Regional High-Level Workshop on Electronic Commerce and ICT for Central America and the Caribbean...

Regional High-Level Workshop on Electronic Commerceand ICT for Central America and the Caribbean

Curaçao, June 25-27, 2002

‘E-Selling’ Caricom

Annalee C. Babb

[email protected]



Outline

Main Question/Central Arguments

ICT & Development

Ways of Thinking About Access

National Knowledge Infrastructure [NKI] for Growth

Innovating Technology Services

Conclusion: Knowledge-Driven Development

Recommendations



Main Question

Several Caricom member states moving to invest heavily and quickly in necessary ICT infrastructures to promote e-commerce

But, what products and services are they planning to sell in the high-value-added Internet marketplace?



Central Arguments

Real barrier to e-commerce growth and long-term development of islands of Caribbean Community:

– Lack of enabling environment for creation, processing & diffusion of new knowledge, ideas & innovation

Solution: Creation of a National Knowledge Infrastructure (NKI) for development, built on

– Operational access to new digital media within…

– … an efficient National System of [services] Innovation



Link Between Telecoms & Development

Is there a correlation between investment in telecoms & development?

– Causality runs both ways

ICT investments Economic growth

ICT investments Economic growth

Heather Hudson, 1997



Product Cycles

ICT policy-making product cycle

– From utopian pronouncements to more critical analyses

– Today, many policy-makers still euphoric about ICT potential…

– …Scholars are becoming more critical, but

– Still strong belief that new digital media hold tremendous promise for development

Ernest J. Wilson III, 1997



If You Have a Hammer…

To someone with a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail…

It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail…

-- Abraham Maslow



Making Room for Difference

Each society has its own strengths/weaknesses

– Different levels of receptivity to technological innovation/change

Every developmental issue facing less advanced economies is not equivalent to Maslow’s nail

Nor is its solution necessarily to be found in the hammer of a specific technology or technological application

– i.e., the new digital media/the e-commerce services/applications they make possible



Old Economy vs. New Economy

Strong correlation between ability to be competitive in the ‘old’ economy and ability to stay competitive in the Internet economy

– Technology sectors crash beginning in 2000

– Structural problems in Asian economies

E-commerce penetration by region is closely linked to education and affluence (economic and social development)



The High Stakes Internet

E-commerce stats:

– B2B transactions worldwide could top the US$1 trillion mark by 2006

– Corporations internationally could save more than US$1 trillion in 2002 doing business over the Internet

The $$ stakes are high – motivating countries & businesses to make huge investments to be part of the lucrative e-commerce space



Caricom’s ICT/E-Commerce Strategies

Barbados example

– Telecoms liberalization/deregulation, sector competition

– IPR protection

– E-commerce legislation

– Proposed bankruptcy bill

– Edutech2000



Caricom’s Structural Challenges

Productivity/efficiency gains from domestic e-commerce activities too small to sustain economic growth

– Also tiny local production base in manufacturing, agriculture…

Heavy dependence on a few foreign exchange earning sectors

Risk-averse private sectors not responsive to innovation/change

Public sector inertia & inefficiency

Absence of national systems/policies for services sector innovation

Little success moving to high-value-added tech products & services



The art of selling things well is useless to someone who has little or nothing to sell…



Solution

I propose creation/nurturing of National Knowledge Infrastructure (NKI) as central framework for development/economic growth

– Places knowledge at center of development at every level of economy and society

Components of the NKI:

– Operational access to new digital media in…

– … an efficient National System of [services] Innovation



Understanding Access

Physical Access

Financial Access

Secure Access

Operational Access



Physical Access

Financial Access

Secure Access

Operational Access

(knowledge)

Barbados’

Current Position?

Barbados/ Caricom’s

Target Position

What is required What is required for Barbados/ for Barbados/

Caricom/ OECS to Caricom/ OECS to Move up the Move up the

ICT/Knowledge ICT/Knowledge Ladder?Ladder?

OECS’ Current

Position?OECS = Organization of

Eastern Caribbean States

Stepping up the Technology Ladder

Source: Adapted from Vongpivat, 2002



Public

Private

Academia

Framework

ComponentsSources

Policy

Production

Research

Private Sector

Government

Academia

Macro environment

Elements of an NSI

Source: Vongpivat 2002



Innovation in Services

Pratana Vongpivat: In NSI, government policy plays crucial role in sparking competition, demand for and supply of new technologies

Her model, like NSI literature in general, explores mainly productive/ manufacturing sectors of an economy

My research argues it is vital for Caricom states to create national systems that foster innovation in high-value-added technology services sectors

– OECD has just begun to look at this for its member states– More research necessary in general, and for Caricom



Conclusion

Operational Access (to ICT)

+

NSI (in services)

=

NKI (knowledge creation)



Some Recommendations

National education curricula that focus on “absorption” of information as well as teaching of logic, creative thinking and critical analysis

Targeted regional partnerships between private sectors, academia and governments for diffusion of specified knowledge/technologies

Software and e-commerce institutes to foster student, teacher, knowledge exchange between region’s MDCs and LDCs

Attraction/effective utilization of high-tech financial, intellectual and physical capital of Caribbean Diaspora



More Recommendations

Fostering of risk-taking/innovative culture in Caricom private sectors– Example: Bankruptcy laws to encourage invention & originality,

rather than penalizing actors for business failures

Creation of appropriate R&D environment– Would support efforts of inexperienced companies in developing,

commercializing new high-technology products and services

Incentives to UWI to integrate new digital technologies & services across main and satellite campuses, and devote more capacity to R&D in support of private sector, general economic growth– Academia might work together with international organizations



My Research Network

Lee W. McKnight, Paul Vaaler, and Raul Katz, Mobile Nations. Creative Destruction in Emerging Markets, (under review by MIT Press), 2003.

Lee W. McKnight, Paul Vaaler, and Raul Katz, eds., Creative Destruction. Business Survival Strategies in the Global Internet Economy, MIT Press, 2001, 2002; Japanese translation Toyo Keizai, 2003.

Peter Cukor and Lee McKnight, “Knowledge Networks, the Internet, and Development,” The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, Vol. 25, no. 1, March 2001, pp. 43-58.

Pratana Vongpivat, “A National Innovation System Model: Industrial Development in Thailand,” Unpublished doctoral dissertation, 2002, Medford, MA: The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

Regional High-Level Workshop on Electronic Commerce and ICT for Central America and the Caribbean...

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