Mobiles narrow digital divisions
Mobile phones and net access are helping narrow the gulf between rich and poor nations
The efficiencies these technologies bring has boosted development in poorer countries
Greater use of technology in businesses, schools and at home could raise standards of living and help people prosper.
In rural communities in Uganda, and the small vendors in South Africa, Senegal and Kenya mobile phones were helping traders get better prices, ensure less went to waste and sell goods faster.
A study of Thai manufacturing firms showed that a 10% increase in computer literate staff produced a 3.5% productivity gain.
To make the most of the transformative potential of the net, mobiles and other technologies the UN report recommended that countries update cyber laws, intellectual property regulations, upgrade infrastructure and invest in training

Technology in emerging economies

China is by no means the only emerging economy in which new technology is being eagerly embraced
The India of internet cafés and internet tycoons produces more engineering graduates than America, makes software for racing cars and jet engines and is one of the top four pharmaceutical producers in the world

Yet this picture of emerging-market technarcadia is belied by parallel accounts of misery and incompetence

Three-quarters of low-income countries have fewer than 15 PCs per 1,000 people—and many of those computers are gathering dust.

How well are emerging economies using new technology?

Technology so defined is fundamental to economic advance

The main channels through which technology is diffused in emerging economies are foreign trade (buying equipment and new ideas directly); foreign investment (having foreign firms bring them to you); and emigrants in the West

Technology is spreading to emerging markets faster than it has ever done anywhere

Most technologies are available in some degree

Emerging economies spend less on R&D than rich ones: rich countries spend 2.3% of GDP on R&D, East Asians 1.4%, and Latin America 0.6%

In rich countries, high-tech-firms get money from banks, stockmarkets and venture capitalists in ways that emerging-market entrepreneurs can only dream of


The limits of leapfrogging

In places with bad roads, few trains and parlous land lines, mobile phones substitute for travel, allow price data to be distributed more quickly and easily, enable traders to reach wider markets and generally make it easier to do business

The mobile phone is also a wonderful example of a “leapfrog” technology: it has enabled developing countries to skip the fixed-line technology of the 20th century and move straight to the mobile technology of the 21st

The nature of the mobile phone makes it an especially good leapfrogger

The World Bank concludes that a country's capacity to absorb and benefit from new technology depends on the availability of more basic forms of infrastructure

Most of the time, to go high-tech, you need to have gone medium-tech first.