`The global knowledge revolution holds promise for the whole world - of isolation abolished, information abundant and accessible. It could allow less-developed countries to leapfrog over costly stages of development . . . and focus networked intelligence on our most crucial problems," according to the report of the World Bank-sponsored Global Knowledge 1997 forum.
The Internet enables minority groups such as the Ogoni in Nigeria and the East Timorese to share their struggles with the rest of the world; farmers in Kenya can sell produce direct to US consumers; a complicated leg-fracture in Indonesia can be treated by a doctor in Canada; students in remote areas can obtain an education; the Tonga people in the Pacific can debate their political future and the Touareg craftspeople in Niger can market their products worldwide in a "virtual market".
The Internet is a tool for transformation, but it is not necessarily going to create a "cybertopia" - and there are fears it will create a knowledge caste system which will deepen divisions between the developing world, the South, and the developed world, the North, and leave billions of people marginalised.
Nelson Mandela believes: "If we cannot ensure this global revolution creates a worldwide information society in which everyone has a stake and can play a part, then it will not be a revolution at all". South Africa, however, is Africa's digital front-runner - with almost 90 per cent of the continent's one million Internet users. Excluding South Africa, there is one computer for every 9,000 people in sub-Saharan Africa and in India (population 950 million), between one and two million people have access to a computer - the European average is one computer for every five people. Internet services in the South are largely confined to urban areas which, in Africa, excludes over 70 per cent of the 750 million population - many of whom may have never used a phone, let alone a computer.
However, alternatives are being explored. The remote village of El Limon in the Dominican Republic has gone online, thanks to volunteers from Cornell University in the US, who used spectrum digital radio to connect to the nearest phone line (and modem) six miles away.
"Communities like El Limon need access to information so they can use (and preserve) their limited resources more effectively. Agricultural, marketing, and weather information are particularly important in a farming economy. News is essential for informed participation in the civil process. Interactive communication tools can facilitate collaboration with peer communities, across the country and around the world," explains the website www.sas.cornell.edu/cresp/ ecopartners).
"There are differences to access within countries, as most Internet users tend to belong to very narrow social sectors, suggesting that the Internet today is mainly a tool of a transnational `virtual elite'," believes Paula Uimonen, of the UN Research Institute for Social Development.
In Jordan, for instance, where 25,000 out of a population of four million are online, "it is having a polarising influence on Jordanian society. The Internet is used only by the middle-class, educated and English-speaking elite," says telecoms analyst, Ahmad Nasser.
There are other barriers to transnational access. Almost half the adult population of the least developed countries is illiterate - the priority for them must be basic literacy rather than computer skills. The cultural and language bias of the Internet makes it irrelevant to many in the South - the Web was born in the US and it shows. Under 10 per cent of its content is of Asian origin, yet Asia represents almost half of the world's population.
Telemedicine is the area in which the Internet is seen as most useful, but this too has been questioned. While medical consultations, distance-training, and up-to-date information are all available online, comments Uimonen, "one should not forget that many health problems in the Third World require less high-tech solutions. Many patients could be cured by such simple remedies as access to clean water."
However, community-based teleshops are mushrooming. These may offer phones, computers, typewriters, voicemail, faxes and email, or even just one phone. In Ghana, for example, email is printed out and delivered - thus the Internet reaches people who may never see a computer.
In El Limon, the hope is that the computer equipment will provide a source of income for the community. Increasingly, community groups are using the Internet for education. Women in Recife, Brazil, with very few resources, created an award-winning website to promote breast-feeding in local communities and to campaign for baby milk companies such as Nestle to adhere to the World Health Organisation guidelines. According to Trocaire's Latin America project officer, Kate O'Brien, infant deaths in the region can be caused by contaminated water and over-diluted baby milk - and 100,000 people visited the breast-feeding website in its two-year existence.
One way in which the developing world reaches richer countries is via the OneWorld superwebsite. With a mission to "promote human rights and sustainable development by harnessing the democratic potential of the Internet," OneWorld (www.oneworld.org) hosts the websites of hundreds of grassroots and humanitarian organisations, such as Oxfam, Afronet and Green Earth, an environmental group in Ghana.
The global village is becoming a reality, according to OneWorld's co-ordinator in Angola, Sundie Sinkala: "Africa is no longer a Dark Continent - it is part of the international community and whatever is taking place on this continent has some direct or indirect impact on the Americas and Europe.
"It is only through knowledge about Africa (which could come through the Internet) and especially projected by the locals, that the North would be able to respond urgently and favourably, for example, during national disasters."
smarriott@irish-times.ie