The World Bank and Australia have launched a $AU1.4 million (US$750) million program to provide education and training via the Internet in the world's poorest countries.
The five-year Internet aid program--a technological extension of the 50-year-old "Colombo Plan," which offered training scholarships to poor countries--aims to bridge the digital divide, which the bank says exacerbates world poverty.
"I do not expect a computer in every poor household that does not have enough food to eat," said World Bank President James Wolfensohn at the program's launch in Sydney.
"It is not a panacea to everything," he said. "It will be another component in the fight against poverty."
The World Bank is talking to 20 other donor nations about joining the "Virtual Colombo Plan."
Wolfensohn said Internet access and the sharing of knowledge will empower the world's poor through education and training.
"The remotest village has the possibility of tapping a global store of knowledge beyond the dreams of anyone living a century ago," Wolfensohn said.
"This plan compresses distance, shares information, empowers the individual. It will make the difference in our capacity to affect the development process in the world," he said.
Australia said the plan will give globalization a friendly face by reversing the traditional flow of resources from poor to rich nations.
It has committed US$100 million over five years and has already established Internet education links between Australian institutions and South Pacific island nations.
Australia will offer 200 Internet scholarships for trainee teachers and build eight IT teacher-training centers in neighboring Papua New Guinea.
The Internet aid program will initially focus on 12 countries across Asia, the Pacific and Africa.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said he envisages Internet aid becoming a bigger component of Australia's aid programs.
"This is really a seed we are planting today...from which a great gum tree will grow," Downer said.
Internet usage in developing nations is growing dramatically. Between 1998 and 2000, the number of Internet users grew from 1.7 million to 9.8 million in Brazil and from 3.8 million to 16.9 million in China.
Wolfensohn said 1,500 mayors in Latin America are linked on the Web and helping each other run their cities and towns, and Chinese will be the most prominent language on the Internet in 10 years.
