An International Workshop
Creating the Information Commons for e-Science:
Toward Institutional Policies and Guidelines for Action
UNESCO Headquarters, Paris, France
1-2 September 2005

Sharing Information for Development and Security in a Diverse and Divided World

Danny Quah
Professor of Economics, London School of Economics

While frontier technology---progress in knowledge and information---has now powered economic growth for well over two
centuries, even in crude measures of economic income alone the world remains a highly diverse place.  Performance in the world's leading economies contrasts sharply with that everywhere else.  The richest 1% of humanity receives as much income as the poorest 57%.  The poor, one-sixth of the world's population, live on less than a dollar a day. Access to clean water, primary education, basic healthcare, and reliable electricity remains a luxury unknown to many in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.  Thus, even if the costs are invariant across geographies, the benefits to disseminating information differ widely, depending on the current state of a society.  Viewing knowledge as a uniform, undifferentiated good---something wholly to share or not to share--leads seductively to a single, all-encompassing proposal on its dissemination.  This could create as many problems as it resolves.