Costa Rica Takes Measures To Bridge Digital Divide

Mike Godfrey, Tax-news.com, New York

04 April 2001

The Costa Rican government has announced a strategy to tackle the increasing problem of IT knowledge deficiency in the country. Costa Rica is experiencing not only a "digital divide" with other countries but there is also a huge disparity within its society as only a small proportion of Costa Ricans have access to the Internet. At a presentation of the government's "Digital Agenda", President Miguel Angel Rodríguez stated: 'A society that doesn't provide its citizens with universal access to computer resources and the Internet will find very limited opportunities to forge a prosperous future.'

According to a report in Costa Rica's Tico Times, the Digital Agenda is a five-point plan that aims to bridge the country's digital divide by providing free training programmes at schools, colleges, churches and community centres across Costa Rica which will complement the current "Punto.com" initiative hosted by the country's post offices under which they operate as free Internet cafes and the Banco Nacional computer financing scheme which provides those on low incomes with loans to purchase computer equipment.

Representatives from some of Costa Rica's top IT companies have agreed to assist in the Digital Agenda plan by teaching SMEs (small and medium enterprises) - which account for 85 per cent of all Costa Rican companies - how to meet their needs by using the Internet to its full advantage.

Under the Digital Agenda a "Costa Rica Marketplace" web site will also be developed by the Export Promotion Office (PROCOMER) to promote the country's export companies and the Costa Rican Tourism Institute (ICT) has already created a web site advertising SMEs and their products and services.

The High-Technology Advisory Foundation (CAATEC), a non-profit organisation jointly founded by economist Ricardo Monge, some of the country's leading academics and the general managers of many of Costa Rica's high-tech multinationals, is currently devising a system to gauge how prepared Costa Rica is for an e-commerce revolution by studying four areas: infrastructure, regulations, institutions and human resources. This will enable the government to identify the country's strengths and weaknesses and work out what further strategies to take in the future. Mr Monge onfirmed that the World Bank had agreed to provide the foundation with start-up capital but the amount remains undisclosed: 'we receive no funding from the government, so we expect to carry out this analysis every year,' he said.

Mr Monge described the Digital Agenda as a 'very well-conceived plan because it isn't so much a plan of action as a list of actions that are already taking place.' Earlier this year the advent of cheaper, faster and more reliable service called "Internet 2" was made possible by the arrival of Costa Rica's undersea fiber-optic strand, known as Maya Cable, allowing the country to connect to the Internet at faster speeds than the current, satellite-based system. In addition, Synapse Gobal Corporation, an US-based company offering Internet hosting, co-location and e-commerce services, recently entered into an alliance with Costa Rican firm Sinapsis Global, to provide website hosting and other Internet services at a lower cost than the Central American country's market average.

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