Information-poor environments: Asian tigers - Environmental Reform in the Information Age - page 236

Table 10.1. Internet users and telephone lines per one thousand
inhabitants and FDI flows in US$ per capita

FDI per capita (in
US$; 2002-2004
average)

Internet users
per 1,000 inh.
(2005)

Fixed and mobile
telephone lines per
1,000 inh. (2004)

Inflow Outflow

North America 681 1223 263 591

Europe 359 1430 445 473

Asia 99 431 27 10

China 85 499 38 1.3

Vietnam 70 131 18 ?

Latin America 143 499 98 20

Africa 25 84 19 5

Source: ITU; World development Indicators; http://www.geohive.com/.

peripheries in this chapter, I will restrict myself to two countries - China
and Vietnam - to explore how informational peripheries are affected
by the new modes of informational environmental governance. But
we do that with the knowledge that it is only one empirical category
(developing countries) of informational peripheries; and more: within
that category the case study examples are not representative.
The choice for these two countries is, of course, arbitrary. China and
Vietnam are far from representative for the set of non-OECD countries
that are not fully located in the prime nodes of informational flows
and ICT developments. Arguably, they differ strongly from especially
a significant number of sub-Saharan African countries, which seem
to be much more peripheral in the global network society and econ-
omy, for instance when we consider the number of Internet connections
or the number of personal computers (but less so for foreign invest-
ments; see Table 10.1 and Figure 10.1 ). 1 In addition, both countries
deviate from a considerable number of non-OECD countries in that
they come from - and still have some of the characteristics of - a cen-
trally planned economy with specific - although changing - relations

1

Consequently, environmental monitoring and information systems are much
less developed in these African countries, compared to China and Vietnam. See,
for instance, Prevost and Gilrith ( 1999 ) and Gavin and Gyamfi-Aidoo ( 2001 )
on African environmental information systems.