RELATED VIDEO CNN's Lara Logan reports on the challenge facing South Africa Windows Media 28K 56K

January 3, 1999
Web posted at: 5:37 p.m. EST (2237 GMT)

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (CNN) -- The millennium bug poses particular problems to countries like South Africa, which are host to both developing-world living conditions and high-tech sophistication.

The country's high level finance, technology and big business systems could be affected by the Y2K computer glitch, but it's the other end of South Africa's scale that could be most devastated by any problems that occur when the clock rolls over to the year 2000.

Developing countries like South Africa are vulnerable to crises because they're technologically dependent but usually lack the fallback systems to cope if key infrastructure components fail.

In response, President Nelson Mandela's government has established the National Year 2000 Decision Support Center to monitor the country's progress towards Y2K compliance.

The government projects that South Africa will be just 70 percent compliant by the time the next New Year comes -- but that will make the nation one of the top 10 in the world for Y2K compliance.