It’s saying that by 2005, everyone in the world should have access to the Internet - even if they have to walk for half a day to the nearest computer or cell phone.`It is incumbent on us, and we feel that it is entirely possible ... that by the end of 2004 a farmer in Saharan Africa should be able to get to a point of access, let’s say in half a day’s walk or riding on a bullock cart,’ says Chuck Lankester, a U.N. consultant on information technology.

And when he gets to the point of access, Chucky? What then? Will he magically develop the ability to speak and write English, use a keyboard, and understand the latest, greatest version of Windows? Lankester’s group, which included government ministers from Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and representatives of private businesses and foundations, presented its report at a news conference this week. They warned that action is urgently needed to to stop the rapidly growing `digital divide’ between rich and poor countries.

Currently less than 5 percent of the world population is benefiting from the tens of billions of dollars of E-commerce, the report said, and developing countries risk not `just being marginalized but completely bypassed’ by the new global market.The solution to this, the panel seems to think, is a call to ‘provide access to the Internet, especially through community access points, for the world’s population presently without such access by the end of 2004.’

You are excused if this seems somewhat simplistic to you, because it seems so to us too. Access, pure ‘n’ simple, without any training or education of any kind is at worst useless and at best far more likely to create a new market of online third world consumers than it is to provide and on-ramp to successful ecommerce. Anyway, perhaps someone will mention this when the world’s seven leading industrialized nations (and Russia) review the report when the Group of 8 summit takes place in Okinawa, Japan, this July. And perhaps not.