What is it we are communicating, asks Kunda Dixit. Is the information useful and usable?
Like the fashion business, the Third World development debate seems to go through fads and styles. Mantras come, and mantras go. The latest buzzword is knowledge. The world is now a Knowledge Society, we are told, and the global gap between know and know-not is growing, therefore the only way to give the poor the chance to catch up is to pump in more knowledge with computers and through the Internet.
The discovery of "knowledge" by today's development merchants is a bit like the 'discovery' of America by Columbus. There is also a danger that like "trickle down", "basic needs approach", "community participation", "gender and development", or "export-led growth", the wisdom of the ages is now going to be reduced to another jargon. And like all the extinct buzzwords that preceded it, "knowledge" too is in danger of becoming threadbare with overuse and misuse. It too will end up in that dusty shelf where all past development cliches are stored, while developmentwallahs will move on to another catch-all formula that promises panacea.
Blaming underdevelopment entirely on lack of knowledge has two other dangers. It may make us overlook the fundamental economic factors that keep the poor poor, widening disparities between and within nations. It is a hen-or-egg question: are people poor because they lack knowledge, or do they lack knowledge because they are poor and cannot afford school books, radio batteries, telephones, or Internet service provider fees? Blaming it all on knowledge, or the lack thereof, is to avoid solving the structural problems that lead to inequity. Perhaps the trick is to make Knowledge affordable, and more importantly, relevant.