Information and communication technologies for development

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Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) is a general term referring to the application of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) within the field of socioeconomic development. ICT4D concerns itself directly with overcoming the barriers of the digital divide. ICTs can be applied either in the direct sense, where their use directly benefits the disadvantaged population in some manner, or in an indirect sense, where the ICTs assist aid organizations or non-governmental organizations or governments or businesses in order to improve socio-economic conditions. In many impoverished regions of the world, legislative and political measures are required to facilitate or enable application of ICTs, especially with respect to monopolistic communications structures and censorship laws.

ICT4D can be interpreted as dealing with disadvantaged populations anywhere in the world, but it is more typically associated with applications in developing countries. It is becoming recognized as an interdisciplinary research field as can be noted by the number of conferences, workshops and publications in the field.^[1][2] Such research have been spurred on in part by the need for scientifically validated benchmarks and results, which can be used to measure the efficacy of current projects.^[3] Many international development agencies recognize the importance of ICT4D. For example the World Bank's GICT section has a dedicated team of some 200 staff working on these issues.

A good example of the impact of ICTs on development are African farmers getting better market price information and thus not being impoverished by unfair corps buy-out people.^[4] Another example includes mobile telecommunications and radio broadcasting fighting political corruption in Burundi.^[5]

The dominant terminology used in this field is "ICT4D". Alternatives include ICTD and development informatics.

Contents 1 History 2 Projects 2.1 Anatomy 2.2 Problems 2.3 Lessons learned 2.4 Sustainability and scalability 2.5 Critics 3 Technology 4 Organizations 5 Notable events 5.1 World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) 6 See also 7 References 8 Further reading 9 External links 9.1 Media 9.2 Video

[edit] History

The history of ICT4D can, roughly, be divided into three periods:^[6]

• ICT4D 0.0: mid-1950s to late-1990s. During this period (before the creation of the term "ICT4D"), the focus was on computing / data processing for back office applications in large government and private sector organisations in developing countries.
• ICT4D 1.0: late-1990s to late-2000s. The combined advent of the Millennium Development Goals and mainstream usage of the Internet in industrialised countries led to a rapid rise in investment in ICT infrastructure and ICT programmes / projects in developing countries. The most typical application was the telecentre, used to bring information on development issues such as health, education, and agricultural extension into poor communities. More latterly, telecentres might also deliver online or partly-online government services.
• ICT4D 2.0: late-2000s onwards. There is no clear boundary between phase 1.0 and 2.0 but suggestions of moving to a new phase include the change from the telecentre to the mobile phone as the archetypal application; less concern with e-readiness and more interest in the impact of ICTs on development; and more focus on the poor as producers and innovators with ICTs (as opposed to just consumers of ICT-based information).

[edit] Projects

[edit] Anatomy

ICT4D initiatives and projects may be designed and implemented by international institutions, private companies (e.g. Intel's Classmate), governments (e.g. e-Mexico initiative), non-governmental organizations (e.g. International Institute for Communication and Development), or virtual organizations (e.g. One Laptop per Child).

ICT4D projects address one or more of the following issues:

• Infrastructure: providing suitable computer hardware, operating systems, software, and connectivity to the internet. These would include the affordability of software and hardware, the ability to share software (as echoed in the Free Software movement), and the ability to sustainably connect to the internet.
• Capacity building and training in ICT: installing, maintaining, and developing hardware and software, digital literacy (technological literacy and informational literacy) and e-Awareness.
• Digital content and services: e-services (e-learning, e-health, e-business/e-commerce), including concerns related to local-language solutions in computing, and the Open Access agenda.
• Regulation of the ICT Sector and digital rights: Universal Access vs. monopolistic structures, Intellectual Property Rights, privacy, security, and digital identity.
• Ethics and Social Contexts

[edit] Problems

Projects which deploy technologies in underdeveloped areas face well-known problems concerning crime, problems of adjustment to the social context, and also possibly infrastructural problems.

Projects in marginalised rural areas face the most significant hurdles. Since people in marginalised rural areas are at the very bottom of the pyramid, development efforts should make the most difference in this sector. ICTs have the potential to multiply development effects ^[7] and are thus also meaningful in the rural arena.^[8] However introducing ICTs in these areas is also most costly, as the following barriers exist:^[9]

• Lack of Infrastructure: no power, no running water, bad roads
• Lack of Health Services: diseases like HIV, TB, malaria are more common.
• Lack of Employment: there are practically no jobs in marginalised rural areas.
• Hunger: hungry users have problems concentrating.
• Illiteracy: Text user interfaces do not work very well, innovative Human Computer Interfaces (see Human Computer Interaction) are required.
• Social Contexts: the potential users living in rural marginalised areas often cannot easily see the point of ICTs, because of social context and also because of the impediments of hunger, disease and illiteracy.

The World Bank runs Information for Development Program (infoDev), whose Rural ICT Toolkit analyses the costs and possible profits involved in such a venture and shows that there is more potential in developing areas than many might assume.^[10] The potential for profit arsises from two sources- resource sharing across large numbers of users (specifically, the publication talks about line sharing, bu the principle is the same for, e.g. telecentres at which computing / Internet are shared) and remittances (specifically the publication talks about carriers making money from incoming calls, i.e. from urban to rural areas). Remittances are estimated to have a volume of upward of 250 billion USD and websites have been established to take advantage of this fact (e.g. Aryty, Philippines; Mukuru.com, Zimbabwe.^[11]

[edit] Lessons learned

What's crucial in making any ICT4D effort successful is effective partnership between four key stakeholders:

• Public sector (governments - from developed nations, developing nations, international bodies, and local governments)
• Private sector (companies belonging to members of the target audience, multi-national organizations wishing to expand their markets to the 4 billion people under US$2/day, pro-poor or social companies)
• Informal sector (NGOs, advocacy groups, think tanks)
• Representation from the target audience

InfoDev have published 6 lessons from an analysis of 17 their pilot programmes (see below). These lessons are backed by a variety of examples as well as a list of recommendations, which should be read by everyone starting an ICT4D project.^[12]

• Lesson 1: Involve target groups in project design and monitoring.
• Lesson 2: When choosing the technology for a poverty intervention project, pay particular attention to infrastructure requirements, local availability, training requirements, and technical challenges. Simpler technology often produces better results.
• Lesson 3: Existing technologies—particularly the telephone, radio, and television—can often convey information less expensively, in local languages, and to larger numbers of people than can newer technologies. In some cases, the former can enhance the capacity of the latter.
• Lesson 4: ICT projects that reach out to rural areas might contribute more to the MDGs than projects based in urban areas.
• Lesson 5: Financial sustainability is a challenge for ICT-for-development initiatives.
• Lesson 6: Projects that focus on ICT training should include a job placement component.

[edit] Sustainability and scalability

A growing perspective in the field is also the need to build projects that are sustainable and scalable, rather than focusing on those which must be propped up by huge amounts of external funding and cannot survive for long without it.

Also, many so-called "developing" countries, such as India (or other South Asian countries like Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, as also nations like Malaysia, China, Indonesia, Brazil, South Africa and many others) have proved their skills in IT (information technology). In this context, unless these skills are tapped adequately to build on ICT4D projects, not only will a lot of potential be wasted, but a key indigenous partner in the growth of this sector would be lost. Also there would be unnecessary negative impact on the balance of payments due to imports in both hardware and software.

Currently, the main two perspectives coming out of this sector either emphasize the need for external aid to build infrastructure before projects can touch viability, or the need to develop and build on local talent. Both approaches are, of course, not mutually exclusive.

[edit] Critics

As it has grown in popularity, especially in the international development sector, ICT4D has also increasingly come under criticism. For instance, questions have been raised about whether projects that have been implemented at enormous cost are actually designed to be scalable, or whether these projects make enough of an impact to produce noticeable change. ^[13]

For instance, the Sri Lankan journalist Nalaka Gunawardene argues that thousands of pilot projects have been seeded without regard to generalisability, scalability, and sustainability, implying that these projects will always require external funding to continue running and that their impact is limited.^[14] This sentiment echoes a 2003 report by the World Bank.^[3]

Further criticism of ICT4D concerns the impact of ICTs on traditional cultures and the so-called cultural imperialism which may be spread with ICTs. For example, young males are tempted to spend their recreational time playing violent computer games. It is emphasised that local language content and software seem to be good ways to help soften the impact of ICTs in developing areas.^[15]

A further very important point of criticism is that ICT4D projects rarely come with an environmentally friendly maintenance policy. This means that poor communities are left to dispose of toxic electronic scrap when equipment breaks down. Since transport of equipment to a recycling facility represents a cost, the equipment is most often not recycled, resulting in pollution of the communities' environment,

[edit] Technology

ICT4D projects typically try to employ low-cost, low-powered technology that can be sustainable in developing environment. Desktop virtualization and multiseat configurations are probably the most simple and common way to affordable computing as of 2009.

[edit] Organizations

• Dialog Telekom Dialog Telekom PLC Sri Lanka

[edit] Notable events

[edit] World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)

A major event for ICT4D was the twin WSIS (WSIS) - lead organisation was the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). The first part of WSIS took place in Geneva, Switzerland in December 2003 (with a large ICT4D exhibition and an ICT4D symposium co-ordinated by infoDev). The second part of WSIS took place in Tunis, Tunisia, in November 2005. One of its chief aims of the WSIS process was to seek solutions to help bridge the so-called "digital divide" separating rich countries from poor countries by spreading access to the Internet in the developing world.

Perspectives on the WSIS are available elsewhere on Wikipedia, and this covers links to civil society, Tunis 2005, US priorities at WSIS, media responses, Tunis conference developments, roles for business and government, digital divide issues, the digital divide and the digital dilemma, common ground, a civil society study on WSIS, and external links.

[edit] See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Information technology and development

Wikibooks has a book on the topic of Information and Communication Technologies for Poverty Alleviation

• Development Communication
• Drishtee - a significant project, bringing ICTs to thousands of rural Indians.
• e-Readiness
• Educational Television Computer
• Free and Open Source Software projects, which dramatically reduce the cost of getting access to software, and extend skills in software across the globe
• Global digital divide
• Information and communication technologies in education
• OpenBTS
• mHealth
• mLearning
• Low cost computer guide

[edit] References

• Fizz, Robyn; Mansur, Karla (2008-6-4), "Helping MIT neighbors cross the 'digital divide'", MIT Tech Talk (Cambridge: MIT): 3, http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/techtalk52-28.pdf 

[edit] Further reading

[edit] External links

• ICT4D in Sri Lanka Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D) in Sri Lanka
• i4d magazine
• Quick guide: Low-cost computing devices and initiatives for the developing world
• International Institute for Communication and Development
• The ICT4D programme area at the International Development Research Centre

[edit] Media

• In Developing Countries, Web Grows Without Profit

[edit] Video

• Low-Cost, Low-Power Computing - Mary Lou Jepsen at ETech 2009
• Hello Africa - a documentary about mobile phone culture in Africa