AFRO-NETS> Internet comes to Africa (2)

["Jan van 't Land" <LAND@NWO.NL>]

Internet comes to Africa (2)
----------------------------

For those AFRO-NETS subscribers who do have Web-access, I located the 
original the text of this article at:

http://www.cma.ca/cmaj/vol-160/issue-3/0382.htm

and for the full text, see below.

Jan van 't Land
Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO)
P.O. Box 93138 
2509 AC Den Haag 
The Netherlands 
Tel: +31-70-344-0603 
Fax: +31-70-385-0971 
mailto:land@nwo.nl 
http://www.shared.de



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The Internet comes to Africa 

CMAJ 1999;160:382
1999 Canadian Medical Association 

The Internet is now alive in most urban parts of Africa, and what a 
difference it makes for visitors. My family spent 2 years in Egypt dur-
ing the pre-Internet era, and the isolation was intense. The local pa-
pers were heavily censored and international papers arrived a week 
late, TV programs were available only in Arabic and round-trip mail to 
and from Canada took at least a month. The BBC World Service on short-
wave was my only real-time link with the Western world. 

Fast forward a few years. Today we live in Harare, Zimbabwe, and can 
watch CNN or the BBC anytime, and through the Internet the world is at 
our fingertips and friends and family are but a mouse click away. I 
still listen to my shortwave radio, but only for pleasure - it is now 
an artifact. 

Of the world's 150 million Internet users, about 800 000, or 0.5%, are 
in Africa, and 95% of these are in South Africa. Zimbabwe is third in 
continental Internet use, with about 10 000 users (0.1% of the popula-
tion). Comparable guesstimates for usage in Canada range from 5 to 9 
million people, and 15% to 30% of the population. 

Here in Africa you don't surf the net - you wade through it. In Zim-
babwe there are major technical limitations, since local telephone con-
nections and networks are notoriously unreliable. As well, maximum data 
transmission rates are painfully slow - 9600 bps - outside the cities. 
All Internet activity in Zimbabwe is provided by 2 T1 satellite links, 
which is very tiny considering the number of users. The result? Inter-
net applications such as audio or video are essentially unusable, and 
downloading software applications from the Net is seldom successful be-
cause of frequent line interruptions. 

A year of unlimited Internet service in Zimbabwe costs about $300, plus 
local phone charges of 2 cents per minute. This is approximately equal 
to the annual pay of a local worker earning the minimum wage. Computer 
equipment is subject to high import duties and is much more expensive 
than in Canada, and this effectively excludes 99% of Zimbabweans from 
the Internet. Most Africans are concerned about having enough to eat 
and worry little about choosing the best Internet service provider. The 
digital revolution has indeed opened the vast world of Internet infor-
mation to Africa, but only to the rich and privileged. Ironically, this 
availability actually widens the already huge gulf between rich and 
poor. 

The Internet has great potential for providing medical information 
here, but little of it is being realized. The medical library at the 
University of Zimbabwe has 4 computer access points and has been online 
for a year. However, equipment failures, shortages of computer parts 
and a collapsing Zimbabwean dollar mean that the system has been down 
and offline for 10 of these 12 months. It is not functioning as I write 
this and when it will again is anybody's guess. However, computers have 
been a real boon to the local medical library because of cheap and up-
to-date CD-ROM reference materials. 

Of course, Africa's communication king is still the printed page. After 
all, when you are sitting on the floor of a bedroom you share with 3 
others, and a candle is your only source of light, reading is a real 
possibility but the Internet remains a dream. 

For all of the Stanleys and Livingstons anxious to explore the Dark 
Continent, an excellent general starting point is Africa South of the 
Sahara, from the Electronic Technology Group of the African Studies As-
sociation (www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/africa/guide.html). It cata-
logues and links to many African Internet sites by topic and region. 
The Electronic African Bookworm (www.hanszell.co.uk/navtitle.htm) is a 
Web navigator leading to African literature and newspapers.

Neither site originates in Africa, and the same holds true for sites on 
African tropical diseases. Bodies such as the CDC and WHO have excel-
lent Internet resources, but consider beginning your tour of Africa at 
the University of Zambia Medical Library (www.medguide.org.zm). This is 
a terrific launchpad for searches with an African flavour, and this 
well-maintained site offers a glimpse of the future of the Internet in 
Africa. 

Dr. Garth Dickinson 
mailto:garth@icon.co.zw



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