Southern superpowers: challenging our notions of development

Gone are the days when developing countries depended on Western developed societies for skill and technology transfers. The emerging superpowers of India and China are – in my view – already offering tough competition to western markets in the field of information and communication technologies (ICTs).

Here are three examples:

1. India’s Reliance Communications plans to build a submarine cable around the east coast of Africa to rival the continent’s own much-delayed EASSy plan. A subsidiary company will invest USD 1.5 billion in building the world’s largest internet network, covering 60 countries.

2. The Indian government is ‘donating’ USD 1 billion to connect 53 African countries through satellite and fibre-optic technologies to increase exchanges on (tele)medicine.

3. China is reported to be constructing 2000 km of optical-fibre network in Uganda to increase local connectivity.

These are just business plans (even the donation, I suspect) and may well need refining. But such partnerships would mean more economic activity within the South, and represent a massive shift in the traditional North-South paradigm of global economic development.

And, although they rely on existing expertise – for decades India has excelled in medicine, for example – of course, it’s ICTs that are opening up endless opportunities in sharing and learning.

Comments

[Ken Griffey Jr Shoes]

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