§ 1. David Cairns (Greenock and Inverclyde) (Lab)What progress is being made with the millennium development target to make available the benefits of information and communications technologies to people in developing countries. [151163]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development (Mr. Gareth Thomas)Good progress is being made in many developing countries in spreading the benefits of information and communications technology to their people. For example, people in developing countries now own 46 per cent. of all mobile phones, with countries such as Uganda seeing user numbers double each year. By the end of June last year, the number of internet users in China had risen to 68 million. That represents just 5.3 per cent. of the population, so it also demonstrates the considerable challenge that still remains to spread the benefits of ICT throughout developing countries.
§ David CairnsI thank my hon. Friend for that answer. A couple of weeks ago, Martin McCluskey, a young constituent, went to Ghana as part of his gap year in order to teach villagers in a very rural part of the country how to use the computers that they had had for some time, but had lacked the experience and training to make them work. Does my hon. Friend agree that computing technology is a vital development tool, but that there is no point in providing people with computers if we do not also provide the training and expertise to make them work? What help and assistance can the Government give to voluntary schemes such as the one Martin is on, and what direct assistance can the Minister's Department provide for training and knowledge-based skills?
Mr. ThomasI commend my hon. Friend's constituent for going out to Ghana to work and provide training for people in the village. The House owes a debt of gratitude to the many volunteers who go out from this country to developing countries, and to the work of organisations such as the Voluntary Services Organisation, with which we are working closely in Ghana to provide information on how to use ICT there. We are also working directly with the Ghana education service to help it to use ICT to deliver better access to the curriculum for 30,000 untrained teachers in the country, so that the quality of education in Ghana can improve significantly.
§ Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)Will the Minister join me in praising the work of Cisco Systems, which, together with the International Telecommunication Union, is establishing more than 20 internet training centres in developing countries? Will the Minister assure 295 the House, however, that, important as it is to try to reduce the digital divide, it will not take away resources from the important fight against HIV/AIDS in developing countries?
Mr. ThomasI join the hon. Gentleman in paying tribute to the work not only of the particular company to which he referred, but to a whole series of private sector companies that are seeing what they can do to invest in ICT across the developing world. We need to play our part in the international community to ensure that the regulatory system is such that companies are keen to invest. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we view ICT as a way of spreading messages to help in the fight against HIV/AIDS, so there is no need for the two to be mutually exclusive.
§ Ms Julia Drown (South Swindon) (Lab)If we are to meet this and all the other development targets, there will need to be a massive increase in overseas aid and assistance. When does my hon. Friend believe that we might reach the target of 0.7 per cent. of gross domestic product on overseas aid? Given that Norway, Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands have topped that target for several years, should we not be able to reach it, too?
Mr. ThomasMy hon. Friend will know that we remain committed to the 0.7 per cent. target. We believe that we will have reached 0.4 per cent. by 2005–06, when the budget for international development will have risen to £4.5 billion. My hon. Friend will also know how much that contrasts with the record of the Conservatives, who saw moneys on international development halved in their 18 years in office.