Left Behind in the Rush to Go Online

by Eric Johnson

A complicated mix of factors is limiting people's access to the Internet in Central Asia. Eric Johnson, executive director of Internews International, describes the region's level of connectivity and why the Internet is spreading so slowly in Central Asia.

n less than a decade, the Internet has transformed the acquisition and distribution of information and stoked economies in developed countries three to ten times faster than other historic, technological innovations. The technologically privileged in even the most undeveloped countries now regularly access more reliable and thorough information about local events than is often available through their own local media.

A majority of Central Asia's citizens, however, are still denied access to the Internet for a host of economic and political reasons. The region lacks many of the familiar prerequisites for bringing the Internet to the public: a quality telecom infrastructure, content providers, computers, knowledge of the Internet, and affordable Internet connections. E-commerce, one of the driving forces behind the rapid-fire spread of the Internet in the West, is inhibited by the lack of electronic payment mechanisms such as credit cards and an efficient parcel delivery system.

Internet exposure in Central Asia stands at about 0.2 percent of the population, ten times higher than in Nigeria, yet ten times lower than in Russia, and far from the close to 50 percent figure in many developed countries. Most Internet use is by the wealthy, those associated with international organizations, scientists connected to the NATO-supported science networks, and students who take advantage of NGO-sponsored access centers. These centers provide almost the only affordable Internet access in the region's cities — except in Turkmenistan, one of the least-connected nations in the world.

Reporters sans Frontiere's 2000 annual report on Internet enemies listed Central Asian countries as among the 20 least free in the world. Three out of five of the Central Asian countries require international Internet connections to be run through the government. While these restrictions have not been very effective in controlling content and traffic, they have been successful in limiting the spread of Internet service providers (ISPs). State-regulated ISPs generate short-term profits for the governments through high access fees. By restricting the growth of ISPs, however, governments are causing their countries to fall further behind other developing countries and stifling the long-term economic development that could come from greater public access to the Internet. Governments in the region have also been short-sighted by not allocating funds to wire schools, and they are quickly losing the opportunity to prepare the next generation for the Internet and the demands of a global, information-based economy.

In the early post-Soviet years, foreign aid tried to address these problems by providing computers, e-mail, and connectivity — OSI and the Eurasia Foundation supported and partly funded the creation of the first e-mail service in Tajikistan. IREX, with support from USIA, has created over 20 free access centers in cities around the region. More recently, OSI-Uzbekistan has supported efforts to provide computer and Internet training for teachers and scientists.

Many of these donors' aid projects during the 1990s have successfully enabled key sectors of the population to use the Internet for specific projects. NGOs supported by USAID are now able to share organizing techniques via e-mail. Private broadcasters in Kazakhstan this February used the Internet to coordinate a one-day blackout of the nation's TV screens in opposition to a repressive draft media law.

The Global Internet Policy Initiative, a new effort by Internews and the Center for Democracy and Technology initially supported by OSI, The Markle Foundation, and AOL, aims to help over a dozen governments, including Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan, to find legislative and regulatory ways to encourage greater Internet adoption. The UNDP is also conducting parallel work quite aggressively, particularly in Kyrgyzstan.

The imminent introduction of small direct-to-satellite two-way Internet connectivity in the region is unlikely to increase individual access, since the costs, while not great, are more than one user can afford. However, such an opportunity promises to dramatically increase the likelihood that a small company can put its own networked computers on the Internet — provided, again, that government regulations are not too overwhelming.

For a small number of people with access, the Internet is clearly able to break down many barriers that prevent Central Asians from getting information from abroad. And continued targeted assistance can help bring the Internet to more people in the region. But until the governments of Central Asia make proactive efforts to spread Internet use, the portion of the population using online resources is likely to grow incrementally, while other people, states, and regions get online and pass them by.

 

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