Economic growth, which narrows the digital gap, also eliminates poverty.

It used to be easier to categorize countries clearly. There were those that could use the Internet and those which could not. The digital gap used to be wider. The United Nations' (UN) Millennium Development Goals Report of 2008 helped us achieve a more dramatic ranking. Back then, 18 out of every 100 people in the world had access to the Internet. The ratio dropped approximately to 1 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa, which hosts the least developed countries in the world. One to eighteen is an impressive gap. Out of the 48 least developed countries of the world as given in the UN's list, 33 are in Sub-Saharan Africa. If you wonder what kind of a place that is, here it goes: in 2006, only 1 out of every 100 people had access to the Internet. This week the Fourth UN Conference on Least Developed Countries (LDC-IV) was held in Istanbul. I participated in Monday's sessions. Today let me share some impressions with you and meanwhile call you on you to be more cautious when despising the financial extremities and the banks that caused the 2008 crisis.

First, accessing to the Internet in Sub-Saharan Africa is less difficult now. According to the 2010 data from the United Nations International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the Nielsen consumer research company, the ratio of the population that has access to the Internet increased from 1 to 8.5 percent among LDCs in Sub-Saharan Africa. Over the same period, the global ratio increased from 18 percent to only 20 percent. That is, the ratio, which less than doubled at the global level, grew more than eight times in Sub-Saharan Africa. What brought this about? Due to the rapid spread of mobile phones, access to the Internet does not require significant infrastructure and it is easier to access to the Internet via mobile phones. I think this should be the first point to note when reasoning: The world is changing so rapidly that the digital gap has narrowed remarkably in four years. Can you feel that the number of people aware of the world has been increasing quickly?

The second point goes as follows: does the narrowing of the digital gap eliminate poverty? As the relevant literature suggests; the ratio of the poorest has decreased. In a meeting with business people held in Istanbul on Monday as part of of the LDC conference, a friend who knows some parts of this geography said, "The UN conducts the LDC meetings once in every decade. Is there any evidence that these meetings work? Or are we here just to salve our consciousness?" He had a point. I could not find a study on the results of all the LDCs; but Xavier Salai Martin of Columbia University and Maksim Pinkovskiy of MIT have a joint study published in 2010. Titled "African Poverty is Falling...Much Faster than You Think!" the report is written within the framework of the UN's Millennium Development Goals. The LDC held in 2000 resolved a "target to halve the proportion of people whose income is less than one dollar a day by 2015." According to the authors, in 1990 42 percent of the African population had an income of less than 1 dollar. In 2006, the ratio decreased to 32 percent. Calculations estimate that the ratio will be pushed down to 20 percent by 2017. What is more, if political stability is ensured in Congo, the target can be met by 2015. Therefore, poverty is improving.

But, how can this happen? As the study argues, economic growth, which narrows the digital gap, also eliminates poverty. It appears that all of the countries of the region, those with or without a shore, natural wealth, former colonies of France or Belgium, entered a phase of positive economic growth in the 2000s. It appears that the era of extremities that brought the 2008 crisis reduced poverty in Africa.

I believe that we also must take this outcome into account while thinking about what the abundantly flowing international liquidity caused. I wanted to "note this down." I avoided the so-called "crazy project," which in fact is quite a bad idea, the delirium on "reducing real interest rate to zero," the Student Selection and Placement Center (ÖSYM) scandal, and sex video scandals. What is more, I did not say "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce." looking at all this fuss. I did not say "and this is that second phase." Good for me!

This commentary was published in Radikal daily on 14.05.2011