Developing countries and the global science Web

Enabling scientists from developing countries to bridge the gap between rich and poor depends on closing another gap - the "digital divide". Now the technology exists to monitor this divide, and it reveals some alarming results. Most developing countries experience great difficulties because of adverse economic conditions and political instability, which means they lag behind in scientific and technological development. With the advent of the World Wide Web and the rapid exchange of information via the Internet, one might naively have thought that much of the gap between developed and developing nations would disappear, even if problems still persisted for those areas of science that need expensive facilities. However, access to information, peer reviewed or not, depends on having the appropriate hardware, i.e. a computer, and Internet connectivity, and there is a serious problem with access to the Internet in developing countries. Gaining access to a computer is more of a question of economics, and one that we will assume will somehow be overcome. In this article we will instead concentrate on the issue of Internet connectivity. (1 refs).