Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2006. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
South African Press Association - July 11, 2006
Wendell Roelf
"And also to increase the citizen's ability to ... hold accountable their governments," he said on the final day of deliberations at the Government Leaders Forum-Africa conference.
The two-day event was looking at accelerating Africa's global competitiveness.
Clinton mentioned the Chinese as an example of people using technology to protest, during the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome when the Chinese government initially denied reports of the disease emanating from its mainland.
"But the story has a happy ending because the young people of China demonstrated en masse, not in Tiananmen Square where they can be arrested, but by jamming the websites of the government and demanding that the truth be told."
Turning to education, Clinton said even if the Group of Eight nations made good their promise to double aid to Africa, it would still be difficult to "ramp up" some education systems to benefit the huge numbers of schoolchildren.
This massive education task would be easier if sufficient internet connections were made available -- possibly overcoming the need for text books.
"I think we need to think more about how access to information technology can drastically accelerate the quality and reach of education," he said.
Relating a story about an Indian village he had visited, Clinton spoke of how technology has changed health attitudes, with specific regard to knowledge around pregnancy.
He mentioned recently developed software, a "planning tool", for countries with limited funds to deliver better care for people living with HIV and Aids.
"Over the last 10 months we have developed a computer simulation model that can be accessed by any country ... to help more effectively scale up HIV care and treatment. It's interesting to me that a simple computer model has the potential to help governments save more lives with exactly the same amount of resources that governments spend anyway."
Clinton said this technology will be applied to the local demand of anti-retrovirals in 21 countries with high infection rates, in order to help prevent a disconnection between supply and demand of ARVs.
"Technology simply allows us to accomplish more with fewer resources," Clinton said.
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