Toward a Global Rural Network: Strategy and Action Plan

During the last decade, pilot studies and focused projects have established the efficacy of the Internet in developing nations;1 however, connectivity remains uncommon and it is generally slow and unreliable.2 The developing nations are too poor to attract sufficient capital to build modern Internet infrastructure.3 The activity of the past decade has had positive results. All governments are now aware of the importance of telecommunication infrastructure and the relationship between infrastructure and social planning. Technology has also steadily improved, dramatically lowering infrastructure cost. We feel it is time to consider a grand challenge infrastructure project: connecting all the villages of the developing nations within 10 years (Press, 2004a). The World Bank estimates that there are 2949 million rural people in low and lower-middle income nations, and the average population of a rural village in India, China, or Bangladesh is 1,060 people. If we assume this population is representative, a global rural network would have to reach nearly 3 million villages (Press, 2004b). This is a daunting challenge, but others, like sending a man to the moon, achieving rural electrification in the United States, building our interstate highway system, or deploying the global positioning system were also ambitious. This note suggests a strategy for achieving a global rural network, and recommends a plan of action. Bangladesh is considered as the nation for the initial pilot design and implementation.