Digital divide, social divide, paradigmatic divide

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic -- The digital divide is nothing other than the reflection of the social divide in the digital world.

The use of ICT for human development does offer opportunities to reduce the social divide for individual beings or communities; yet there exists a series of obstacles to overcome to make it possible for ICT use to bring the opportunities closer to these people and these groups of people. The very lack of existence of an infrastructure for connectivity is only the first obstacle, although it often receives an exclusive focus, due to the lack of an holistic approach.

Offering an access to ICT does not necessarily imply that the people who benefit from the technologies can thus access opportunities for human development; education, more specifically a digital and information literacy, plays an essential part in the process.

Telecommunication systems, computer hardware and software are predictable prerequisites; however, the true pillars of human-focused information societies (or societies of shared knowledge) are education, ethics, and participation, interacting together as a systemic process.

As long as decision makers in the field of public policies or of ICT4D projects are not ready to consider these issues, and keep on favoring a mere technological vision, we will suffer from the most dangerous divide in terms of impact: the paradigmatic divide.

Read the full PDF document by clicking HERE. The original of this document is also available in Spanish and a French translation too.