Narrowing the Digital Divide

Destinations

Nepal is a country of extreme contrasts. Nepalese culture, spirituality, arts and architecture are admired world wide. Visitors travel the globe to see the scale of Nepal's Himalayan peaks and natural habitats at first hand.

Nepal's problems include one of the lowest per capita incomes in the world, high levels of infant mortality and economic indebtedness, low literacy rates and average life expectancy. Caste, gender, ethnic, political and urban-rural divisions added to almost feudal patterns of land ownership all combine to prevent Nepal's people from enjoying many of the advantages modern life has brought to people in other parts of the world.

The project sees Nepal's problems not as some kind of monolithic wall barring progress but rather in linear terms, where many of the barriers to progress form chains of causes and effects. For example, we believe that the most fundamental driver for change is technology and that as technology makes new activities possible, their benefits are spread however unevenly, through the markets. So if new technologies can be harnessed to channel increased foreign earnings into Nepal's economy, other improvements to education, healthcare, politics etc. are more likely to follow since the growth of new economic groups will make new demands of the political system.

Other than opportunities for developing hydro-electric generation, Nepal has few natural resources. The one jewel in its crown is its potential to develop sustainably as a holiday destination. That is why the project is concentrating its efforts on transferring IT knowledge and skills from Europe to Nepal's tourism sector. We believe that enabling hotels, tour operators, airlines, exporters etc. to compete on level terms with third party operators in the West will be one of the quickest ways of helping to shape the scale of economic resources reaching Nepal from outside over the next 10 - 20 years. If in that time, the project has made a significant impact, then we shall regard it as having reached its initial destination.