The concept of an "information society" reflects the far-reaching changes that are taking place in the world today, as digital media is introduced and refined. This process has opened up promising opportunities for developing countries, but it has also given rise to new types of exclusion, the international digital divide that threatens to widen the abyss between developed and developing nations even further, and the domestic digital divide, which is just as serious a threat in terms of the further expansion of the vast social distances between different groups of citizens within countries.
In many ways, given the striking inequalities that mar our society, the domestic digital divide in the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean is even deeper and possesses a more formidable challenge than the international divide. The impact of the international divide has been declining as our region has experienced the fastest growth in Internet use in the world in recent years. Last year, 8 percent of the population had Internet access, compared to 9 percent worldwide. Mobile telephones are used by 18 percent of our region's inhabitants, while the global average is 19 percent. In contrast, the domestic digital divide has been deepening. Nearly 70 percent of the richest 15 percent of the region's population has access to the Internet vs. the 10 percent connectivity rate overall. A new form of exclusion is beginning to emerge, one that is reflected in the existance of tiny islands of connectivity amidst an ocean of citizens who are excluded from the benefits of this transformation.
This digital exclusion makes it imperative for us to ensure at least a basic minimum of universal access to information infrastructure. This is no simply a matter of hooking up computers; it also entails providing the population with the necessary training to make use of new technologies. The key question to be answered by developing countries is not whether to attain connectivity or not, but rather when and how to do so. In order to brake down the domestic digital divide, we have to reduce individual access costs by providing shared-access systems; provide simple, low-cost hardware; and design policy strategies for promoting the use of open-source standards and software. Users need to be given "e-literacy" training, and a workforce capable of sustaining the information society has to be trained and maintained.
The countries of the region that succeed in moving toward full membership in the global information society will have promising possibilities available to them in the future. But perhaps never before has this window of opportunity been on the verge of closing so rapidly, nor has the risk of missing out entailed such enormous costs for future generations.
