Monthly Archives: October 2016

10/28/16

Book review: Fate of Africa by Martin Meredith

Book Review

Martin Meredith – The Fate of Africa.

 

In The Fate of Africa, Martin Meredith narrates in detail how Africa’s current challenges with rule of law and democracy are not new to the continent but simply a case of history repeating itself.  Focusing on the key personalities, events and themes of the independence era, he also explores and explains the myriad problems that Africa has faced in the past half-century, and faces still. The Fate of Africa is an essential reading for anyone seeking to understand how Africa came to be what it is today and what is to be done. Meredith’s narration is broadly chronological, he gives a detailed historical background of the emergence of current African states starting with the Berlin conference dubbed the Scramble for Africa, colonialism that led to racial segregation and the underdevelopment of Africa.

In part one of the book Meredith begins by chronicling the long road to freedom of many African countries, such as Ghana under the leadership of Kwame Nkrumah. He narrates the revolution that led to many African countries gaining independence between 1960 and 1980 and the role of the nationalist movements in Tanzania under Julius Nyerere, Kenya, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, leading to the fall of the colonial empires with the assistance of Russia and China. Independence came in the midst of an economic boom especially in countries that were under British rule. However, throughout the book it is clear how former colonial powers continued to dictate the pace of development in Africa well after African States had gained independence.

Part two touches on a broad range of themes which include, economic development focusing on industrialisation and dependence on aid, the significance of nationalist and revolutionary movements and ideas in shaping the value systems of the people, education and the shortage of skilled labour, and the corruption and extravagance of new elites. Meredith also looks at ethnicity in Africa focusing on the Genocide in Rwanda and the events that took place during the 100 days in which over 800 000 Tutsis were slaughtered by members of the Hutu majority government. He looks at how colonialists managed to use ethnicity to separate, control and turn Africans against each other. I think this chapter really examines whether the African Union, the UN and the rest of the international community could have prevented the horror that took place in Rwanda. Meredith also writes about other regional conflicts in Nigeria leading up to the 1966 military coup and the Biafran war and give short accounts of Idi Amin in Uganda, Bokassa in the Central African Republic, Mengistu in Ethiopia, and other tyrants.

Meredith does a commendable job in bring out how history has played a part in the problems that Africa still faces today. From Cape to Cairo former colonial powers have had a hand in the outcome of elections. They have supported individuals who have turned out to be dictators, for example, Idi Amin, Mobutu, Robert Mugabe and Bokasa. Thus, the evolving democracies in Africa will not only require the discipline of the state and the reconstitution of politics, but also the animation of the civil society and its democratic potentials, re-adjustment in economic policy and agenda from the fundamentalist market orthodoxy, resolving the military question and engendering some relative re-ordering of economic and power relations within the global arena.

Part three  and the last section of the book covers Mengistu in Ethiopia and the 1984 famine that captured the worlds attention; the Muslim/non-Muslim divide in Chad and Sudan (way before South Sudan became an independent state; the onset and spread of AIDS that led to the death of millions of people; the economic decline; the coming of democracy, or some pretence thereof, to Kenya, Nigeria and many other states; Nelson Mandela and the end of apartheid in South Africa in 1994; the factions and mutilations and child soldiers and outside interference in Liberia and Sierra Leone; Mugabe’s turn to violence in Zimbabwe; and problems with the truth and reconciliation commission.

The Fate of Africa leaves some aspects of Africa’s modern history untouched, but it provides an accessible introduction to the subject and a solid framework from which further explorations can be carried out. It has decent coverage of macroeconomics, but almost no social or cultural history. There’s no consideration of broader health issues such malaria, mental illness amongst the African people that went to war to fight for the independence of their states, Anthrax which was used in biological warfare but most colonial forces to kill the livestock of black people and sleeping sickness.

In my opinion in order to fully understand the dynamics of the African political jungle, there is also need to understand the inherent problems and contradictions in the nature of the domestic and the international political economy of African states, which may significantly vitiate or undermine “democracy-good governance” in Africa.

10/21/16

Discussion Paper: Politics and Public Management: Who Governs?

Analysis of Articles by

  1. Dutton in Oxford Handbook of Governance,
  2. Durant and Resh in Oxford Handbook of American Bureaucracy and
  3. Grube, “Responsibility to be Enthusiastic: Public Servants and the Public Face of “Promiscuous Partisanship” Governance.

 

Overview

This paper will explore and discuss, based on the readings of the week, the shift in power that occurs within organisations inorder to maintain control and deliver on policy goals and expectations. Similar strategies are used both in government, private and public organisations to ensure that plans on paper are translated into actions and tangible outcomes. These strategies, that will be discussed at length in this paper, include persuasion, personnel shifts (have proved to be the most of effective), reorganization, and budgetary control amongst others. The bureaucratic systems in place in most organisations seem to pose a threat to incumbent managers hence the need to exercise the legitimate power that comes with the position of Presidency or managerial post.  Most often than not, within government, the civil service finds itself in the middle of the storm, that is, caught between making a political decision and a professional one. The 21st century has witnessed a boom in the use of internet in governance. The role of the internet in influencing continues to be explored to measure its impact on communicating policy and influencing decisions at an international, national and community level. The internet has worked to bring people into positions of power and to overthrow leaders from power, for example the Arab Spring. This paper will also discuss how the use of the internet has continued to evolve.

Bureaucrats put government policy into practice, and therefore having a large impact in policymaking. In order to get their policies passed, the Presidents in most democratic systems of governance must work with the bureaucracy. Controlling the bureaucracy can be difficult for the following reasons as stated by Johnson and Libecap (1994):

  • Size: monitoring everyone or even every group within the bureaucracy is impossible, so much of what bureaucrats do goes unmonitored.
  • Expertise of bureaucrats: The people who administer policy often know much more about those issues than the president or any manager (unless they have been part of the system before). This expertise gives the bureaucrats power. Weber alluded to this as one of the tenets of the bureaucracy.
  • Civil service laws:Firing bureaucrats, even for incompetence, is very difficult because of the long procedures that one has to go through before one can be dismissed.
  • Clientele groups: Many government agencies provide services to thousands of people, and those people sometimes rally to defend the agency.
  • Policy implementation: When a new program is created, it does not establish all the details on how the policy will be implemented. Instead, an enabling legislation is passed, which grants power to an agency to work out the specifics

Faced with these challenges the heads of organisations have to make management decisions on how best to control and have the upper hand in order to achieve intended targets. The article by Durant and Resh refers to what Richard Nathan (1983) dubbed “administrative presidency”. This entails using strategies within the confines of the law to guarantee the desired outcomes.

Administrative presidency conditions levels of trust between appointees and careerists, which subsequently conditions the level of explicit and tacit knowledge sharing within organizations. It is used by Presidents and managers who come into power and want to work with people who share the same vision as them and will act as their eyes, ears and foot soldiers on the ground within the bureaucracy. This has been the norm in the US when a President selects their Cabinet, in the UN when the Secretary General appoints or rather handpicks advisers and even in grassroots organisation when managers hire individuals they know from previous work experience. It is based on trust and knowing that unilaterism within institutions does not work.

Various tools are used in the administrative presidency, these include what Robert Durant (1998) called “contextual tools”, these include, the art of persuasion, personnel shifts and reorganisation among others. Elena Kagan (2001) also refed to what she called the” unilateral tools” which include, presidential proclamations, executive orders and executive agreements. This paper will briefly look into how each of the tools work.

Presidential scholar Richard Neustadt has argued that the president’s primary power is that of persuasion. The president must lobby or persuade bureaucrats, get their buy- in. But trying to convince members of the bureaucracy that their goals fit with the president’s goals is a time-consuming and an often frustrating process. Workplaces are filled with diverse personalities and require various interaction methods and approaches to drive better collaboration and action. Persuasion has always been an important management skill, but one that becomes more important with the rise of collaborative management styles. To persuade someone effectively, the research shows that people need to be well-prepared, and have enough knowledge, and data/evidence to convince others to accept your proposal (Clarke and Crossland 2016).

The centralization of administrative decision making and regulatory review is another way in which the bureaucracy is controlled. This means minimum autonomy and maximum restrictions on operations of subunits of the organization. If any decentralization is to happen it will come with the imposition of staff from the head of the organisation in order to maintain direct or indirect control.

Under the tenure of United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the number of the highest-ranking U.N. officials increased by an average of 35 percent (a 47 percent increase in New York and a 27 percent increase elsewhere). The Secretary-General is the chief administrative officer of the United Nations. Article 101 of the U.N. Charter grants him authority to appoint U.N. staff “under regulations established by the General Assembly (Schaefer 2009). A fundamental tenet of the administrative presidency has been that careerists cannot be trusted to be responsive to leader’s policy agendas (Moffit, 2001; Sanera, 1984). And while it is typically claimed that applying the tools of the administrative presidency is motivated by appointees’ distrust of careerists to faithfully carry out those agendas (Ban & Ingraham, 1990). The implementation of the politicization strategy is ostensibly meant to align the expert and institutional knowledge of the career bureaucracy with the leader ‘s agenda in a given policy area (Rudalevige, 2009).

Politicization of the civil service means the substitution of merit-based criteria for political criteria in the selection, retention, promotion, rewards, and disciplining of members of the public service (Peters and Pierre 2004). The civil service usually finds itself between a rock and a hard place, that is, having to always be neutral in carrying out their job descriptions and having to carry out politically motivated tasks just because they are part of the Presidents’ agenda. The challenge with politics creeping into public service is that public servants have to compromise on what is best for the people for what the president wants in order to meet their goals.

Contractualism provides politicians with the means to politicize civil servant positions, since they are allowed greater freedom to choose the director generals of their liking. One basic idea of the NPM model is that the public sector should become more like the private sector. Traditional bureaucratic virtues like equity, universalism, personal responsibility, professionalism, safety and resilience should be replaced by the principles of competition, specialisation, efficiency and flexibility (Lægreid 2001). For instance, the employments and careers of civil servants should not be too secure in order that the political control is strengthened and the civil service is made more productive and responsive

One of the undisputed characteristics of New public management (NPM) is the separation of politics and administration, which can be traced back to the Progressives and classical public administration, to the influence of policy analysis for politics, and even to certain branches of public management. However, decisions about administrative structures are political questions and are closely related to political philosophy (Gruening 2001). Hence leading to partisan-political staff as a new force in public administration.

Another external factor that might affect the level of autonomy of an agency is the public attention attracted by that agency. An agency that faces a great deal of external criticism in parliament, by other public agencies or NGOs, or in the media, might also draw the critical eye of the government. Being the institution that is held democratically accountable for the achievements of the public agencies, the government is likely to allow less autonomy to an agency that appears to have problems handling its commission satisfactorily (Lægreid et al. 2006). On the other hand, if the public attention is mainly positive, the government might be willing to allow the agency even greater degrees of autonomy than normal (Niklasson and Pierre 2012). Either way, the government has an interest in making sure that an agency that spends a lot of time in the limelight is led by a director general that they trust, e.g. somebody with a political background.

Agency task is another factor that is often related to the autonomy of public agencies. For example, agencies with regulating tasks are often said to enjoy greater autonomy than those mainly dealing with general public services or defence (Epstein and O’Halloran 1999). The government has a greater interest in ensuring that regulatory agencies appear to act independently of the political leadership, so that they may harmonise with a policy field that is largely dominated by private and international corporations. It is also a matter of convincing free market actors of the long-term stability and objectivity of the economic policies implemented. Governments can therefore be expected to be less prone to try to politicise these agencies, even though these agencies are also likely to enjoy a high degree of autonomy.

Other kinds of tasks may on the other hand decrease the autonomy of an agency. According to the study by Verhoest et al. (2010), agencies dealing with social welfare policies (housing, health, recreation, culture, religion, education and social security) display lower autonomy. This might be because this policy field has a large impact on people’s everyday lives and thus tends to be strongly correlated with the popular support for the government. Consequently, the government is less willing to give up control over these agencies. Swedish agencies dealing with social welfare issues have also been pointed out to be particularly politicized (Rothstein 2005).

When support is low within the bureaucracy, leaders tend to look outside for support in order to influence decisions to go their way. Network governance is one reliable way to rally support. Having interest groups supporting decisions inline with the leader’s policy goals is crucial for the bureaucracy to buy-into the ideas.  Network governance requires leadership that advances the shared interests of the network. Recent transformations of state and society have increased the importance of governance networks in formulating, determining and implementing public policy.

There is a need to give more recognition to the legitimacy of a wide range of stakeholders. Politicians and officials have a particular legitimacy given that government is elected, but there are other valid claims to legitimacy from among others, including business partners, neighborhood leaders, those with knowledge about services as professionals or users, and those in a position of oversight as auditors or regulators. These diverse bases of legitimacy cannot be trumped simply by the playing of the political card (Goss, 2001). The public value management paradigm relies on a stakeholder conception of legitimacy in its governance arrangements. The fundamental idea is that for a decision to be legitimate or for a judgment to be made, it is necessary to have all the stakeholders involved (Stoker, 2004).

Consent beyond the ballot box can be obtained through various methods of public consultation and deliberation, such as citizen juries. New information and communication technologies offer a range of further opportunities to get people’s participation in ways that are flexible, attractive to them, and not too time-consuming. During 2014, according to Keen (2015), the world’s Internet users, all three billion of them, sent 204 million emails, uploaded 72 million hours of YouTube video, undertook 4 million Google searches, shared 2.46 million pieces of Facebook content, published 277,000 tweets, posted 216,000 new photos on Instagram and spent $83,000 on Amazon every minute, every day. These networks are doing many things. The image of the power of flow might be more complex than is sometimes depicted. The growing use of the Internet and related digital technologies is creating a space for networking individuals to provide a new source of accountability in government, politics and many other sectors of networked societies.

Policymaking in the twenty-first century takes place in a changed environment. A significant proportion of social, economic and political activity across the world takes place on the internet. The Internet is intertwined with financial markets, with government and public services, with social life and social problems, and with the criminal world. Increasingly the major challenges that face public policy, from climate change to crime to public health, are tackled with technological innovations that involve the internet (Margetts, 2009). The Internet is embedded in interactions between citizens, firms, governments and NGOs, bringing with it new practices, norms and structures. These developments require and facilitate a policy response. In the world of policy making social networking technologies (SNTs) enable stakeholders to take part in the conception, implementation and evaluation of policies as consumers and producers of policy. Individuals and organisations have taken to SNTs to demystify policy making and the elitist attitude that is attached to it.

The use of the internet has also caused radical changes in the world of politics, with increased citizen participation in governance and democratic processes. One of the many events that stand out is the Arab Spring that began in 2011. Social media played a great role as a tool for inspiring activists. Some may argue that in this case, social media caused the revolts in the rest of the regions. The Arab Spring in 2011 as well as the 2008 and 2012 Obama campaigns have fueled interest in how social media might affect citizens’ participation in civic and political life.

The second edition of the Arab Social Media Report reveals that nearly 9 out of 10 Egyptians and Tunisians used Facebook to organize and publicize protests and all protests except for one took place. Furthermore, the report found that Facebook usage increased or doubled between January and April of 2011. The overall number of users had increased by 30 percent to 27.7 m compared to the 18% increase in 2010. Usage in Bahrain escalated by 15 percent only in the first 3 months, Egypt 29% and Tunisia 17 %. Libya’s usage however, declined by 76% probably due to the extreme violence in the region. During the period of protests in Egypt and Tunisia, 88% of Egyptians and 94% of Tunisians said they had been getting their information from social media sites (Arab Social Media Report, 2011).

Some countries have resorted to blocking social media during elections and civil unrest. The Ugandan Government blocked social media (WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook) for three days in a highly contested Presidential election. This move restricted access to social media as voters went voters went to the polls on the 18th of February 2016 to elect presidential and parliamentary candidates.

The Internet introduces easier ways of communication and hence potentially makes dissemination of information and participation easier. However, it does not solve the problem of motivation. People may still continue to abstain from participating if they do not believe that their participation will make a difference. Therefore, policies that are directed towards the utilisation of technology for democratic purposes need to consider the reasons behind citizens’ lack of interest before suggesting the Internet as a solution. As Dutton (1999) suggests, “Digital government can erode or enhance democratic processes…but the outcome will be determined by the interaction of policy choices, management strategies and cultural responses – not by advanced technology alone” (pp. 193).

Political problems are related to government strategies in using the technology. Although governments are willing to exploit these technologies they rely on market forces for its delivery. Infrastructure is highly biased in favour of developed areas since the technology companies are reluctant to invest in deprived areas due to insufficient returns. Under these circumstances governments need to develop a strategy that will provide access to those who cannot afford it. These could be achieved by public access points in libraries, schools and community centres. However, statistics show that among the users only 7% access the Internet through these points (National Statistics, 2001). This also limits the reliability of the consultation and participation efforts carried through the Internet because the participants are inevitably self selected and unrepresentative.

The value that the Internet might bring to public policy is openness, characterised by the freedom from control by any central agent in the design of the internet; open access to information; and new possibilities for citizens to participate in policymaking. Openness is a value which contrasts strongly with the traditional perspective of governments and firms. The Internet has the potential to bring increased transparency (Hood and Heald, 2006), for example through open software which has even been hypothesised to lead to more effective democratic government (Camp, 2006), through reduced complexity of ‘joined-up’ government, greater accessibility of public information, moves towards freedom of information and ‘open-book’ government and more ‘rule-like’ government processes (Margetts, 2006).

In January 2014, US Congressman Paul Cook of Apple Valley hosted a Twitter Town Hall to engage and connect with constituents in California’s 8th congressional district. Citizens were encouraged to ask questions and share opinions using the hashtag “#AskCook.” Uses of social media like this allow public officials to engage with new constituencies and provide an instant channel between local residents and the government. Regardless of political party, officials in public office now utilize these technologies to convey their messages to the general public. Whether it is a brief commentary tweeted about an opponent on a Twitter feed or a quick photo shared through Instagram, public officials are trying to mobilize people to their cause. Ever so enticing, campaigns are quickly discovering that many Americans are willing to make financial contributions through a candidate’s Facebook page or official website.

There are two major arguments against the idea that social media will make a difference influencing policy. The first is that the tools are themselves ineffective, and the second is that they produce as much harm to democratization as good, because repressive governments are becoming better at using these tools to suppress dissent. The critique of ineffectiveness, most recently offered by Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker concentrates on examples of what has been termed “slacktivism,” whereby casual participants seek social change through low-cost activities, such as joining Facebook’s “Save Darfur” group that are long on bumper-sticker sentiment and short on any useful action (Shirky, 2011).

Most of the success of social media campaigns depend heavily on who is using it. For lesser known people it would take a lot to convince to participate in government protests or to vote for a political party that is lesser known. The use of the internet is only as powerful as the person using it. At times it all boils down to affordability and accessibility of gadgets that enable internet connectivity.

English is the unofficial language of the Internet. A 2002 report by the World Economic Forum found that three-quarters of all websites are in English. An obvious result of this language disparity is that the Internet is more accessible to English-speaking people.  One study conducted by Emlyn Hagen examined fifty-four African countries over a span of twelve years and found a positive and significant correlation between the prevalence of the English language and Internet development.

Another study found that the strongest positive influence on dial-up Internet subscription across nations is the presence of English as an official language in a country. In contrast, the lack of online content in languages other than English has limited Internet development in nations where English is not the primary language. Hagen’s study of African nations revealed that the predominance of French and Arabic has a negative influence on the Internet development of a country. Another study found that the lack of content in native languages discourages use of the Internet in South Asia (Hagen, 2007).

Civil society organizations have a key role to play in the digital divide because these organizations understand the needs and interests of the underdeveloped community, they can play a role in narrowing the digital divide by filtering content relevant to members of the community. They can also help to ensure that information that is relevant to disadvantaged communities is published online. This can expand awareness of and trust in ICTs among the underdeveloped population.

Internet literacy is also a barrier to internet access. The skills and language used have to be appropriate if the message is going to reach the intended recipients. As technology continues to evolve so have the gadgets requires. In developing countries more than 60% of the populations reside in rural areas where there is limited connectivity to the internet. The smarter the phones have gotten the less user friendly they have also become. Hence it is important not to abandon traditional sources of information and communication like the radio and television which are accessible to most people. Traditional media still remains a relevant and crucial source of information for the masses in rural areas.

This paper addresses critical issues that affect the success or failure in implementing policies administratively. It shows how the complexity of the bureaucracy consumes radicalism and how elected official utilise legitimate strategies to enforce policy change. These strategies include the centralization of administrative decision making, agency reorganization, the politicization of the bureaucracy through appointment powers, and wielding unilateral tools through the issuance of executive orders, executive memoranda, and presidential signing statements (Durant & Resh, 2010).  Both public and private organisations including Non governmental agencies are use these strategies. The challenge comes when public officials became partisan in carrying out their duties and engaging with the public.

The core values of public management include neutrality and bureaucratic neutrality encompasses both political and policy neutrality. Another tool that can be used to foster neutrality in engaging with the public is internet. This paper also discussed how the internet has revolutionised public engage with public officials and how it carries serious democratizing potential. However as effective as the internet maybe in challenging policy makers and communicating with the masses more still needs o be done to improve accessibility and internet literacy among people from different communities.  Being connected will not just be about having phone and perhaps Internet service. It will mean broadband delivery of increasingly converging services such as interactive voice, data and full motion video.

 

References

Arab Social Media Report Vol. 1 2nd Edition. (2011) www.arabsocialmediareport.com.

Ban Carolyn, Ingraham Patricia W. Short-Timers Political Appointee Mobility and its Impact on Political-Career Relations in the Reagan Administration. Sage Publications Inc. 1990.

Brett D. Schaefer.  The Limits of the United Nations and the Search for Alternatives. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009.

Christensen, T. and Lægreid, P.  `A Transformative Perspective on Administrative Reforms‘, pp. 13—42. Aldershot : Ashgate. 2001

Clarke, G., Crossland, M., Shine, R. Can we control the invasive cane toad using chemicals that have evolved under intraspecific competition? Ecological Applications, 26(2), 463- 474. (2016).

Clay Shirky. The Political Power of Social Media: Technology, the Public Sphere, and Political Change. Foreign Affairs, Vol. 90, No. 1 (JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011), pp. 28-41. Council on Foreign Relations Stable. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25800379

Durant, R. and Resh, W. (2011-01-02). “Presidentializing” the Bureaucracy.Oxford Handbooks Online. Retrieved 21 Oct. 2016, from http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199238958.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199238958-e-23.

Epstein D, O’halloran S.  Delegating powers: A transaction cost politics approach to policy making under separate powers. Cambridge University Pres. 1999.

Gruening, G. Origin and theoretical basis of New Public Management International Public Management Journal 4 (2001) 1–25. https://www.pravo.unizg.hr/_download/repository/4_1_Origin_and_Theoretical_Basis%5B1%5D.pdf

Hood, Christopher and Heald, David, eds. (2006) Transparency: the key to better governance? Proceedings of the British Academy 2009 (135). Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. ISBN 9780197263839

Kagan, E. Presidential Administration. Harvard Law Review, 114/8: 2245–385. 2001

Keen, Steve. Global Debt Deflation & Manipulated Asset Markets. IDEAeconomics Research Paper 2015/01– Economic Outlook 2015.

Margetts, Helen. “The Internet and Public Policy.”. Policy & Internet (1)1: 1‐21.

Moffitt, Robert. A. B. Atkinson, The Economic Consequences of Rolling Back the Welfare State, Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 386-388, June, 2001.

  1. Hagen. The Digital Divide in Africa: Cross-Sectional Time Series Analysis Of The African Digital Divide Factors 48 (2007).

Nathan, R. P. The Administrative Presidency. New York: John Wiley & Sons. 1983.

Peters, G. and Pierre, J. ‘Multi-level Governance and Democracy: A Faustian Bargain?’ In I. Bache & M. Flinders, (eds.) Multi-level Governance. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 74-89. 2004.

Ronald N. Johnson and Gary D. Libecap. The Federal Civil Service System and The Problem of Bureaucracy. University of Chicago Press. http://www.nber.org/books/john94-1 Publication Date: January 1994. 0-226-40170-7

Rothstein, B. Social traps and the problem of trust .Cambridge University Press .2005.

 Sanera, Michael. Butler, Stuart M. and W. B. Weinrod . Mandate for Leadership II: Continuing the Conservative Revolution.  Heritage Foundation. December 1984.

Scott,Karen. Happiness on your doorstep: disputing the boundaries of wellbeing and localism, The Geographical Journal,2015, 181, 2, 129

World Economic Forum, Annum. Report Of The Global Digtal Divide Initiative 36 (2002), available at http://www.weforum.org/pdf/Initiatives/DigitalDivideReport_2001-2002.pdf

World Economic Forum. The Global Competitiveness Report 2002-2003. Oxford University Press, Mar 27, 2003. www.reports.weforum.org/global-competitiveness-index.