?” he said. Well, New York had a lot to say to 
Texas, and now so does Beijing, Sao Paulo, Kampala and Paris, Moscow and Mumbai, 
the doctor in Lima, and the midwife in a rural commu nity who is attending to a difficult 
childbirth, and the farmers in rural Africa who want to speak with the exporter in the 
capital about pricing for their crops.
Communication between people in different parts of the world takes place most easily 
when the technologies that we now have at our disposal are extended to all. For the past 
25 years, we have seen what many people consider to be the greatest advances in 
communication in the history of the world. It has been a real revolution, but it has also 
been an unequal revolution.
So what is happening with this revolution? The widespread use of information and 
communication technologies has democratized access to information to everyone, to 
everywhere. It has opened up countless opportunities in education, and at same time it 
has provided new ways of empowerment possibilities for billions of people around the 
world: from participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre in Brazil to the involvement of 
communities in controlling public expenditures in the Philippines. New communication 
technologies have been credited to strengthening accountability in governance systems. 
Participation in decision-making powered by the new information age is a key component 
to a comprehensive approach to sustainable development, an approach based on 
prosperity for all people and the well-being of the planet. Our world is now a global 
interconnected globe which allows for the creation of open platforms for collective 
actions on shared concerns. These include poverty, conflict, the issue of slavery, and 
inequality of opportunities within and among countries. The interconnected society also 

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Chapter I – Introduction | 17 
contributes to mobilizing institutions, business and civil society for the achievement of 
our common goals represented by the Millennium Development Goals.
New technologies have allowed issues driven platforms through virtual communities 
around the world making local and national realities into global causes in unprecedented 
ways: from the fight against AIDS to climate change, we can now think and act both 
globally and locally in real time.
The spread of the telephone has been rapid and widespread - more of half the world’s 
population now has access to fixed telephone lines. Mobile telephone subscribers have 
reached 2 billion people and the mobile footprint now covers 77% of the world’s 
population.
Over the last 25 years, developing countries have considerably increased their access to 
information and communication technologies, especially for telephone services. Between 
1980 and 2005, the number of subscribers has risen by 30 times, developing countries in 
1980 only accounted for 20% of world telephone lines. By now it is 60%. This has really 
been driven by the revolution in mobile telephony as well as by private competition. The 
growth in access has been particularly remarkable in Sub-Saharan Africa with fixed and 
mobile telephone density expanded about 1 telephone per 100 people in 1990 to more 
than 8 in 2005. In rural areas in Burkina Faso in 1990, for example, there were fewer than 
7,000 telephones outside the capital city. And today the mobile footprint covers more 
than 50% of the population outside of Ouagadougou. It is worth noting how developing 
countries have led the way in the mobile revolution. What can be seen in the south of 
China is by far the world largest mobile market and there are considerably more 
subscribers in the developing than in the industrialized world.
Data applications over mobile phone have also spreads rapidly in developing countries. 
Perhaps 500 billion text messages were sent worldwide in 2004, with developing 
countries leading the growth of usage. The average Filipino, for instance, sends 10 
messages a day, adding up to 55 billion text messages a year. The impact of Information 
and Communications Technologies (ICT) for development is clear: an increase of 10 
mobile phones per 100 people gives a GDP growth by 0.6%. A 1% increase in the 
number of internet users increases total exports by 4.3%.
At the same time, we know that the communication revolution continues to be unequal. 
While the developing world makes huge progress in basic ICT technology and 
infrastructure, the picture is much more mixed for advanced ICT. Worldwide internet use 
has more than quadrupled between 2000 and 2005, but the difference in the number of 

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18 | Our Common Humanity in the Information Age 
secured internet services and the availability of e-commerce for developing nations is 
stark.
While developed nations have more than 300 servers for 1 million people, developing 
nations have fewer than 2. The digital divide is a reality and we must work to bridge the 
gap.
Cooperation between governments and the private sector is critical in order to connect 
those who are still lacking modern ICTs. Cooperation among governmental institutions is 
essential to extended e-services to the citizens and cooperation across countries is
needed to ensure regional access and equity.
Working together, we can bring this future closely to today for the benefit of humanity 
and our shared values of peace, development and equal opportunity for all.
The World Bank will continue to work with the UN system and partners in the private 
sector and civil society to achieve this goal. 

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