How can a laptop make dirty water clean?

How can a laptop make dirty water clean?
By Alec van Gelder

From Mr Alec van Gelder.

Sir, The UN and the aid industry have bought into the idea of the Digital Divide and now want to buy millions of basic laptops for children at $100 each ("Low-cost laptop aims to bridge world's digital divide", November 17). This means that cheap, basic computers are more important than, for example, a whole cow or three flocks of six chickens or two water pumps, which charities can supply for a similar price.

How will laptops clean up dirty water, provide smokeless fuel, remove the barriers to economic and political freedom or stop corruption? These are the daily constraints that keep people poor, and the poor will not make economic or digital progress until they are freed from those shackles.

Free societies come up with clever inventions like the $100 laptop. But managed development has failed spectacularly; the development industry should advocate the economic freedoms and the protection in law that allow the poor to improve their own lot. They might even end up being able to afford computers.

Alec van Gelder,

Research Fellow,

International Policy Network,

London WC2E 8HA