World Congress on ICT for Development ICT4D

1
World Congress on ICT for Development
(ICT4D) 10-12 September 2009, Beijing,
PRC ICT4D and the United Nations Millennium
Development Goals By Academician Dato Ir. Lee
Yee Cheong Chairman, Governing Board, UNESCO
International Science, Technology and Innovation
Centre for South-South Cooperation
(ISTIC) President, ASEAN Academy of Engineering
and Technology (AAET) Past President, World
Federation of Engineering Organisations (WFEO)

2
1.0 The World Today World Population gt6.0
billion. (i)   Rich (0.8 billion),
(ii)  Transitional(1.2 billion)(iii) Poor (4.0
billion) Criterion GDP in US per capita
(PPP) (i) gt16,000, (ii) 4000-16,000, (iii)
lt 4,000 respectively.
3
The Rich have Nine times the Wealth, Eight times
the Energy Consumption and the Eight times Carbon
Emission of the Poor. 1.3 billion live in
Abject Poverty, on Daily Income ltUS 1.003.0
billion have Daily Income of ltUS 2.00 800.0
million Suffer from Food Insecurity 50.0
million are HIV positive 1.0 billion Suffer
from Water Scarcity 2.0 billion have No Access
to Energy. (Professor John Holdren, Harvard
University, IAP Millennium Sustainability
Transition Conference Tokyo 2000)
4
2.0 The UN Millennium Declaration and the UN
Millennium Project UN Secretary-General Kofi
Annan realised that the world is facing a crisis
of immense magnitude never previously encountered
in human history. Only a global effort can begin
to confront this global human tragedy of abject
poverty. United Nations Millennium General
Assembly 2000 adopted UN Millennium Declaration.
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of the
Declaration are specific targets by 2015.
5
3.0 Millennium Development Goals Goal 1
Eradicate poverty and hungerGoal 2 Achieve
universal primary educationGoal 3 Promote
gender equality and empower womenGoal 4 Reduce
child mortalityGoal 5 Improve maternal
healthGoal 6 Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other
diseasesGoal 7 Ensure environmental
sustainabilityGoal 8 Develop a global
partnership for development
6
4.0 UN Millennium Project Unfortunately the
global development agenda was by the attacks on
the World Trade Centre on September 11 2001 and
the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
To regain the development momentum, UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan launched a new
UN Initiative, the Millennium Project (UN MP)
under project director, Professor Jeffrey Sachs
of Columbia University. Professor Jeff Sachs was
the special representative of UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan. 10 Task Forces
were appointed.
7

• 5.0 MP Task Forces
• 1 Poverty and Economic Growth (Goal 1 8) 2  
  Hunger (Goal 1)3   Education and Gender
  Equality (Goals 2 3) 4 Child Health and
  Maternal Health (Goals 4 5)
• Expanding Access to Essential Medicines (Goal 6
  8)
• Environmental Sustainability (Goal 7)
• Water and Sanitation (Goal 7)
• Improving the Lives of Slum Dwellers (Goal 7)
• Trade and Finance (Goal 8)
• Science, Technology and Innovation (Goal 8)

8
(No Transcript)
9
6.0 UN MP Science, Technology and Innovation
Task Force UN MP Science, Technology and
Innovation (STI) Task Force addresses MDG No.8
Building a Global Partnership for Development
and Target 18 In cooperation with the private
sector, make available the benefits of new
technologies, especially information and
communications. Its associated indicators were
very simplistic and exclusively ICT, namely
telephone lines per 100 population cellular
subscribers per 100 population and internet
users per 100 population. STI Task Force felt
however great ICT is as an enabling technology,
ICT will not be able by itself to propel science
and technology needed to achieve MDGs. Besides
ICT, our Task Force would also highlight other
new and emerging technologies such as
biotechnology, nanotechnology, materials science,
remote sensing and spatial information technology
10
STI Task Force Issued its Report Innovation
Applying Knowledge in Development Jan
2005, http//www.unmillenniumproject.org/reports/t
f_science.htm
11

Recommendations of
UN MP STI Task Force mainlyon STI Institutional
and Human Resource Capacity Building1)
Improving the STI policy environment, including
S.E.T advice mechanism, 2) Building STI human
capacities, including reorienting the role of
universities in development, graduating job
creators rather than job seekers,3) Promoting
entrepreneurial and innovation activities, 4)
Investing in research and development 5)
Technology foresight for developing countries to
find niches in the global production chain.6)
Forging regional and international STI
partnerships

 stakeholders
12

• UN MP STI Task Force particularly Looks at
  Successful Development in Asia-Pacific and
  Concludes
• For developing countries to lift themselves out
  of poverty
• and achieve economic development, they need
• Basic infrastructure i.e. roads, schools, water,
  sanitation,
• irrigation, clinics, telecommunications, energy
  etc.
• Basic industries, namely small and medium
  enterprises (SMEs) for supply of goods and
  services.
•  
• Without the above pre-requisites, indigenous
  industries cannot upscale, economy cannot uplift
  and foreign direct investment (FDI) will not come.

13



 
7.0 UN MP STI Task Force Report on ICT
Our STI Task Force report devotes considerable
coverage in Chapter 4 Platform Technologies with
Wide Applicability to ICT ICT can be applied
to meeting the MDGs in at least three areas
First, ICT plays a critical role in governance
at various levels. Second, ICT can have a direct
impact on efforts to improve peoples quality of
life through better information flows and
communications. Third, ICT can enhance economic
growth and income by raising productivity.
14



 
ICT will become one of the main enablers in the
pursuit of poverty alleviation and wealth
creation in developed and developing countries
alike. Central to the MDGs is ICTs power to
store, retrieve, sort, filter, distribute, and
share information, which leads to substantial
efficiency gains in production, distribution,
and markets. The field of ICT for development
is at a turning point. The past decade has
witnessed the most dramatic growth in the
history of global computing and communications,
with the near ubiquitous spread of mobile
telephony and the Internet. But the gap between
people with access to local and global networks
of knowledge and information and people
impoverished by denial of that right is
widening. Narrowing this gap represents an
enormous challenge.
15

• 7.1 MDG No. 1 Eradicate Extreme Poverty and
  Hunger
• Promoting opportunities for the poor is an
  essential element
• of poverty reduction. We need to focus attention
• on ICT interventions that match local needs and
  conditions
• and concentrate efforts in four principal areas
• Stimulating macroeconomic growth through
  investment in
• ICT for economic growth and job creation
• Increasing the market access, efficiency, and
• competitiveness of the poor through micro-level
  and
• people-oriented interventions
• Increasing interactivity
• Facilitating political empowerment.

16
7.2 MDG No. 2 Achieve Universal Primary
Education The basic building blocks of a good
education system teachers, infrastructure,
curriculum and content, teaching and learning
tools, and administrationare missing in many
developing countries. ICT can help overcome many
of these deficits. ICTbased distance training
can effectively accelerate teachers training.
Administration can be streamlined through basic
ICT applications. 7.3 MDG No. 3 Promote Gender
Equality and Empower Women ICT can be used to
influence public opinion on gender equality,
increase economic opportunity, improve womens
education and conditions for women in
government, academe and business and
participation of women in politics and decision
making.
17
7.4 Health Goals MDG No. 4 Reduce Child
Mortality MDG No. 5 Improve Maternal Health
and MDG No. 6 Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and
Other Diseases ICT has already had an enormous
impact on healthcare in developing countries. It
has enabled healthcare workers to conduct remote
consultation and diagnosis, access medical
information, and coordinate research activities
more effectively in the past two decades than in
the history of medicine. Through both
traditional (radio, television, video, CD) and
new (wireless, Internet) media, ICT also
provides an effective and cost-effective channel
for disseminating information on healthcare and
disease prevention etc to the masses.
18
7.5 MDG No.7 Ensure Environmental
Sustainability The effects of ICT on sustaining
the environment are multidimensional. ICT
facilitates greater participation by the
population in activities to protect the
environment through networking and information
exchange. It provides researchers with
critical tools for observing, simulating, and
analyzing environmental processes. It promotes
greater environmental sustainability in
industrial, commercial and agricultural sectors
and it improves the development of enforcement.
19
7.6 MDG No. 8 Develop a Global Partnership for
Development Goal No. 8 stresses the importance
of stakeholders working together to achieve all
the MDGs by 2015. It advocates public-private
partnership and promotes the development troika
of government, industry and academe in national,
regional and global context. It specifically
targets the development of an open, rule-based,
predictable, non-discriminatory trading and
financial system and addresses the special
needs of the least developed countries,
landlocked countries and small island developing
states. Without ICT, it will not be possible
to forge any effective alliances to develop
multi-national and multi-stakeholder
implementation strategies in the above sectors.
20
8.0 My Own Views on ICT4D and MDGs My own
views on ICT4D and MDGS is based on my own
professional working experience as an electrical
engineer in real time computer control of the
Malaysian power system and my continual
engagement with UNCSD, UN MP, WSSD 2002, WSIS
2005, UN GAID, and currently UNESCO through the
UNESCO International Science, Technology and
Innovation Centre for South-South Cooperation
I cannot understand the current clamour by the
ICT community for ICT reinforced smart power
grid that will make power grid blackouts a thing
of the past when all power engineers know the
only way to strengthen the power grid to lessen
blackouts and brownouts is to build more power
plants interconnected by more extra high voltage
transmission lines.
21
I therefore would like to appeal to the ICt4D
community to look at poverty alleviation and
wealth creation in less developed countries in a
holistic manner. The countries should spread
their limited financial and human capital across
more basic infrastructure like energy,
transportation, water and sanitation, health and
education. I was a member of the UN MP mission to
Sub-Saharan African countries of Senegal, Ghana,
Kenya and Ethiopia in 2004. The mission was led
by Professor Jeffrey Sachs. I anchored the
multi-stakeholder ST consultation sessions in
all four capital cities. I was very surprised
that the central theme in all four sessions was
the urgent advocacy for a broadband fibre-optic
backbone across their respective nations. They
all informed me that this was vital to attract
FDI to make the nation competitive in the global
knowledge economy. I asked them in return
without energy, good roads with bridges, railway
network, airports, would FDI come? What about the
widespread illiteracy that would make nonsense of
the broadband ICT facilities enabled by the optic
fibres?
22
Our UN MP STI Task Force report mentions the two
extreme attitudes to ICT amongst the global
development community Given the need to focus on
basic development needs and priorities, such as
food, clean water, education, and disease
eradication, some view ICT as a luxury. Others
view it as almost a panacea for development
problems. Both extremes are inappropriate in
our desperate attempts to help developing
countries achieve MDGs by 2015. In my
interaction with the global ICT communities over
recent years, I get the distinct impression that
many think ICT is a cure-all for the ills on this
earth. I cite the most recent example, i.e. the
assertion by ICT industries that they have on
average less than a 5 carbon emission footprint.
Some then go on to postulate that ICT is the way
forward to combat global climate change!
Inherently ICT manufacturing plant has very much
smaller energy consumption that an aluminium or a
steel plant. Citing the 5 figure does not mean
that ICT industries have contributed much to the
struggle against the adverse impact of climate
change.
23
One of the adverse impacts of climate change has
been the more frequent and ferocious natural
disasters, for example, the Myanmar cyclone and
the unseasonable widespread snow storm of South
and West China in 2008.and Typhoon Morakot
that devastated Taiwan August 2009. Other
natural disasters might not be climate change
related but were no less devastating. The
examples are the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 26
December 2004 and the disastrous earthquake in
Sichuan China in May 2008. In the Sichuan
disaster, I was very impressed by the
24-hour coverage on CCTV 4 (Mandarin Channel) and
the almost continuous coverage on CCTV9 (English
Channel). This worldwide coverage that utilized
the latest ICT multimedia technologies raised
hope for the disaster victims and stirred up
charitable instinct and generosity within and
without China. It amply demonstrated the
indispensable values of communications in the
aftermath of the disaster.
24
Yet during the crucial first day, all
communications with the worst affected areas were
lost. This loss of communications made impossible
a rapid and realistic assessment of damage to
life and property and the proper allocation of
aid and relief to those most badly in need.
The same was true of Morakot. In my opinion,
besides the deployment of multimedia facilities
in the aftermath, it is equally important to
ensure that the essential communications
equipment and its power supply are available from
the start of a disaster. Cannot these be packaged
in non destructible environment, like the "black
box" of aircraft and installed in structures that
are earthquake, cyclone, flood, and fire
resistant? This would require a
multi-disciplinary approach. Would WCID 2009
advocate such a project?
25
The most widespread and devastating man-made
disaster affecting the poor in the world is the
current global financial crisis due to the greed
of Wall Street in financial manipulation and
fraud. This crisis will delay the achievement of
the MDGs. I have suggested that the relevant
banking software in its industry-wide and global
spread is partly to blame. Such software would
need to be reviewed and audited. Some in the ICT
community disagree stating that bankers are to
blame but not the ICT tools. This is akin to the
argument of the US Rifle Association against gun
control Guns do not kill, people do. The
massive capital inflow and outflow and its
attendant disastrous effects on currencies and
stock markets are not new, if we cast our minds
back to the Asian Financial Crisis, 1997-1998.
26
Before that crisis, the Asian economic miracle
was held up as an outstanding success story of
economic development and wealth creation, due in
large measure to proper exploitation of SET in
transforming agrarian nations in this region into
industrializing and industrialised nations. The
Asian financial crisis almost overnight swept
away years of hard work in eradication of poverty
and raising standard of living. That could not
have been so sudden and drastic without the
latest advances in communications and information
technology. All Western governments,
politicians, economists, financiers and media
experts were unanimous that lack of transparency
and crony capitalism in the Asian countries
concerned were solely to blame.
27
Malaysian Prime Minister, Dato Seri Dr. Mahathir
Mohamad, was roundly condemned for imposing
foreign control, bailing out failed corporations,
and increasing capital expenditure on public
works in Malaysia. Yet US Federal Reserve rescued
Long-Term Capital Management after its
spectacular collapse. LTCM was allowed by its
bankers to run up a peak exposure on its balance
sheet of USS200 billion against an equity capital
of US4.8 billion. Dato Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamad
had this to say during the Academy of Sciences
Malaysia Annual Dinner on 2 November 1998. "The
emergence of a new global economic order,
unrestricted by geographical and political
barriers, will result in greater integration of
the world economy. Knowledge, skills,
information, and investment funds will move
around freely. Properly utilised these new
freedoms will bring about great prosperity for
all. However, we have seen how the sudden pull
out of funds can result in the destruction of
economies at a faster rate than the build-up. So
the infatuation with SET must be accompanied by
an even great adherence to morality and the
higher human values.    
28
Unfortunately, the painful lessons of the Asian
Financial Crisis and the collapse of LTCM were
not learnt. Instead under the incessant promotion
of small government and large private sector in
the West over the past decade, Wall Street led
the entire Western banking system into a full
blown global financial crisis. I now quote
Chinese Premier Wen Jia Bao in his lecture in
Cambridge University, 2 February 2009, entitled
See China in the Light of Her Development To
effectively meet the crisis, we must fully
recognize the role of morality. Nothing is
greater than morality. It shines even more
brightly than the sun. True economic theories
will never come into conflict with the highest
moral and ethical standards. Instead, they should
stand for justice and integrity, and contribute
in an equal way to the well-being of all people,
including the most vulnerable ones.   The loss
of morality is an underlying cause for the
current crisis. Some people have sacrificed
principle and sought profits at the expense of
public interests. They have crossed the moral
baseline. We should call on all enterprises to
take up their social responsibilities. Within the
body of every businessman (ICT professional)
should flow the blood of morality.
29
Unfortunately, the painful lessons of the Asian
Financial Crisis and the collapse of LTCM were
not learnt. Instead under the incessant promotion
of small government and large private sector in
the West over the past decade, Wall Street led
the entire Western banking system into a full
blown global financial crisis. I now quote
Chinese Premier Wen Jia Bao in his lecture in
Cambridge University, 2 February 2009, entitled
See China in the Light of Her Development To
effectively meet the crisis, we must fully
recognize the role of morality. Nothing is
greater than morality. It shines even more
brightly than the sun. True economic theories
will never come into conflict with the highest
moral and ethical standards. Instead, they should
stand for justice and integrity, and contribute
in an equal way to the well-being of all people,
including the most vulnerable ones.  
30
True economic theories will never come into
conflict with the highest moral and ethical
standards. Instead, they should stand for justice
and integrity, and contribute in an equal way to
the well-being of all people, including the most
vulnerable ones. Adam Smith, known as the father
of modern economics, held the view in The Theory
of Moral Sentiments that if the fruits of a
society's economic development cannot be shared
by all it is morally unsound and risky, as it is
bound to jeopardize social stability.   The loss
of morality is an underlying cause for the
current crisis. Some people have sacrificed
principle and sought profits at the expense of
public interests. They have crossed the moral
baseline. We should call on all enterprises to
take up their social responsibilities. Within the
body of every businessman (ICT professional)
should flow the blood of morality.
31
9.0 Conclusion I appeal to the global ICT
community to rally behind our political leaders
to help them devise a new global financial order
that is transparent, regulated and moral. If
possible, it should also be pro-Poor. In this
globalised and interconnected world, it will not
be possible without the considerable intellectual
prowess of the global ICT community. If this
cannot be realised quickly, there is every danger
that most developing countries will not achieve
the MDGs by 2015. In ending, I quote two
stanzas from the Rock (1934) of T.S.
Eliot Where is the wisdom we have lost in
knowledge?Where is the knowledge we have lost in
information?