Opening Ceremony : Speech of Muhammad Yunus, President of Grameen Bank

Speech of Muhammad Yunus, President of Grameen Bank

IT Revolution and Democracy

1. State of "Democracy".
   
   Political process in many countries has been very frustrating, to say the least. People are losing faith in the political process. Young people have been turning apolitical. In Bangladesh young people means majority of the population. 50% of Bangladesh population is under the age of 20 years.

2. In many countries, government and corruption has become synonymous. Corrupt people get into political leadership position because they find getting into government is the best way to make fortunes.

3. Investing large amounts of money to buy parliament seats and using media blitz to create image to candidates have become accepted practice. In many of our countries "people" disappeared from the political process. Money, muscle power, and even fire-power have taken the driving seat of the "democratic" process.

4. Politicians in weak democracies consolidate their position by creating divisive forces both within and outside the country. They find their strength in creating hatred and distances among citizens and among nations. Visionary leaders who bring citizens together, nations together --- disappear from politics. In South Asia if we could produce visionary leaders problems like "Kashmir" would have been resolved long back, SAARC --- the association of countries of South Asia would have emerged as an unifying platform for all the countries of South Asia.

5. Necessary condition for the poverty-ridden countries of the world, to move out of poverty, is to install the process of true democracy in their political life. The best resource of these countries are their human resource. Democracy is the best political framework to unleash the creative energy of the people, particularly their young people.

6. True democracy empowers individual citizens. If the citizens have to confront the state in an antagonistic way, or have to find themselves surrounded by intricate barriers built by the state while trying to pursue an honest life --- then we have no democracy left.

7. Information Technology (IT) gives us a great hope that may be our nations can fight the devil of corrupted democracy and install true democracy. It is a giant task, but IT is a super technology in the hands of citizens. Big question is, when will this super technology be made available to them ? Who is going to make it available to them ?

8. Information is power. Governments which enjoy ruling the people, rather than serving them, do not wish to let their grip on information go. Information technology is one area where foreign and domestic private investments are always available. If governments give the green signal, private investments and social entrepreneurs can bring IT in these countries.

9. First priority is to open the door for IT. Improving the quality of democracy, is only one dimension of IT. IT is an all-embracing technology. Al aspects of life benefit tremendously from the availability IT. It impacts on the economy, on poverty, on external trade, on empowering women, on banking, commerce, health, education, communication, job creation, etc.

10. Several features of IT make it attractive for many aspects of life :
    
    a) IT eliminates middlemen. Economic and political power-brokers are equally threatened by IT. Any one individual can speak out to or deal with the whole world. In order to reach out to one individual one does not need to go through any intermediary.
    This aspect of IT makes it powerful vehicle to bring in the voices of people directly without the interpretations of the media, which, in weak democracies, is mostly biased. This also makes it a powerful tool at the service of the minority groups, and disadvantaged groups, such as, the poor. Even a lone voice can become powerful voice by reaching out to many through IT.
    
    b) Another interesting feature of IT is its distancelessness. With IT at one's disposal, nobody is too far away or in a remote location. Advantage wielded by the city-folks, particularly city-folks of the capital city can now be shared by anybody from anywhere in the country provided IT is available there.
    
    c) People's choice of information was never history in as real as it is today --- through IT. Each individual can choose what he or she wants to know --- rather than passively submit to what he or she is offered to know.
    
    d) IT has eliminated the need for repeating, & copying again and again. Once I put something on the web-site, it is there for anybody in the world who wishes to visit it. Networking of like-minded people was never easier in history.
    
    e) IT combines all forms of communication --- voice, images and text, all in one system. All this is available to any individual to communicate with any one individual or any number of individuals without any additional cost.
    
    These features are very important for democracy anywhere. But they are particularly important in emerging democracies which are struggling with many difficulties in operationalising true democracy.
    
    IT can help those democracies in the following way :
    
    a) IT can be put to use in making sure all elections are fair and peaceful, every citizen can vote for the candidate of his/her choice without fear. Seeing the enormous business possibilities, financial sector has introduced and refined "smart card" technology to perform miracles. Since businesses do not see any business prospect in "election management" they did not pay any attention to this. It is the responsibility of the governments, civil society, and social entrepreneurs to invest heavily in this area to develop "smart cards" and "ATM machines" for vote casting even in the most politically violent situations.
    
    There may be international competitions held, with big offer of prize money to design IT based elections.
    
    Global democracy institutions, election watch groups, or UN can offer these equipments and services to emerging democracies (why not USA election ?) at the request of their governments for the sake of fair election.
    
    b) This, of course, presupposes existence of IT infra-structure in those countries. This should be the priority number one before we can use IT to improve the quality of democracy. Instead of waiting for the perfect IT infra-structure, we must make a beginning with whatever infrastructure exists, while encouraging its expansion.
    
    c) In Bangladesh, we have started a mobile telephone company called Grameen Phone. We are expanding mobile telephone network into the villages where even electricity does not exist. We are giving these phones to Grameen Bank borrowers, through Grameen Bank financing. Grameen borrower, who is typically a poor woman, becomes the telephone lady of the village, sell telephone service to the villagers. Her telephone is powered by solar panel if grid electricity is not available (80% of Bangladesh's 130 million people do not have access to electricity). She is doing a roaring business. She earns a net profit of $ 70 to $ 500 each month. By the end of this year there will be 10,000 such telephone ladies in business. One week from now Grameen Phone is introducing WAP services in Bangladesh. The telephone ladies will soon be internet ladies.
    
    Government agency responsible for fixed line telephones has only half a million telephones in the country. Grameen Phone already has 300,000 subscribers. It will expand its network to reach 2 million subscribers in the next three years. We hope to have 40,000 telephone ladies by then !
    Each time a new telephone lady receives her phone, she gets a list of important telephone numbers. It has the phone number of the Prime Minister, relevant minister, local MP, head of local administration, police chief, local health service facilities etc. We explain to her that she can call up the PM or the ministers, or MP when she wants to tell them something. It is much easer to call, then meeting them at their offices. Probably not many calls have been generated yet. But who knows, someday these telephones will be ringing a log because of the calls from these villages.
    The point I am trying to make is that IT is expanding even under difficult circumstances. World community, the civil society organisations, governments in mature democracies must help these countries to move into using IT for establishing better democratic practices and improving the quality of life of the women and the poor. This will need support in designing appropriate IT devices, establishing infrastructure for broadband connectivity, financing expansion of IT network coverage, undertaking innovative IT projects to bring in women and the poor within IT network.
    
    d) Power of IT in the context of democracy came out very strongly a few months back in the largest democracy of the world ---- India. It was because of two young journalists filmed exchange of bribe of $ 2,000 for a defense contract in the house of the defense minister. The film was put in the internet called Tahelca dot com. The whole country was outraged watching the scene. Every Indian believes that millions of dollars are exchanged in bribes. But watching it happen even for a tiny amount of $ 2000 --- caused such an uproar that the Bajpai government came near collapse. Defense minister and several of his colleagues had to resign immediately to save the government.
    
    This only a small real life example. Possibilities of ensuring fair election, transparency in public dealings, monitoring election expenditures, personal wealth of ministers and their relatives, connections with the crime world, and expose of government activities offering alternative political agenda, energising the young people and women to participate in political debates and actions can become a reality through the use of IT. If the politicians can see that public cannot be kept in the dark --- they'll start being responsible to the public.
    
    It can be a great friend of democracy by giving voice to the voiceless, and eyes to the politically blind, and ears to their politically deaf.
    Thank you.