Development: Time for a Babel of Banks in Knowledge?

London, Oct 1 (Panos/Nigel Cross*) - Encyclopedia salesmen used to make a living selling enormously expensive multi-volume encyclopedias which would tell you everything you needed to know about everything. Then came the vastly cheaper pocket-size CD ROM. Now there is the Internet, for the price of a telephone call.

Suddenly knowledge seems cheap and accessible.

If we are to believe the World Bank, in its latest report 'Knowledge and Development,' after several millennia of human intellectual endeavour, we have come of age.

The Bank has taken to calling itself the knowledge bank as if it were the Encyclopedia Britannica and the Yellow Pages rolled into one -- a kind of modern version of that optimistic Victorian
institution, The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.

It is the proud possessor of "an unparalleled reservoir of knowledge... accumulated over the past 50 years in more than 100 countries." And the good news is that, thanks to the Internet, it
can finally share this reservoir with the rest of us.

But what does this actually mean for resolving age-old inequalities and alleviating poverty; for bringing us closer to the promised land of renewable energy, full employment and rising living
standards? And are we any the wiser?

To the Bank, knowledge is capital which can be invested in development through new information and communication technologies (ICTs) -- most obviously the Internet but also new digital networks
and mobile and satellite telephony.

It recognises there are tremendous challenges for poor countries and that for poor and marginalised communities the information gap could turn into an information chasm.

Nevertheless, the Bank argues, the opportunity for knowledge capital to make spectacular development profits are greater than ever before -- and the Bank will manage this knowledge on our
behalf and ensure it results in widespread benefits and the establishment of a new golden knowledge standard.

For example the Bank has set up 'knowledge infrastructure' networks which contain best practice case studies, lessons learnt and analysis.

Want to know how to design a state-of-the-art credit scheme for women-headed households in Djibouti? Click here. No more frustrating telephone calls or faxes to the little NGO you think
ran a similar project in Tunisia. It is all at your fingertips in seconds.

While there are real gains to be made in this brave new world of knowledge management, and there is a genuine desire to make knowledge work on behalf of the poorest, there are also real
conundrums.

To start with the Bank and other knowledge brokers imply that there is a knowledge standard. Like the encyclopedists of old a fact is a fact, best practice is best practice -- not just a point on the
way to better understanding.

There is a danger that with the ITCs comes a new hierarchy of knowledge. If you are in one of the World Bank's knowledge networks you exist -- indeed there is proof of your existence.

But of course a huge amount of knowledge won't be there, particularly the knowledge that is outside the technocratic and scientific community -- indigenous knowledge, local language knowledge, private knowledge, not to mention knowledge which is too valuable or sensitive for the possessor to share.

And there is a failure to distinguish between the information on the data base and the intellectual effort that is needed to turn it into knowledge. The knowledge networks are managed by individuals
who have to take the vast amount of information they pro mote largely on trust.

But these network 'anchors' are not alchemists -- they cannot so easily turn raw information into golden knowledge and they cannot evaluate the information on behalf of those whose lives the
knowledge is designed to benefit.

The advantage of such networks is that they are very public and can be very interactive, enabling those with the resources to endorse, challenge or supplement existing information.

But just as it is difficult for the Malian film-maker to win international distribution let alone an Oscar, so it is difficult for the uninvited to contribute to the mainstream websites, and impossible for the unconnected.

From the development perspective it is often this unconnected knowledge that is the most valuable and productive.

Then there is the problem of authority. Are we to assume that because something is labelled 'knowledge' and appears on a blue-chip website, it is the unvarnished truth?

Take the controversial issue of genetically modified crops. The commercial developers of GMCs have their own sophisticated public relations system which churns out apparently objective facts mixed with humanitarian rhetoric. They are in turn challenged by environmental and campaigning groups who also claim to employ an objective standard of knowledge. And Research scientists add their own tested but incomplete evidence, with the result that we, the public, are thoroughly confused.

We are unlikely to gain much further enlightenment by consulting a World Bank knowledge network.

Our best bet for making sense of all the competing information is to subject it to intense and sustained public debate: only if the competing positions and the often-contradictory evidence are
publicly debated in print, on television and radio and in social and political gatherings, will we be able to arrive at some kind of consensus about what to do with these different sets of knowledge
-- and come out with an agenda for action.

What we need in the new 'knowledge society' is diversity; a multitude of knowledge brokers, a Babel of banks.

Where ICTs can make a real difference is in providing access to these different and competitive data banks (which is all the so-called 'knowledge banks' can claim to be), which in turn enables
all of us, through the media and civil society forums, to engage in well-informed, constructive and democratic debate.