I grew up in what I saw as the heady days of the 1980s, in the era of Band Aid, Live Aid, Free Nelson Mandela and the Sharpville Six. And when I was 16 I really believed that music could change the world. Well obviously it didn’t – and we still have Bono and events like Live8 trying to bring about change.

But now we’ve got the internet. The world wide web. Only up until now it hasn’t really been “world wide” as such. More like – available in patches across the globe. Whether this has been down to issues with rolling the technology out across the world, the availability of the electricity and hardware to make it available or the profit driven actions of various service providers.

In the patches where it is available it is beginning to bring out real change – look at what has happened in Iran since the election with demonstrations and mass protests being organised over the internet and using social networking technology such as Twitter. The internet has given a voice to people in Burma and across China. It is opening up repressed countries and crossing previously closed borders.

And now broadband, or in other words good quality, high speed internet links have come to Africa as documented over the past few weeks by Rory Cellan-Jones in dot-life on the BBC. His has been a fascinating trip from Kenya to Rwanda then on to Nigeria where he looked at how the internet, and access to computers and laptops, is affecting real lives and how realistic are the claims being made about introducing broadband to Africa.

As with all things it is full of good intentions and has the possibility of providing real benefits and change to people, but it is being marred by the quality of the service being delivered and the costs of that service. The service providers are limiting access to the internet by massively restricting the hours customers are able to go online and they are charging well above the average annual wage for this. So those who need access to the world wide web, who could benefit and change their lives the most, are the ones who will not be able to access this miracle of technology for a long time to come.

And yet if wide internet access was available how much easier would it be to deliver projects such as Paths2 part of which involves communicating with the general populace about their rights to good quality, free primary healthcare and to teach them how to be responsible for their health and wellbeing?

So yes, the internet can change the world but the world needs to have free and easy access to it in order to be able to bring about that change.