Ya'u, Y. Z. "The New Imperialism & Africa in the Global Electronic Village". Review of African Political Economy, Vol.31, No.99 (2004): 11-29.

Ya'u, Y. Z. "The New Imperialism & Africa in the Global Electronic Village". Review of African Political Economy, Vol.31, No.99 (2004): 11-29.

• Africa is too poorly positions in terms of information technology to benefit from globalization in communications, which instead leaves Africa in a structural deficit within the knowledge economy, making it dependent on the outside world for technology and expertise in a rapidly advancing world (12).
• John Tomlinson defines 'globalization' in his 1996 article as: "a rapidly developing process of complex interconnections between societies, cultures, institutions and individuals worldwide. It is a social process which involves a compression of time and space, shrinking distances through a dramatic reduction in the time taken - either physically or representationally - to cross them, so making the world seem smaller and in a certain sense bringing human beings 'closer' to one another" (12).
• As an economic process, globalization is also linked to increased liberalization, particularly in the realm of international trade. In this process, the role of the state retreats through privatization, becoming concentrated at creating the environmental conditions for private sector-led growth. This economic element of globalization is market-driven, not state-driven, drastically reducing the role of democracy in development (13).
• Communications technologies are an element of this economic globalization, particularly benefit transnational companies through improved communications and the incredible ease of transferring capital internationally. Although communications technologies benefits everyone, it disproportionately benefits multinational corporations (13).
• Many different competing forms of globalization exist, but the dominant form of market orthodoxy globalization, expressed in domestic politics as neoliberalism, certainly depends on communications technologies and disproportionately benefits person, corporations, and countries which are well-connected (14).
• Africa is severely undeveloped in terms of standard information technologies, with only 2% of the world's computers, despite making up for 13% of the global population (14). The distribution of landlines and personal computers is also skewed by the severe overrepresentation of South Africa, which single-handedly accounts for half of all computers in Africa (15).
• Africa also faces severe skills shortages in areas needed for developing information technology. Computers require basic literacy to operate, and technicians to repair, maintain, and install systems. Africa has a literacy rate of under 60% and just over 2% of the population are technical graduates; poor conditions for the expansion of information technology (15-16).
• Existing internet infrastructure in Africa is also poor, and its use is much more expensive than in other areas of the world. Africa also lacks production facilities for the necessary equipment, making it dependent on foreign sources for the material to upgrade its expensive and slow internet capabilities (16).
• The general global trend in information technology is towards market-driving globalization and the privatization of state communications monopolies. Promoters say that privatization will develop the sector through capital inflows, while detractors warn that privatization sells off communications assets just as they become valuable and will make communication technology less accessible to the poor (17-18).
• The organization of the GATS agreement in the WTO has major implications for the development of information technology in Africa, since IT is among the sectors open to competition from the West under the agreement. TRIPS agreements also prevent African companies from copying the technological innovations that would allow them to compete in IT services with the developed world, trapping Africa in a structurally dependent position (18).
• The structural disadvantage of African companies in IT services comes at the same time that privatization is actively encouraged by the global zeitgeist, meaning that African companies are usually unable to purchase or operate the state assets being sold off, not allowing African businesses to profit from privatization (19).
• The current push of information technology development is towards greater privatization, meaning that development will expand in profitable areas, with good infrastructure and high populations, but will not improve in areas already under-serviced by information technology (24).
• The solution to this issue of developing information and communication technologies in under-developed regions like Africa is increasing public investment, like East Asia and America did. Privatization should be resisted, and resources within the continent should be pooled to make up for private investment (25-26).