Dedication:

To Blaise Rodriguez,

for keeping his cybercafé open late for me,

and being the first to show me true Senegalese teranga.

and to

My parents, Sydney and Mehrdad Farivar,

for their unwavering encouragement and support in all of my endeavors,

and for showing me how to log on to the Internet in 1995.

Acknowledgments:

To the people that I interviewed for this thesis:

Olivier Sagna, Ousmane Mbaye, Blaise Rodriguez, Arame Fal, Lane Smith, Gina Dario, Amadou Top, Mohammad Tidiane Seck, Mike Jensen, Mamadou Gaye, and Michel Mavros.

To my professors:

Dr. Alan Karras, Dr. Patricia Lin, and Dr. Todd LaPorte, thank you for teaching me, encouraging me, and for never letting my standards slip.

To my grandparents, John & Virginia Hadsell:

Thank you for limitless support and for teaching me the important things in life.

To my aunt, Heidi Hadsell:

Thank you for the opportunity to live in Switzerland, your thought-provoking conversation, and your boundless encouragement.

To Jim Delehanty:

Thank you for supporting my project from the beginning – and for leaving your copies of The New Yorker behind.

To Baydallaye Kane:

Thank you for being the best ambassador that Senegal has ever known. My time in Senegal would not have been the same without being able to rely on you.

To my toubaab friends, Susan “Soukeyna” Peterson, Sara “Lala” Lahti, Lucienne Loh, Alastair “Alioune” Green, and Matt “Moustafa” Bunczk:

Thank you for the laughs, for letting me use the lab so much, and for being great friends. Jërëjëf waaye.

To my roommate and good friend, David Boyk:

Thank you for tolerating my dozens of books strewn about the apartment, and for your constant willingness to go on a Top Dog run.

To Trader Joe's:

Thank you for providing me with tasty snacks like “Chocolatey Cats Cookies” (for people) and Honey Lemon tea.

To Gustav Mahler, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Antonín Dvorak, and Percy Grainger:

Thank you for writing such awesome music to write by.

And to Rachel Metz:

Merci pour tout.

Prologue, or, the Wanderlust Geek Travels to Africa:

I am a wanderlust geek. I have lived on four continents within the last six years. In addition to my trusty G4 Powerbook, I usually carry four gadgets (digital camera, MiniDisc player, iPod and a cell phone) with me in my backpack and on my person. I love traveling, and I love technology – not always in that order.

So is it not surprising that one of the first things that I did when I got to Dakar in October 2002 to begin the first of seven months on my junior year abroad in Senegal was to find a cybercafé, which was less than a quarter block from where myself and my fellow toubaabs¹ stayed for our first few days. It was well-lit, had lots of computers, had English QWERTY keyboards, and only cost me 500 CFA (about $0.80 US) per hour. Good deal.

But after a few days, I discovered a cybercafé about a half a block in another direction from our temporary locus in Dakar, the Baobab Center, where many American students pass through every year to take various classes, usually Senegalese cultural orientation and the lingua franca of Senegal, Wolof.

This cybercafé was smaller and not as well lit as the other one. It had French AZERTY keyboards, and only six computers. Tucked away between two houses on a small residential side street, this place had character. It was frequented by Senegalese youths, business men, and younger women. Activities varied from simple email to looking for online relationships in foreign lands to even sending some of that 419 Nigerian spam. While I didn't know his name, the owner was courteous and recognized me as I started to come back and forth. On top of that, it only cost 300 CFA ($0.50 US) per hour. I became a regular at this cybercafé very quickly, often coming twice a day to read online news, send email, and post in my online journal.

The owner, a man named Blaise Rodriguez, was one of my first initial links into Senegalese life. A gregarious man with a jolly pot-belly, Blaise himself was a geek too. When he wasn't overseeing the cybercafé, he was on the computers too, sending email, and catching up with the world.

I spent the 2002-2003 academic year on a study abroad program through the University of Madison, Wisconsin. After my initial month in Dakar staying with a host family, I became a student at the Université Gaston Berger in Saint-Louis. As part of the Madison program, each American student was required to do some form of original research. I knew from the time that I left Madison for orientation in September 2002 that I wanted to do something about the Internet and cybercafés. Of course, I didn't know what I would find – and little did I expect that this would turn into such an involved and elaborate project, representing the culmination of my studies at UC Berkeley. This project began as nothing more than an idea to explore cybercafés, to discover who runs them, why, where they get the money, and what people in Africa use with them. Now that it is complete, the project has taken a long and arduous course, and I now feel like I am only beginning to understand the recent history and developments of what may turn out to be one of the African leaders in telecommunications.

After having been a regular at the cybercafé for some time, I told Blaise about my project and wanted to know if we could set up an interview. Within a few days, I found myself sitting in his living room, on the opposite side of the wall of the cybercafé, talking about the Internet in Senegal over two bottles of Coca-Cola. A few days later, I introduced him to various technology news sites and showed him LiveJournal.com, a popular blogging Web site. He often kept the cybercafé open for me a good hour or so after he wanted to close, frequently approaching 1 a.m..

We became instant friends.

Literature Review:

For a great deal of the 19^th and 20^th century, various theorists have debated as to how best countries can develop socially and economically. They range from Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto², which describes all economic activity in terms of the relationship between workers and the owners of the means of production – and calling for a Communist Revolution. Others, like Fredreich Hayek, have recently argued³ in favor of pure free-market capitalism à la Adam Smith. Other theorists have come up with various responses and frameworks of analysis toward the goal of economic development.

In the 20^th century, three major theories have been proposed, illustrating various schools of thought as to how countries can develop economically. These include Liberal Theory (Rostow), Dependency Theory (Galtung) and Nationalist Theory (Krasner). By exploring these theories, I hope to gain a new understanding of their meaning in the 21^st century, as accompanied by new technological developments.

I will define development as the Nigerian chemistry professor, Dr. Chimere Ikoku, did in a 1995 speech at the University of Maiduguri (Nigera): “the collective of activities by any human society directed at reducing the totality of perceived obstacles to a higher standard of living, thus maximizing the quality of life of its citizens.”⁴

Within the last century, many other and more complete definitions of development have been proposed. Notably, they include the definition put forward in the 1974 Cocoyoc Declaration, by a group of Southern countries.

Development should not be limited to the satisfaction of basic needs … Development includes freedom of expression and impression, the right to give and to receive ideas and stimulus. There is a deep social need to participate in shaping the basis of one's own existence, and to make some contribution to the fashioning of the world's future. Above all, development includes the right to work, by which we mean not simply having a job but finding self-realization in work, the right not to be alienated through production processes that use human beings as tools.⁵

Still others have concluded that defining development is nearly impossible to come up with a universally agreed upon definition, as was the case at the 1981 First World Congress on Development.

A whole constellation of economic, political, social, legal, educational and other practices and ideologies have been deployed around the concept and the idea of development. Their manifestation express the undeployed original meaning of the term. Accordingly, any definition of development involves a definition of the problem area in which the enormous question has to be asked. The economic theory adopted, the economic practices applied and the policies pursued, constitute the discourse of development and express its implicit meaning. But in their turn, these historic tasks reflect a representation of the world and of the role of human beings of the world. The meaning of development is defined by the meaning men give to their overall social existence through economics and politics.⁶

However, Dr. Ikoku's simple and powerful definition goes beyond mere productive capacity, it aims to include the collectivity of a society's quality of life, which is not necessarily measured by traditional metrics such as gross domestic product per capita.

Prior to these more progressive theories of development, there were these classic three. The first, one of the most revered theories of development comes to social science from Walter Rostow. In 1960, this professor of economics and history at the University of Texas at Austin, first proposed his liberal vision of economic growth. He identifies five stages that all societies must go through to achieve full economic maturity. These include “the traditional society, the preconditions for take-off, the take-off, the drive to maturity, and the age of high mass-consumption.”⁷

In a traditional society, Rostow argues that the main feature is that the society is highly agricultural, and that because it has not adopted Newtonian science and technology, that there remains a “ceiling” on the potential output for that society. As Rostow writes: “This ceiling resulted from the fact that the potentialities which flow from modern science and technology were either not available or not regularly and systematically applied.”⁸ In other words, due to a scientific and technological deficiency, such societies were confined by the fate of their agricultural harvest and the meteorological conditions that controlled that output. Rostow's highlighting of the use of technology is significant. It shows that even at a very early stage, the first of his five stages, that technological change is the means for improved economic activity.

The next phase in Rostow's theory is the “preconditions for take-off” phase. This phase, he argues, is when a society is able to adopt modern science, and cast off its old ways. This society will take advantage of new industrial forms of manufacture and new and more efficient agricultural techniques to produce a greater quantity of goods more efficiently. He notes that financial and capital investment are also features of this period, and that economic activity expands as a result. “Investment increases, notably in transport, communications, and in raw materials in which other nations may have an economic interest. The scope of commerce, internal and external, widens.”⁹ Again, Rostow points out the importance of technological change to this second phase as well. Not only is the technological capacity confined to merely manufacturing physical goods, but the notion that the rate at which communications can take place, in other words, the velocity of the information over the communicative channels can also play a decisive role. In addition to physical changes, Rostow also discusses institutional change within a society, and claims that an “effective centralized national state” is also vital to this stage as well.

Rostow's third stage (“take-off”) also emphasizes the role that technology plays in creating an industrial manufacturing base. “In Britain and the well-endowed parts of the world populated substantially from Britain (the United States, Canada etc.) the proximate stimulus for take-off was mainly (but not wholly) technological.”¹⁰ Beyond adopting new manufacturing techniques, Rostow also cites the importance of “effective investment and savings” of at least five to 10 percent of the national income.¹¹ The combination of these things, he argues, allows for economic growth to be sustained on a regular basis. As examples of periods in history where this stage manifested itself, Rostow cites Britain from 1783 - 1803, the United States from 1820 – 1860 and also Russia and Canada from 1890 – 1914.

By the fourth stage, when 10 to 20 percent of income is steadily invested, allows modern technology to overtake “the whole front of its economic activity.”¹² In this stage, modern technological advancements take over every form of production, and the society has the ability to technologically manufacture anything that it wishes, Rostow argues. The age of high mass-consumption, the final stage, is the point where societies “have chosen to allocate increased resources to social welfare and security” instead of devoting large portions of national time, money and energy towards more manufacturing and further technological innovation.

These five stages are one good way to explain how Western societies have been able to economically develop over the last few centuries. However, this theory tends to focus mostly on somewhat discrete and seemingly spontaneous moments of political and technological change. Rostow focuses his attention on the individual as the center unit of analysis and assumes that these countries can easily adopt policies which will put them on a path towards development. He believes, in the classic Smithian liberal philosophy, that given the right political framework and the right technological tools, that any society is composed of individuals who drive a society forward. The variables are merely the country's physical endowments and historical societies that present themselves – and if a society is pulled into a growth phase because of military force by another competing society.¹³

However, some social theorists do not agree with Rostow's vision, that given enough time, every society will reach the mass-consumption phase. Some do not share Rostow that every society has roughly the same potential for economic growth. If Rostow can be thought of as an extremity on a spectrum of the possibility of economic growth, then it is only natural to suppose that there would be a polar opposite. Indeed, some theorists have come up with theories based on a different economic vision.

Johan Galtung, a professor at the University of Oslo, argued in 1971 that the world can be divided up into two sections (and a sub-section), the Center and the Periphery (and the Semi-Periphery). Center nations, he implies, are the developed world – nations like the United States and the United Kingdom. Periphery nations are developing nations, such as sub-Saharan African nations, Caribbean nations and many Latin American states as well. Galtung views world international economic and political affairs along a system of imperialism, an implicit dominant relationship of the Center over the Periphery – this theory is known as Structural Theory, or Dependency Theory. It requires that Periphery nations be dependent on the Center nation(s) – and that the nature of this relationship is fixed and permanent. Periphery nations can hope to, at best, alter the degree of this dependency, but the fundamental relationship will remain.¹⁴

Galtung draws on Marxist-Leninist tradition to form his theories,¹⁵ and like Lenin, remains rigid in his belief that changing this framework is nearly impossible. Galtung defines “imperialism” as follows:

A relation between a center and a Periphery nation so that: 1) there is a harmony of Interest between the center in the Center nation and the center in the Periphery nation. 2) There is more disharmony of Interest within the Periphery nation than within the Center nations, 3) there is disharmony of interest between the periphery in the Center nation and the periphery in the Periphery nation.¹⁶

Essentially, this means that the elites in the Center nation will communicate with the elites in the Periphery such that wealth is transferred from the Periphery to the Center nation. Furthermore, the combination of both intra and international relationships create conditions such that a dependency is created. The Periphery nations become dependent on the Center nations to purchase their few primary exports, and to provide them with consumer and finished goods that are only produced in the Center nations.

As such, Periphery nations will always be fully dependent on Center nations for any kind of technological advancement, argues Galtung. He discusses that if the means of production, knowledge and innovation remain in the Center, that there will always be a dependent, exploitive and imperialistic dynamic involved between the Center and the Periphery. As Galtung writes:

The division of labor between teachers and learners is clear: it is not the division of labor as such (found in most situations of transmission of knowledge) that constitutes imperialism, but the location of the teachers, and of the learners, in a broader setting. If the Center always provides the teachers and the definition of that worthy of being taught (from the gospels of Christianity to the gospels of Technology), and the Periphery always provides the learners, then there is a pattern which smacks of imperialism.¹⁷

Thus, the only way to counter this endless cycle is for the Periphery to begin innovating and to being generating its own knowledge, but in Galtung's framework, this is not possible. Therefore, Galtung's outlook is a rather cynical one, and identifies the unit of analysis as class-based rather than on the individual. He believes that those classes are more or less fixed.

Given that classic Marxism-Leninism as a political system has collapsed by the end of the 20^th century, nearly 20 years after Galtung proposed this theory, it could be argued that his theory holds true, along purely economic rather than political lines. However, it remains fundamentally inadequate in explaining how nations are able to move from the Periphery to the Semi-Periphery (India, for example), and from the Semi-Periphery to the Center (South Korea).

With Galtung's cynical impossibility towards development, and Rostow's positive plausibility towards development, it would seem that neither Liberal Theory nor Dependency Theory is able to fully explain how nations in the 21^st century can develop. Yet one more theory remains which lies outside this hypothetical spectrum development capability – Nationalist Theory.

Dr. Stephen Krasner of Stanford University wrote in 1985 about Nationalist Theory, which stipulates that developing nations have and will pursue economic development by banding together and pursuing political means to solve economic problems, all in their own nationalistic interest. He argues that nationalistic political solidarity on the international level is the answer to economic woes, and that the fundamental unit of analysis is the state, and its political actions, and not the individual or the socio-economic class.

He argues that in order to cope with their “poverty and vulnerability,” the developing world has supported international regimes in global forums where authoritative allocation is preferred over market-oriented regimes. He claims that this is because they can provide “more stable and predictable transaction flows. External shocks and pressures are threatening to developing countries because their slack resources and adjustment capabilities are so limited.”¹⁸

Furthermore, Krasner argues that there are three main variables which dictate the alternation of international regimes: “the nature of existing institutional structures; the ability to formulate a coherent system of ideas, which set the agenda for international negotiations and cemented Third world unity; and the attitude and power of the North.”¹⁹

With the evolution of the United Nations in the post-WWII period, Krasner argues, the principle of sovereign equality has reigned. Therefore, with the sheer number of developing countries, they were able to take control of international institutions and make their case for altering the political discourse in their favor. Continuing in that vein, developing states are able to band together (à la the Group of 77) and present their case before the entire United Nations – allowing for more authoritative control, in direct contrast to the classical liberal regimes favored by the Northern countries. Finally, he argues, that within the last half century, with the erosion of pure American hegemonic political and economic power, developing countries have been able to muscle their way into the international policy discussion. But as Krasner argues, it is important to acknowledge that this is merely a political tool to gain favor in the international system, and to gain economic developmental power for their country.

The countries of the South are not purveyors of some new and superior morality, nor are their policies any less reasonable than those of the industrialized world. They are behaving the way states have always behaved; they are trying to maximize their power – their ability to control their own destinies.²⁰

This form of new nationalism has been a backlash against both the classical Liberal and Marxist orders that preceded it. Since the fall of the backbone of the political manifestation of Marxist theory, the Soviet Union, and the fact that relatively few countries post World War II have been lifted out of poverty, some social theorists are postulating on a new type of development theory. Most development theorists such as the Barbara Ward (Cocoyuc Declaration) and members of the 1981 World Congress on Development, and their followers have come up with a far more comprehensive model of development than any of these three major schools of thought.

The World Bank has cited six major components to development, which illustrate this larger and more comprehensive approach. These include:

Poverty: Reducing by half the proportion of people in extreme poverty by 2015.

Mortality: Reducing by two-thirds the mortality rates for infants and children under 5 and by three-fourths the mortality rates for mothers by 2015.

Education: Achieving universal primary education in all countries by 2015.

Health: Providing access to reproductive health services for all individuals of appropriate age no later than 2015.

Gender: Demonstrating progress toward gender equality and the empowerment of women by eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005.

Environment: Implementing national strategies for sustainable development to 2005 to ensure that the current loss of environmental resources is revered globally and nationally by 2015.²¹

This type of program aims to have a far more just and equitable approach to development rather than one that is merely efficient and productive. Much of the development rhetoric since the end of the Cold War has focused on this type of understanding. Still others have called for an end to the notion of development completely. They are part of the more recent “post-development” school, where some have called for a fundamental redefinition of “development” much more along the lines of the World Bank's new and more progressive definition, rather than one closer to Rostow's line of analysis.

While theorists like Rostow, Galtung, and Krasner have proposed economic and political theories to explain economic development in the global South, these ideas to not provide a complete picture. While the political and economic dynamics are certainly important, others have argued that technological change, specifically in the domain of communications has been a key catalyst for economic growth throughout the centuries, and most particularly within the last century, when dramatic new communications technologies were made available to the masses.

Other authors, such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology sociology professor Daniel Lerner has argued that that communications technologies could act as a catalyst for social change and economic development. Lerner's theory of the “multiplier” demonstrated that widespread communications technologies would indeed encourage and foster growth and social development due to the fact that information pertaining to developing effects would be diffused much more quickly.

The multiplicative property of communication lies in its power to raise and spread empathy among its audiences. Empathy is a multiplier because it equips individuals to make use of vicarious experience, i.e., experiences lived through by others than oneself. Our world of wide-range, high-speed, low-cost mass media has acquired – for the first time in human history – adequate facilities to put training in empathy on a global basis … The mass media produce a multiplier effect, via empathy, because they reduce the costs of social change – both economic and psychic costs. This is why the mass media have, over the centuries of their development, so enlarged the rate and scale of social change that scholars speak of an 'acceleration of history.' … Today it is no longer necessary to emigrate to a different country, or even to migrate to the city in one's own country, in order to gain some experience of the strange new world represented by modernity. Increasingly, in the villages and hamlets of the world, the mass media are bringing 'strange new worlds' into the traditional environment of rural people.²²

He argues that vicarious experience has enhanced the knowledge of humankind through communications media, and that humankind has the potential to raise the level of development via that communication. This radical change may have profound consequences for a traditional society, has he points out – that their traditional teachings may not have the same role that they had before. However, what Lerner fails to realize is that traditional teachings are not static. Many are dynamic and should be able to adapt from one time and place to another – the fundamental truths of the world do not change from one generation to the next, even though the technological milieu might.

Other theorists, particularly those from the developing world, have demonstrated that in the modern age of mass communication through telegraph, telephone, radio, television, and now the Internet, that such communicative tools are vital to shaping and determining a nation's social, economic and political discourse. Dr. P.C. Joshi, a mathematics professor in India at the Indian Institute of Technology, has recently argued as well that modern communication must serve as a means to societal development.

In a large and diverse country the communication system must function as a responsive and responsible system, sensitive to this diversity. It must give scope to all sections of the people to articulate their needs and concerns and to creative persons to contribute towards shaping policy and making programmes … The Right to Information, thus, becomes as fundamental as the right to food, to shelter and to employment. The poor themselves are becoming aware that the removal of their information poverty has become a powerful constraint on the alleviation of their material poverty.²³

For as Joshi argues, lower classes need information about weather, manufacturing techniques, agricultural techniques, about market prices, about nearly anything that one can imagine in order to survive. Lower classes in developing societies are becoming acutely aware that “knowledge is power.” He goes onto explain that in particular, audio-visual means of communication that do not have a skill-set minimum (as a newspaper requires literacy) are particularly effective in forming linkages between scientific knowledge and the masses. In addition, such communication, ideally should go two ways, both top-down, and bottom-up (in terms of on the socio-economic ladder). Beyond that, horizontal linkages across various classes and sectors are important as well for establishing a body of knowledge and information transfer. The notion is that once the information is diffuse, that people's skill sets will increase, and that the overall ability of the society will, over time, increase. As such, this will lead to broader and more comprehensive development.

However, Joshi seems to overlook the fact that many of these forms of communication that he refers to, such as radio and television, require large amounts of infrastructure and technological devices in order to be able to send a message back to the origin. While a government might possess a radio transmitter, but a farmer in a rural area probably does not. As such, real two-way dialogue from the bottom-up is unlikely. Regardless, the overall notion that communication can provide a positive impetus for development is an important one – particularly when it comes from a nation of the global South.

However, there exists a powerful criticism to the arguments of both Lerner and Joshi, one that comes from the research of Stanford University sociology professor Everett Rogers. He has shown that the role of mass communication was not as widespread in promoting development as had been thought by scholars like Lerner, saying that communication had typically been only one-way, and that communication from the social and economic periphery to the core was nearly impossible. Thus, what had been thought of by the linear model toward development à la Rostow, and the corresponding theories of the effects of communication à la Lerner is now moot. His research in Colombia show that “the role of mass communication in facilitating development was often indirect and only contributory, rather than direct and powerful.”²⁴

In a later study, Rogers again attacked the notion of the impact of mass media on national development. He found that mass media was unlikely to report new innovations, techniques or other changes that would impact local development.

When individuals in developing nations who had adopted an innovations like a weed spray, a new crop variety, or family planning, were asked the sources/channels through which they had learned about the new idea, the mass media were almost never reported. Interpersonal channels with peers totally predominated in diffusing the innovation.²⁵

Therefore, the debate as to the role of mass communication in a developing society is still ongoing. Rogers argues further that while mass communications does have the potential to make dramatic change in the area of development, it must adapt newfound structural changes. He articulates these as follows:

1) providing technical information about development problems and possibilities, and about development problems and possibilities, and about appropriate innovations, in answer to local requests, and,

2) circulating information about the self-development accomplishments of local groups so that other such groups may profit from others' experience and perhaps be challenged to achieve a similar performance.²⁶

It would seem that educating and encouraging local people to take advantage of new techniques would be in the spirit of Lerner's “multiplier” effect, but would be done in a much more widespread and useful fashion. The need for a self-reinforcing mechanism is needed, and not merely one that just disseminates information and leaves it at that. The information must flow from top to bottom, bottom to top, side to side, and in every direction such that a maximum feedback loop can be created.

Another important aspect of modern-day development is the use of information technology (IT), or the totality of information-based economic activity. Moreover, Indian computer scientist professor at the Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, Dr. Yogendra P. Dubey has argued that the combination of new technology and new information are the impetus behind human advancement. “New information is the fuel, technology is the steam, and the economy is the locomotive which pulls the train of human progress (perhaps occasionally pushes it backwards).”²⁷

Dubey's arguments are not that technology can merely be applied at will like a magic seed, but that they are a necessary and vital part of a larger and “holistic approach” towards development. He elaborates that a new paradigm of development is needed for modern developing societies. Primarily, the development strategy must come from within, taking into account local resources, indigenous capabilities, and innate socio-cultural values. In addition, Dubey proposes that technology in general should be “need driven” and not “technology driven.”²⁸ Given that all people require various amounts of information, regardless of whether or not they are rural farmers or wealthy international bankers, appropriate tools geared towards the needs of all people is needed.

The summation of such technologies that allow for advanced informational and communications capacities are encapsulated in the term “information and communications technologies” (ICT), a popular term in existing modern literature. Usually , ICTs are divided into three major categories: Computing, Communications, and Internet-enabled communications and computing²⁹. For the purposes of this paper, the acronym ICT will mostly focus on Internet-based technologies, which require a baseline of computing and telecommunications infrastructure and skills – in other words, the Internet is not a technology that stands on its own, it is dependent on other things (computers, telephone lines, data transmission cables) to function.

As the world enters the 21^st century, humanity is only at the early phases of what many have called “The Information Age.” Since the development of the Internet in the 1970s and 1980s, culminating with its widespread use in the developed world³⁰ by the mid 1990s. However, much of the developing world, particularly those in sub-Saharan Africa, are not able to participate in the much-talked about “new economy” because they lack these technologies. The Internet is the latest (and most awesome) form of widespread communication technology that exists to date. No other technology can provide a cheaper and faster way of complex communication to such a large audience.

It should be noted that the fact that ICT has only existed in its fully-deployed form in the developed world for nearly a decade, and has only begun to touch the developing world in recent years, there does not yet exist a large body of literature pertaining to the effects of ICT in such countries. Coupled with the fact that data on rates of Internet usage, Internet connectivity speed, et cetera are changing rapidly in the developing world, and even more rapidly in the developed world, particularly the United States, accurate and recent statistics are often hard to come by.

As the Asian Development Bank wrote in a recent working paper:

The Internet (including the World Wide Web) is one of the most important technologies to affect not only communications but also computerization. The Internet provides a new communications medium that allows activities such as e-mail or chat lists for group communications. Yet, it also breaks down boundaries between all forms of communication – new and old – by allowing multiple modes of communication … The Internet provides people with access to more and better information. It also facilitates new ways of representing information (e.g., multimedia), structuring information (hyperlinks), and creating information (collaborative and distance work). Unlike other media that treat users as passive recipients, the Internet is an active media for communication and demands more sophisticated thinking and logical skills than any other.³¹

The Internet is the ultimate feedback loop that communications researchers have been looking for. It is a low-cost technology that allows multiple channels of information to be exchanged in a manner conducive to proper development. Given that the Internet represents a fundamental paradigm shift³² in world communications technologies, it becomes necessary to evaluate the ability of the Internet to spur economic development. Furthermore, given that researching the effects of the Internet on the entire developing world, which the World Bank estimated³³ in 2000 to be 1.2 billion people (as defined by earning less than $1 US per day, measured in purchasing power parity terms), would be nearly impossible, a much more feasible solution would be to take one particular developing country and to examine this situation through the lens of that country.

For this thesis, I have chosen to select the West African nation of Senegal, where I lived from October 2002 to May 2003. Senegal is among the few cases among developing nations, that has seen political and economic stability on the African sub-continent since post World War II independence from its colonizing power (France, in 1960). Its transfer of power from one régime to the next has not spurned bloodshed or upheaval, unlike some of its other African counterparts, like Somalia or the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Therefore, this thesis will attempt to answer the following three questions, using Senegal as a case study:

• Why is the Internet relevant to developing nations, specifically Senegal, and how can it assist development?

• What has Senegal done to reach the stage that it has? Where will it go from here?

• How can the hurdles to ICT that are present in Senegal and throughout the developing world be overcome?

My research will allow readers to begin understanding what Internet deployment looks like in a developing society, what practical purposes people have for it, and what civil society and government are doing together to improve the overall quality of service. By making the Internet more relevant to developing societies, it can be shown how notions of development are changing given a 21^st century technological context.

This section will provide a review of the existing literature that exists concerning the Internet and its relationship to socio-economic development. Each piece of literature is important for understanding a facet of the technological and developmental question. I will argue that each of these approaches have not dealt with the situation of the Internet in the developing world in a complete context. My thesis, which seeks to take a specific case of a developing country (Senegal) encountering the Internet, combined with broad theoretical development frameworks, and examples of firsthand experience and primary source material, will allow development in the modern context to be better understood.

One of the main works that concerns itself with the larger theoretical issues of technology and African development is by Sidiki Diakité, a professor at the University of Abidjan in Côte d'Ivoire. In his 1994 book, Technocracy and the African Question of Development he examines the theoretical underpinnings of technological change and how it impacts social development as it pertains to Africa. While he does use the phrase “Africa” in the title, and some of the work does talk about Africa, the bulk of his work talks in very abstract theoretical terms. He does make references to his predecessors, such as Ellul and Roqueplo, French social theorists who have written extensively about technology and la technique in contemporary society.

In a section entitled “For a 'multidimensional' development according to a collective strategy of mastery of technologies”, Diakité addresses that technology is not value-neutral, and that the technologies that are adopted by a a particular society will be forced to encompass those values that it takes in.

The transfer of technology cannot be reduced to the transmission of a technical engine considered as a simple neutral instrument, but as part of a transfer of a discourse and of a milieu, of an organized 'structure'. Given that modern technology comprises not only an ensemble of relative disciplines to the application and the materialization of scientific knowledge but also to the processes that encompass machines, the tools and the relationships of productions that they implicate ; its transfer implicates on one hand, a theoretical face (assimilation, appropriation, interference of symbolic and technical systems … etc.) and on the other hand an applied face (the intensity of problems posed by the 'technicization' of African societies implicates the necessity (and the modalities) of a community strategy of development.)³⁴

Diakité's main argument is that technology cannot be viewed as a lone item that can merely bring along with it economic change, that it is part of a larger system which puts enormous requirements on the new environment on which it is placed. So in the case of the arrival of more modern technology like the Internet, Diakité would argue, that it requires that the new technology be able to be used and understood by its local constituents, but also that it can create a situation which could further stratify the existing environment. This argument is one that has been brought up by those who argued that the implications of technology into a developing society will only reinforce and further stratify that society. However, no theorist or research has been able to convincingly show this to date. This argument seems to exist in pure theory rather than any established practice.

Diakité's work though, stands as an example of the kind of literature which only concerns itself with broad theoretical concepts, such as the neutrality of technology, and its effects when implementing itself into a society. This does not address Africa, and does not address the specifities of Senegal. This type of work tends to be much more philosophical than practical in nature, and as such lacks any real concrete and pragmatic examples of what can be done to prevent the types of issues that are warned against, regardless of whether the reader agrees with them or not. While it is nonetheless important for the reader to have a general understanding of these ideas, it is much easier to write about these brought theories than to actually have practical applications for them.

Diakité is not the only African author to write extensively about the benefits of ICT as a stimulating force for development. Another main work by an African writer, John Afele, a Ghanaian (who currently teaches plant agriculture at the University of Guelph in Canada) who wrote a book in 2003 called Digital Bridges: Developing Countries in the Knowledge Economy in which he talks about the benefits to developing nations, particularly those in sub-Saharan Africa about the advantages of adapting ICT and how it helps development.

Very much like Diakité, Afele can be understood as a social theorist who argues a great deal about the general benefits of ICT and its role in catalyzing development. His work, even though it is much more recent than Diakité's work, only refers to broad outlines of theories which discuss how such technologies could have a positive outcome effect upon the societies where it is introduced.

IT [Information technology] therefore could annul the general and overstated assumption that poor nations lacked expertise … Local experts could also lend to enhancing development outcomes, but they would have to consider themselves as resourceful and capable of contributing to understanding of local development themes. The full participation of the local intellectual in conceptualizing the knowledge needs of local communities could reveal the real challenges in the operational domain and increase the cultural and relevance of technology.³⁵

Afele writes about how the presence of technology could be used to fully link connect local elites and empower them to train the masses, and furthermore would incite a “brain gain” -- a reverse effect of the known “brain drain” that much of the developing world experiences whereby the intellectual and technical elite are enticed to leave for the developed world, thereby stripping their native land of people that have the capacity to build up the social, political, and economic infrastructures. Afele backs up his theoretical claims much along the same lines as Diakité, using other theorists, however he does use some modern evidence as cited in press reports and speeches given at modern communications technology conferences and meetings. While interesting, this does not give the complete picture that it should, being able to use the background theoretical framework for understanding communications technology and its benefits, but along with how that can translate into tangible benefits.

While there is a lack of a large body of work pertaining to information and communications technologies (ICT) in Senegal, the main works that have been done tend to be of a high caliber. I will first review the general literature and its major flaws, which are that while it presents a broad understanding of the specifics of Senegal, but lacks a review of particular approaches that have been taken to resolve some of its connectivity issues. This is useful for providing a macro-level understanding of what has been occurring, pointing out large trends, statistics, government policies which do not always illustrate the full picture. While their contribution is important and vital for the purposes of better understanding ICT as it applies to Senegal, however they tend to leave out micro-level specificities which may illustrate how or why macro-level plans do or do not work.

The major piece of work detailing the Senegalese situation comes from the main authority of Senegalese Internet history and analysis from inside Senegal, Professor Olivier Sagna. Sagna, who teaches at the Université Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar, the capital city, has done extensive work on Internet in Senegal, including multiple essays and a major dossier for the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) entitled: “Information and Communication Technologies and Social Development in Senegal: An Overview” (August 2000). This work provides a great deal of insight unto the ICT landscape in Senegal, and draws upon a great deal of primary source material.

Sagna's work provides and excellent history of the Internet in Senegal, and has argued effectively why it is important. He also sets down a lay of the land of the Internet applying to various sectors of Senegalese society, namely, in the public sector, in the business world, as it applies to governance, as it applies to health, et cetera. It provides a scant review of important Senegalese developments such as telecenters, their role in providing access, in addition to entities (governmental or non-governmental) which play a large role in providing access and educating and promoting that access. He touches on groups such as the Senegalese chapter of the Internet Society, of two important ICT-focused Senegalese NGOs, OSIRIS and CRESP, but does not really explain specifically what they have done to foster ICT in Senegal.

His work is vital to understanding the Internet in Senegal, and one must wrestle with his ideas before undertaking any sort of project pertaining to the Internet in Senegal. However, the main problem with his work is that it is just that – a set of background and history information. It touches upon specificities but does not illustrate or analyze them. The other problem is that some of his information is out of date. His project was published in August 2000, which means that his most recent information comes from late 1999 and early 2000. The Internet is a rapidly developing medium, and even during my experience there from October 2002 to May 2003, there were several important things which have occurred since I left the country. Sagna's work tends to provide a great deal of context, and not enough current and practical examples of ICT use in Senegal.

Another main work that comes from inside of Senegal was another general report released two years after Sagna's dossier, also sponsored and published by UNRISD. Entitled “New Information and Communications Technologies: Challenges and Opportunities for the Senegalese Economy”, this paper was written by Gaye Daffé and Mamadou Dansokho, who both teach at the Université Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar.

Like Sagna, Daffé and Dansokho's work remains very general and provides a broad and general understanding of the Internet in Senegal. While still valuable, it does not build on the existing literature, it merely repackages what had been written about before. It does refer to other Western development literature, such as Walt Rostow³⁶, and discusses their relevance in the Senegalese context.

In his approach to stages of growth, Rostow suggest that the importance of telecommunications goes hand in hand with the intensification and growing complexity of the changes provoked by the expansion of industrial production. The development of industrial activities certainly entails a greater flow of information, making telecommunications the indispensable channel and support structure for economic agents involved in such activities. Thus, Rostow's approach is in line with the classical model of economic development, in which growth is based on the dynamic of capital accumulation that accompanies technological progress.³⁷

While this is important to prove that telecommunications are the “indispensable channel and support structure for economic agents,” Daffé and Dansokho do not provide any criticisms of Rostow's work as some other theorists like Rogers have shown. This approach is useful for providing one approach to the argument that an improvement in ICT in Senegal is indeed in their interest, and that some government actions as they show later on are indeed economically beneficial to developing countries, like Senegal. However, just like Sagna's work, it lacks a clear presentation of specific cases in Senegal which would better illustrate what has been going on. In addition, it fails to mention some of the new developments that have happened within the last few years, like a clear profile of an Internet-enabled telecenter, or the role of civil society in the promotion and discussion of the Internet in Senegal. It too provides too much rhetoric, and does not illustrate specificities that other groups, such as NGOs, might play in this process.

Other, and more recent research seems to have the opposite problem. They lack broad context, and only narrowly describes a particular slice of Senegalese ICT life. Two prime examples of this are a work that focuses on ICT's effects on Senegal's second largest city, and religious focal point, Touba, and also another that focuses on the the Saint-Louis-based Pésinet, a local project to use ICT in regards to preventive medical analysis and consultation.

In yet another local Senegalese research project published by UNRISD, researcher Cheikh Gueye illustrates the role of ICT in his dossier entitled “The Challenge of NICTs and Their Role in Urban Change: The Case of Touba” published in May 2002. Touba, as Gueye illustrates, through economic forces that have come about via the Islamic sect, the Mourides, who create and run the city, have been using ICT to assist in the development of the city itself, and in the preaching of its religious message to the greater world.

The Mourides were founded in 1888 by Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba, a leader of a mystic Islamic religious brotherhood. Touba has grown to become the second largest city in Senegal, with over half a million residents. While most of these people are religious followers, it is no doubt that many have followed in the wake to take advantage of the commercial opportunities that it provides. The Mourides themselves are known for their commercial activity throughout the country, and use Touba as an ideological hub for such activities.³⁸

In this work, Gueye tends to focus on the role of telephony (the collection of telephone infrastructure and services) and computers, much more so than the effects of the Internet, and even then, the discussions of such technology do not come until the end of his paper. His work, which are useful for providing a fascinating analysis of religious effects on urban growth and achievement, do not set the ICT developments in a larger context ; they lack the broad-scale understanding that work like Sagna's or Daffé and Dansokho's have in overabundance.

One poignant example of this is when he provides the quotation of Dame Ndiaye, the “self-taught founder and leader” of a Mouride dahira (a sub-group within Mouridism) called Matlaboul Fawzaïni³⁹

'When God sent the Prophet, it was to inform us. Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba has produced 7 tons of writings to provide us with information. Initially, the information that forms the heart of our credo was distilled 4 times a year. Moreover, the General Assembly is always a high point in communication. We have a permanent office, central offices, and cells equipped with cutting-edge information technology tools, namely, the computer, equipped with Internet access and e-mail. Each cell must experience what we experience. The key word is speed…Given that this was a new technology, we didn't want to be left behind.'⁴⁰

This quote does provide an interesting case for religious figures using ICTs to communicate with each other within their dahira, noting that they find “speed” to be of utmost importance. Particularly when these dahiras, as shown in other parts of Gueye's work, are involved in international financial transactions, using ICT to achieve this facilitates this and makes their dissemination of information that is relevant to them much easier to be achieved. However, Gueye does not step back and describe how this came to be, or why it is relatively easier for a Senegalese member of a dahira to have cost-effective and reliable Internet access vis-à-vis their counterpart in Gabon or Sudan. Nor does he describe any type of theoretical context to show why this is a more effective method of informational communication – something that both Sagna and Daffé and Dansokho achieve very well with their long and extensive analysis on how it can be an effective tool for development.

In addition, nowhere is it mentioned if the “Case of Touba” accurately reflects ICT use in other parts of the country. Is it just that because there are elite who can take advantage of ICTs? With a combination of the contextual setting for ICT in Senegal, we could see Touba as an episode, or as a role-model for providing local content to its target local population. However, without the Sagna-like political and historical context, such analysis is imposisble from such a limited frame of reference.

The final example of academic research that has been done, focused on ICT in Senegal is the most recent, and also one of the few examined in this set of reviewed literature that is not done by indigenous African researchers. This work, published in August 2003 by a pair of business students at the University of Michigan and University of North Carolina Schools of Business, details the work of two projects in the northern Senegalese city of Saint-Louis that are sponsored by Afrique Initiatives, a Brussels-based corporation that sponsors African local small business development.

Luis Castro and Sharon Smith, the authors of “What Works, Afrique Initiatives -- Attempts at Combining Social Purpose and Sustainable Business : Offering IT-based Business and Healthcare services in Senegal” profile two different types of projects.

One, called Pésinet, involves the periodic weighing of newborn children, which are statistically computed over the Internet, and then local doctors can pre-emptively determine if a child has a weight deficiency and therefore is unhealthy. The other, known as Saint Louis Net, which is not quite as developed, seeks to provide local information, such as weather forecasts geared to fishermen over the Internet at a very cheap price.

This research, while detailing and formidably analyzing these local projects, again, like the work of Gueye, fails to consider the broader themes of ICT in Senegal. It comes to the conclusion that Pésinet does work, and that Saint Louis Net does not. While it does provide a very scant history and context of ICT in Senegal, it does not do it justice and does not really explain how and why these programs do or do not work given the state of Senegalese ICT. Their research tends to focus on the feasibility of these projects as business models, which although the goal of their research, could be far strengthened to use these as models of local ICT projects that do or don't work, and to discuss how some of the same problems that plague these projects (such as lack of literacy, for example) also affect the rest of the country for the same reasons.

Therefore, given that the little literature that does exist is not sufficient, as it does not address the specifics of Senegal, nor place them in a broader context, further and more current research is needed both to find out what the latest activities of Internet deployment, use, and advocacy are in Senegal. My study hopes to expand the body of literature of the use of ICT in developing countries and how it can play an important role in development.

Methodology & Research Strategy:

From October 2002 to May 2003, I was on a study abroad program through the University of Wisconsin, Madison in Saint-Louis, Senegal, at the Université Gaston Berger. One of the requirements for that program was that we complete a substantial and original body of research on some topic relating to Senegal or Senegalese life. Given my interest in ICT, I chose to delve into the status of ICT in Senegal and how it can help development. Upon the completion of the draft of my work in May, I knew that I wanted to expand upon this body of work such that I could use it for my honors PEIS thesis here at UC Berkeley.

My primary source material came mostly from first-hand interviews, conducted in French, in Senegal during my time there. I met with various people who are somehow connected with ICT in Senegal in some way, including the Minister of Technology of Senegal, a leading Senegalese academic who studies ICT, and a Dakar-based cybercafé owner. All interviews were conducted one-on-one, with no intermediary or translator, and were recorded to Mini-Disc with the consent and acknowledgement of the subjects. The English translations that I have provided in the body of my work are all my own unless otherwise noted. All direct quotations are taken from direct interviews unless otherwise noted.

The benefits to using interviews as source material are beneficial because they allow the person being interviewed to express themselves in their own words and to tell the story as they see it, from their eyes as a Senegalese. It is the best way learn information from someone – provided that they are willing to tell you accurate information.
One of the potential pitfalls of using interviews is that the subject may simply be parroting answers, or may be composing answers that they think the interviewer “wants to hear,” regardless of their truth. However, the information that I was asking my subjects was in no way sensitive, and could not be used to damage them or their reputation in the future and therefore, I have no reason to believe that the answers that I received were not truthful or were not believed to be true at the moment that they were stated. If I received an answer that seemed somewhat incredulous, like Blaise Rodriguez' (a Dakar cybercafé owner) claim that all the kids of Dakar know how to use the Internet, I would confirm it with another source. In that case, his claim was refuted by Olivier Sagna, a Senegalese academic and expert on Senegalese ICT. I also did my best to allow the subjects to speak on their own by asking value-neutral questions.

I conducted a total number of ten interviews, each totaling nearly one hour in length. While this may seem like a small sample size, combined with other primary source documents and my own observations, I believe that I have more than enough material to be able to accurately portray and describe the status of the Internet in Senegal and how it aids development. I did not seek to get specific data about time spent on the Internet, or various activities that Senegalese did on the Internet. Given that this type of data changes extremely rapidly and would be far too difficult for me to collect, I was more interested in the macro-level, and spoke with various professionals about their opinions with the current state of affairs. Other non-interview primary source material are documents that I was either given firsthand, downloaded off of the Web, or obtained them from the UC Berkeley University Library.

I. Introduction

Information technology is not a magic formula that is going to solve all our problems. But it is a powerful force that can and must be harnessed to our global mission of peace and development.

Kofi Annan⁴¹

Seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations

November 5, 2002

Information technology, or more accurately, information and communications technology (ICT) should not be confused with any all-encompassing solution. It is not a “magic formula” by any stretch of the imagination, and anyone who thinks that is fooling themself. But under the right conditions, the Internet can take hold firmly and be used as a real tool for development.

In the nations of the so-called “developing world,” ICT isn't always a number one priority, and rightfully so. Political stability, economic development, hunger, disease, and even the end of war cannot be solved simply by a few networked computers. In fact, many developing nations must overcome these much more basic principles before they can begin to incorporate ICT into any future vision for their country. Any ICT strategy that has been implemented must be done so after certain conditions are met, such as political stability, a certain level of economic activity, and an active and interested civil society.

The case of ICT in Senegal is an interesting one, as these conditions have been met. While still low on the United Nations list of Human Development Index (156⁴², whereas the United States is 7⁴³) and the Technology Achievement Index⁴⁴ (0.158, whereas the United States is 0.733), it has done many things right. Since independence from France in 1960, Senegal has known no major political upheaval, no major internal or external armed conflict, has had peaceful transitions to local democracy. Almost half a century has passed since independence, and Senegal still has a great deal of untapped potential. As Mamadou Gaye, the director of CRESP, a Dakar-based Senegalese ICT-focused NGO, put it in a 2003 interview, “Senegal missed the first two Industrial Revolutions. It better not miss the Information Revolution.”⁴⁵

Missing the Information Revolution would in fact, be devastating to Senegal, or any developing country. As the gap between rich and poor, have and have-nots, and the digital divide grows wider, the ideal solution is to use ICT as its own end, but rather a means -- a force to be “harnessed,” as Secretary-General Annan says, to increase development.

As Olivier Sagna, the leading Senegalese ICT academic, notes, it is important to overcome popular belief that ICT is irrelevant in Senegal, that it is merely a toy with no useful purpose.

Two sometimes contradictory factors -- the urgency of finding lasting solutions to problems of education, health, and food self-sufficiency for the majority of the population; and the understandable desire to be part of global advances by investing in technologies that may be seen a useless, or even indecent luxury – would appear to leave the African countries with a dilemma. Nevertheless, in weighing the pros and cons, there are those who believe that Africa should be connected and incorporate this technology in order to overcome the existing gap between the information-poor and the information-rich. While acknowledging that connecting to the information superhighway carries or increasing the inequalities between rich and poor countries, and, within countries, between rich and poor, it is believed that neglecting to do so would constitute a further obstacle to economic progress and social development.⁴⁶

Of course, if the majority of people do not have access to this technology, because it is concentrated in one part of the country (which it is), or concentrated mostly amongst one demographic (which it is), or because it is expensive (becoming less and less true) -- a sudden influx of ICT infrastructure will do no good.

But rather, if the local people see, realize, and execute ICT and help it make their lives better, than ICT has done its job. Technology, while a catalyst, should not be considered as the only catalyst for a developing nation. For technology's effectiveness to be realized, we need not only an academic perspective, but more importantly, a local argument from the people themselves – the techno-savvy community of Senegal. The goal of this paper will be to provide an illustration as to the current status of the Internet in Senegal, to show how the beginnings of ICT can aid development, and also to provide a discussion of the present hurdles facing technology deployment in Senegal.

1) What is ICT? What are its benefits and caveats?
ICT, for the purposes of this paper, as articulated previously, encompasses all Internet-based, and Internet-related technologies. The Internet, or “Inter-network”, is a means to connect various small regional networks and make them interoperable with one another. It developed as a research experiment by the United States Department of Defense in 1969, and with the invention of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s, blossomed into the ubiquitous tool that has spread throughout every nation. This paper will focus on the use of the World Wide Web, and email in Senegal, and will describe the various entities involved in its use and promotion.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) began a program in 1995 called the Leland Initiative, which sought to bring Internet access to sub-Saharan Africa. On their Web site, they discuss the raw power that the Internet can bring to all peoples.

The Internet is emerging as a low cost pathway that allows information to be more accessible, transferable and manageable; ready access to information is becoming the catalyst that transforms economic and social structures around the world and supports fast-paced sustainable development. Even as African countries move toward more open economies and societies, there remain formidable constraints on sustainable development in such areas as the environment, disease prevention, literacy and private sector development. Africa needs access to the powerful information and communication tools of the Internet in order to obtain the resources and efficiency essential for sustainable development.⁴⁷

The Internet has brought immense changes to the developed world, particularly to the United States, and Africa, particularly sub-Saharan Africa needs such advanced forms of ICT to advance in the world.

As Congressman Edward Royce (R-CA) said in a Congressional hearing in 2001:

The international community is increasingly focused on this digital divide, being particularly aware that IT is a significant factor in attracting foreign investment and fueling economic growth. The World Bank reported that the information revolution offers Africa a dramatic opportunity to leapfrog into the future, breaking out of decades of stagnation or decline. It warned, though, that Africa must seize this opportunity quickly. If African countries cannot take advantage of the information revolution and surf this great wave of technological change, they may be crushed by it. That is their report. The concern is that without information technology tools, Africa will be unable to expand or even maintain its already very low level of engagement with the world marketplace. Africa also risks foregoing the advantages information technology brings to confronting educational and health and governance and other challenges.⁴⁸

A more tangible example of the advantages of ICT is the power of extremely quick and low-cost communication. For example, a Senegalese woman calling New York from Dakar to correspond with her daughter living there will be charged 265 FCFA ⁴⁹ ($0.50 US⁵⁰)per minute (for calls after 8 pm)⁵¹. This translates into 15,900 CFA ($30.01 US) per hour -- and if she were making this call even once a week for an hour each time, it would cost her a total of 63,600 CFA ($120.07 US) per month. Now, to spend that same hour writing an email to her daughter in a cybercafé, would cost her around 2000 CFA ($3.77 US) for the entire month -- a fraction of what it would cost to telephone. This simple personal communication can also be translated to intra and inter-business communication as well. One could imagine the entire gamut of communication, ranging from ordering new products, to communicating with internal employees spread out over a large geographic area.

In addition to increased communication between entities, the dissemination of information is also an important part that should not be overlooked. Indeed, it is the first component of the acronym ICT -- Information. The beauty (and also the horror) of the Internet, is that it allows anyone and everyone to publish whatever they want.

One newer type of Web page is known as a weblog, or “blog.” A blog is a regularly-updated site that provides opinions, thoughts, essays, jokes, links to other blogs, or whatever the blogger feels is relevant. Blogs have shown to play a role in provoking thoughtful online discussion about the issues of the day. Sometimes, they even have been able to influence national media and national mainstream discussion – American blogs stirred up such an uproar in 2002 about Sen. Trent Lott's racist remark at Sen. Strom Thurmond's 100^th birthday celebration, that some say ultimately led to his dismissal as Senate majority leader.⁵²

Translating this situation over to the Senegalese context, in theory, blogs could play the role of stimulating the government to provide more information about a national disaster. While the Senegalese mainstream press has been releasing information that the government isn't letting on all that it knows about how many actually died in the capsizing of Le Joola, the Senegalese ferry that went down in September 2002, independent web-based media (such as www.indymedia.org) or blogs would be another way to counter the information monopoly that the government seems to have. (Indeed, on February 3, 2003, the government revised their official death toll from 1,153 to 1,800.)

Some, though, have do not see the world as optimistically as some technophiles would have us believe. Many concerns have been presented in relation to connecting the developing world (South) to the developed world (North), some will argue that this will only add fuel to the fire of the Digital Divide. Such arguments have been presented as early as 1996, when, the online edition of Le Monde Diplomatique, a French weekly newspaper which focuses on international politics, had a forum on their website entitled Internet Nord-Sud. There, Internet users from around the world went back and forth on the problems with Internet deployment in the South, and what potential benefits and consequences it would have. Many there argued that as the Internet was being deployed in Africa for the first time, that it would do nothing but create further social problems, and would further enfranchise the established elite with simply another tool.

To date, I am not aware of no one within Senegal who views the Internet as potentially harmful to the nation. But, there are those that view ICT as a mixed bag, but still leaning towards the harmful view. One recent example (2000) of this is by Gordon Wilson and Richard Heeks, academics from The Open University and the University of Manchester, respectively. Wilson and Heeks articulate that there are three major kinds of opportunity costs that require a critique of the optimistic outlook that many ICT supporters might espouse. These include “development opportunity costs,” “information system and technology opportunity costs” and “factoral opportunity costs.”⁵³

In their argument of “development opportunity costs,” they cite a Panos Institute study that recounts “more than 50 major initiatives aimed at increasing Internet connectivity in Africa alone.”⁵⁴ Their argument is that because government and non-government organizations are investing finite amounts of money, that there is an opportunity cost of investing in ICT, which, as they argue, comes at an expense to other necessities like “water, food, land, power, production technology, money and skills in the development process.”⁵⁵ However, they do not cite any instance where any “'IT fetishist'” claims that investing in these new technologies is somehow superior to or more vital to a developing nation than these other technologies such as water and food. While there are those who may give ICT more credit than it is due, it would be foolish of any serious researcher or policymaker to argue that ICT is inherently more important than these other vital resources. Wilson and Heeks, therefore, are creating a false syllogism. They say that just because a government spends money on ICT, and that there is a finite of money to be spent, that therefore they are taking away from other programs, such as water and food. I am not aware of any policymaker, government organization, or NGO that is advocating spending time and money on ICT instead of these other things – often the ICT initiatives are done in conjunction with other programs, and not instead of. If one were to follow the full logic of Wilson and Heeks, the conclusion could be made that similar improvements in agricultural technology are a drain on other investments. It has been demonstrated fairly convincingly that the Internet is among the best and most cost effective means of communication available to humankind today, and to not attempt to ensure that some are not left behind would be foolhardy and unfortunate.

Their second point argues that the Internet represents such a tiny fraction of use, that it is insignificant, and that furthermore that older media (radio, television and newspapers) have “capacity, interactivity and ownership limitations that the IT does not.”⁵⁶ Internet penetration rates are significantly lower than penetration rates of any of those other media, Internet access across the African sub-continent is still in its nascent stages, and is growing at a phenomenal rate. Recent data from the Irish Internet research firm Nua show that many sub-Saharan African countries have experienced rapid growth in Internet connectivity rates. From December 1999 to December 2000, Sierra Leone grew by 1000%, Sudan by nearly 200%, Swaziland by nearly 400%, Zimbabwe by nearly 300% and Burundi by 300%.⁵⁷ Comparing World Wide Web to 10 years after the debut of television might be a more accurate comparison. Just because a new communications technology has not reached the level that the other have does not stifle its ability to act as a powerful means of communication.

Wilson and Heeks further their argument by saying that the reason that the traditional media do not get as much attention as ICT does is that “they are just not 'sexy' enough to capture decision-makers attention. Even telephones have slipped down the visibility league tables because of this.”⁵⁸ Again, this line of thinking is not substantiated at all – the authors did not provide a definition of the term “sexy.” If by “sexy,” the authors mean that ICT has a certain appeal that these traditional media do not, then they are absolutely right. ICT represents a fundamental change in the way that information is disseminated. Beyond that, new kinds of Internet technologies are being made available every six to 18 months. With the exception of satellite television and satellite radio, there has yet to be a substantial shift in the way that these media have operated since their inception. Again, as stated earlier, the reason why telephones have slipped in this domain is that email is a far faster and cheaper means of communication.

Wilson and Heeks' final argument that “factoral opportunity costs” detract from political, economic and social factors that underline development⁵⁹ is also absurd. No one is suggesting that political, economic and social factors be neglected in favor of technical development. It is much more likely that the discussions of development, from its various aspects, enhance the overall discussion rather than detracting from it. They go onto say that such “'development'” allows reinforcement of the elites' power at the expense of the lower classes. Wilson and Heeks are not the only ones to make this argument. The Senegalese government and civil society both have been taking an active role to ensure the democratization of Internet use and are making sure that its benefits are reaped by everyone.

While taking these concerns into consideration, there are caveats one must be aware of during Internet deployment in the developing world. It is quite possible that such technologies could serve to further stratify a developing society, as some authors have speculated.

While the issues around democratizing access to the information society are dependent on wider socio-economic and socio-political concerns, if left unchecked, the information economy will overwhelmingly be urban-biased, catering for the affluent segment of society. It can be argued that the advent of ICTS is creating two very broad socials groups in society: 'the information rich' and 'the information poor', of which the latter group would overwhelmingly be dominated by rural and low-income communities.⁶⁰

As early as 1989 the Senegalese government itself recognized this exact problem during its planning stages for ICT adoption within the country. In a government policy paper, it articulated this view:

...the progress of information technologies will most likely promote the dissemination of Western cultural models and values, and will thus hasten the decline of traditional values, primarily in urban settings and among young people (i.e., in the dominant urban culture)... But the risk is great that these technologies will benefit only a privileged minority (with access and skills), accentuating inequalities in a dual, splintered society with a privileged minority, while the masses are excluded from growth.⁶¹

While the arguments seem to have been acknowledged that the Internet could pose social problems to Senegal and other developing nations, no one has yet been able to show demonstratively that it has indeed had a detrimental effect. Indeed, the simple economic difference as a cheap and amazingly powerful communication tool is hard to overlook, and it is one that without it, would only do more to keep Senegal underdeveloped.

As recently as March 2003, the US State Department, USAID, the Peace Corps, and others have come together to create the “Digital Freedom Initiative”, a join private-public pilot program with the following three goals:

• Placing volunteers in small business to share business knowledge and technology expertise;

• Promoting pro-growth regulatory and legal structures to enhance business competitiveness; and

• Leveraging existing technology and communications infrastructure in new ways to help entrepreneurs and small business better compete in both the regional and global marketplace.⁶²

In fact, it is the coupling of ICT and other additional factors -- and not ICT alone -- that will bear real progress. As stated in “The Development Divide in a Digital Age” by a UNRISD researcher: “Although broadening access to new information and communications technologies is often a necessary step in improving the climate for progress in Third World settings, it is almost never a sufficient one.⁶³”

Similar conclusions have come from inside of Senegal, as Mamadou Gaye asserted⁶⁴, “[The Internet] is not a tool of luxury, it is a tool of work.”, and that “Africa needs its tools” to advance in the world.

2) Senegal: A Historical Context

Senegal is a West African country that has seen political and economic stability and relative prosperity since independence and is on its way to becoming a leader in sub-Saharan Africa. However, before examining contemporary Senegal, it is important to provide a brief profile and history of the country.

Currently, Senegal has a population of 10.5 million people, and is comprised of six major indigenous ethnic groups, the Wolof, the Pulaar/Fulani, the Sereer, the Jola, the Mandinka, and the Soninké. It also has small Lebanese, Asian, European and American communities in the capital city, Dakar.⁶⁵ The Empire of Ghana (8^th to 11^th centuries, C.E.), the Tukrur empire, the Empire of Mali (12^th - 14^th centuries, C.E.), and Jolof Empire all captured and fought over various parts of the Senegalese territory over the last 13 centuries. During this time (beginning in the 11^th century, C.E.) most of the Senegalese population became converted to Islam, and currently 94 percent of the population is Muslim.⁶⁶

The Portuguese, headed by Denis Dias, landed at the main peninsula in 1444, which they named “Capo Verde” (Green Cape) where Dakar now stands, and at the island now known as Gorée Island, which became a major slave-trading hub just off the coast of Dakar.⁶⁷ For the next four centuries, various European powers including the Dutch, English and French traded slaves and other goods along the Senegalese coast. The city of Saint-Louis was founded in 1659 at the mouth of the River Senegal, which now marks part of the the Mauritanian-Senegalese border. This city would remain the seat of French power in West Africa until 1902, when it was replaced by Dakar (founded in 1857), the current capital of Senegal. During the 19^th century the French begin to formally colonize the interior of the country, and to fight with the Wolof Empire, particularly in the Cayor province, which connects the land mass between Saint-Louis in the north and Dakar on Cap-Vert.⁶⁸

During the 19^th century, French military forces were met with great resistance to their incursions, particularly from Senegalese fighters like “El Hadji” Omar Saidou Tall, Lat-Dior Diop, and Alboury Ndiaye. Tall, a Pulaar from the Fouta Toro region of southern Senegal, and a member of the Tidiane Islamic brotherhood, captured territory throughout southern and eastern Senegal in order to establish a religious empire. He fought with French authorities, expanding eastward at Medina (1857) and northward at Matam (1859). He continued to fight with the French until he died, as a free man, in 1898.⁶⁹ Lat-Dior Diop, after being incensed at the French colonial government's efforts to construct a railroad between Saint-Louis and Dakar in 1879 and to begin forced cultivation of peanuts in Cayor, incited a revolt against the French from 1882-1883. He was executed by French soldiers in 1886. Alboury Ndiaye was king of the Jolof Empire in Cayor at the time, and when Diop was chased out by the French, he sought refuge with Ndiaye. But Ndiaye too was chased out of Cayor by 1890 and died in 1893.

At the Berlin Conference in 1885, most of West Africa was ceded to the French as “Afrique Occidentale Française” (AOF, or French West Africa), including all of what is now Senegal. A brief battle was fought at Dakar during World War II, as the AOF was under control of the Vichy government in France, when the English, Free French, and Australians bombed the city and attacked from the sea.

Senegal remained a French colony until 1960, when it became an independent country, with Leopold Sedar Senghor as its first President. Senghor served as President from 1960 to 1980. His Prime Minister, Abdou Diouf, served as his successor and then was re-elected until 2000, when he was defeated by Abdoulaye Wade, marking the end of the reign of the Socialist Party. The peaceful transition of power from one President to another and from one party to another is not something to be taken for granted in sub-Saharan Africa, which has experienced a great deal of upheaval in the last half century.

Since independence, Senegal has had minor violent skirmishes with its northern neighbor, Mauritania (1989) and with its southern and separatist region, Casamance (on and off since 1983), but overall has been a stable country compared with some of its other sub-Saharan counterparts, like Nigeria, Guinea-Bissau, Rwanda, the former Zaïre, and Somalia who have experienced a combination of civil war, military rule, coup d'états, famine, drought, and other disasters. Senegal has experienced a peaceful transition of power and has had not experienced large-scale or great misfortunes in recent history.

In the last 10 years, it has experienced annual GDP growth of five percent from 1995 – 2002⁷⁰, and has achieved a purchasing power parity per capita of $1,500.⁷¹ By comparison to other nations on the sub-continent, South Africa has a purchasing power parity per capita of $10,000, Nigeria $900, Ethiopia $700, Ghana $2,000, and The Gambia $1,800. Senegal, therefore, is on the higher end of things, particularly within West Africa.

The combination of their relative political and economic prosperity therefore put Senegal in a unique position via-à-vis their neighbors.

3) Why study ICT in Senegal?

Senegal is an interesting case of a developing nation that is approaching a stage of achieving a critical stage whereby the combination of political stability, a sufficient amount of level of economic activity, and of government and civil action are combining at levels to be able to make widespread Internet access feasible, and therefore, a necessary but not sufficient means toward economic development.

Senegal has been at the vanguard of Internet deployment since it first came to Senegal in 1989. Other African nations have progressively been coming online, with Ethiopia in 1992⁷², Nigeria, Malawi, Ghana, Mali, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Cameroon, Madagascar, and Guinea all joined in 1993, and Benin arrived in 1995. Today in 2004, all African nations have “Full IP” Internet access.

The United States government has recognized Senegal's commitment to ICT, and for that reason has started the Digital Freedom Initiative in 2003. In the “Digital Freedom Initiative Senegal Program Design Summary,” this commitment is outlined:

Most importantly, Senegal has demonstrated a strong commitment at the highest political level to fostering the development and utilization of information and communication technologies for economic and social development. President Abdoulaye Wade chairs the NEPAD [New Economic Partnership for African Development] 'ICT for Development' Committee and Senegal has recognize the importance of promoting competition in the telecommunications sector. Senegal is also in the process of liberalizing its telecommunications policy and regulatory regime. It privatized Sonatel, the national telephone company, in 1997 and launched a quasi-independent regulatory agency in 2002. It has announced plans to introduce national network competition in 2004. In addition, it has an ambitious vision for E-Government services, establishing the Directorate d'Information de l'Etat.⁷³

In short, Senegal has created an environment where Internet growth is ripe for deployment and therefore, it has an opportunity to further its own economic and social development.

II. Telecommunications History & Economic Effects

1) “The Velocity of the Electrical Impulse”

The fastest mail express, or the swiftest ocean ship, are as naught compared with the velocity of the electrical impulse which annihilates any terrestrial dimension.

Capt. George Squier, U.S. Army Signal Corps, 1901⁷⁴

Just as communications technology played an important role for military, commercial and personal uses at the dawn of the 20^th century, it has similar possibilities (albeit via different means) at the dawn of the 21^st century. When Squier spoke 102 years ago, he was referring to telegraph and telephone technologies, but his quote could just as easily apply today to information and communications technologies (ICT).

The goal of this chapter is to provide a history of communications technology from the 19^th century, with the advent of the telegraph (1832), to the present day use of ICTs and to show how they can help economic development. These modern communication tools, like their predecessors two centuries prior, play a significant role in acting as a strong component of the engine of economic development and production. In the present day, the use of the Internet in the developing world, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa can play a substantial and crucial, but not all-encompassing role on the road to economic development.

Through the examination of Senegalese government policies and non-g