Poor 'miss out' on net commerce

from BBC bq. Developing nations are missing out on the economic benefits of e-commerce warns a report from the United Nations. It said that poverty, poor health, illiteracy and slow net links deprived many nations of the advantages enjoyed by more advanced economies. bq. The report said that e-commerce was a powerful force for development that poorer nations should embrace. bq. It said it can help boost economies, create jobs and even help farmers find better markets for what they produce. it goes on bq. The report revealed that at the end of last year, 32% of the world's 591 million net users lived in the developing world. A year earlier, developing nations accounted for 28% of these users. bq. But this still means that net users remain rare in poorer nations. In Nigeria, for instance, only 17 out of every 10,000 inhabitants are online. bq. The picture is even bleaker when statistics for who produces net content are considered. bq. Unsurprisingly, North America dominates accounting for 75% of all internet hosts. By contrast the figure for Africa is 0.2%. One can also look at it in the light of all the government corpution and cronyism there between many of the African nations and various European nations. These people get rich while stripmining their countries and people and only provide the most basic of services. Where is the infrastructure? Who in the Ivory Coast was responsible for putting PCs in schools and wiring DSL out to the villages...