serendipityoucity

This Associated Press article is everywhere!  I got the original news from MIT Technology Review.

The countries involved are:

Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Comoros, Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Madagascar, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe. South Africa, Mauritius and Djibouti also are involved in the four projects, though they are already connected to other undersea cables.

I found this map of the landing sites and the basic route from the EASSY site:

The cost of laying the fiber-optic cable — stretching up to 8,000 miles (about 13,000 kilometers) along selected points in the Indian Ocean — is estimated to range from US$100 million to US$200 million. Individual countries will spend even more laying fiber-optic cables inland and connecting their networks to the submarine cable.

State-owned and private African telecommunications companies, the World Bank and other international financial institutions, governments and foreign private investors are funding the projects.(1)

I am just amazed how relatively easy it seems to get countries to cooperate on this type of massive multi-million dollar communication projects and how hard it is to get them to collaborate on poverty reduction, clean water access, reforestation, AIDS action programs, abolition of child soldiers, universal access to education, PEACE, women’s rights, food security, slum rehabilitation and so on which are cheaper and more helpful to most of the population in the region. 

I am so torn, on where to focus my energies.  I am very attracted and fascinated with these big technology projects and communication technologies in general yet i am not sure how directly they will help all those other issues!  In fact I wonder if resources are being diverted toward ‘progress/development’ type industrial projects that will benefit a few elite and less on long term sustainability and well being of people’s in the region.

I just dunno how to think and feel about what seems like a social dichotomy at the moment! And how to priorize national and regional budget lines!