Thirsty? Hungry? Sick? Try an E-book.

If you go to schools in Kenya or Tanzania, most schools, anyhow, you will see very sparsely furnished classrooms. Simple desks, often no electricity and nothing that requires electricity, some textbooks and copy books, not too many, children, of course, and sometimes even some teachers. So, if you were to write home about the experience, you may express surprise at the lack of teachers and books.

But if you're the prime minister of Tanzania, Mizengo Pinda, you may report that what the children really need is e-books. He advocates the use of e-books, not because children presently lack books, but to cut down on the use of paper and save the environment. In a country where many people lack safe water supplies, electricity and adequate food and nutrition, the leader of the government recommends e-books. And this perceptive man wants work on this to start immediately.

Schools urgently need teachers and teaching materials. Children need to be enabled to go to school as many can't, for various reasons. In Kenya, where there is 'free' primary education, so many things have to be paid for, meetings, desks, uniforms, exams, books; primary schooling is anything but free. Children and their families do, indeed, need electricity and access to technology, but without more basic things, like food and water, they will never be able to do anything with the technology.

And if Pinda is concerned about the destruction of the environment, he could also revoke logging licenses and control the huge mining operations that contaminate vast tracts of land. He could stop the foreign 'investors' from buying up most of the country's arable land to grow crops for biofuels and for food that's destined for foreign countries, while Tanzanians starve.

Of course, there are lots of people trying to persuade developing countries to buy into Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), it's in their interest to sell overpriced goods to people, regardless of whether they need them or not. But Pinda needs to address more urgent issues, such as water and food security, before investing in high(ly inappropriate) technology. Sphere: Related Content

Super Fast E Everything for All

Photo: Nairobi slum, pre superfast internet connection days.

There may be food shortages, deadly epidemics, extreme poverty, inequality, abuse and various other problems in Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Uganda, South Africa and Rwanda. But we can all sleep well knowing that there is now an undersea fibre optic cable connecting them all up.

The children in Nairobi who are not attending school, the HIV positive people in Uganda facing drug shortages, the many Tanzanians who have no electricity supply, the Mozambicans who are not served by any roads, the Rwandans who have no access to clean water and sanitation and the South Africans who suffer from extraordinarily high crime rates need worry no longer.

Being connected to the 'global information superhighway' means 'super-fast internet connections' and 'vastly expanded bandwidth capacity'. According to the president of Tanzania, Jakaya Kikwete, 'e-government, e-commerce, e-medicine, e-anything is now very possible'.

Quite so. But you need politicians for government, people need money for commerce and for e-medicine, there needs to be trained health personnel at one end of the connection. Aside from that, I agree wholeheartedly. Sphere: Related Content