Though staged at the White House, Commerce Secretary Don Evan’s launch of the Digital Freedom Initiative on March 4 did not attract much press attention. Perhaps deservedly so. The White House tends to host such photo ops all the time.
The DFI-combining efforts of the Commerce Department, U.S. Agency for International Development, Peace Corps, USA Freedom Corps, Hewlett-Packard Co. and Cisco Systems Inc.-is designed to bring the benefits of information technology to entrepreneurs and small businesses in developing countries. Senegal has been chosen for a pilot project.
Why Senegal? Andrew Natsios, USAID administrator, said the western-most African nation was selected because it is one of the best-run countries in the developing world. But I thought USAID doesn’t do tech. The agency insists it is having nothing to do with telecom infrastructure reconstruction in Iraq, including the hot-button wireless component.
A Technology Administration press release noted that Senegal is a democratic secular country composed mostly of Muslims, a fact no doubt the Bush administration wanted to highlight just weeks before bombs began to fall on Baghdad.
Why Hewlett-Packard and Cisco? Why not HP and Cisco? They’re world leaders in IT. That Phil Bond and Bruce Mehlman, No. 1 and No. 2 at TA, are former lobbyists for the two firms, respectively, is irrelevant. That’s the cynical view of the DFI, as true as it is.
In truth, it’s a wonderful idea with huge potential across the board. The DFI is consistent with President Bush’s plan to help the world’s poor that he outlined March 22, 2002, at the United Nation’s Financing for Development Conference in Monterrey, Mexico.
Bush is adamant about tying aid to political, legal and economic reforms.
If the Bush administration is truly serious about leveraging American high-tech prowess in developing countries, it should seriously consider sending a high-level official-maybe the president himself-to the World Summit on the Information Society on Dec. 10-12 in Geneva. The U.N. Millennium Declaration held that information technology-including wireless technology that is an economic favorite in the developing nations-can help alleviate poverty, improve the delivery of education and health care, and help connect peoples and governments with each other.
As a political matter, a high-profile administration presence at WSIS would be virtually risk free. It would send positive signals to Silicon Valley for an administration criticized for its understated approach to high-tech policy and industry’s financial woes generally. In addition, WSIS provides an excellent forum for the Bush administration to re-engage with a world that increasingly views the White House with irritation and contempt.
Maybe the idea makes too much sense.
