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ICT for Development: solutions seeking problems?

  • Debates and Perspectives
  • Published:
Journal of Information Technology

Abstract

This paper investigates information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) projects from around the world. It finds that computer and Internet promotion schemes usually fail despite active support, but mobile penetration in even the poorest countries is deepening organically. It argues that mobiles have emotional appeal because talking is a universal psycho-sociological propensity while the other two are principally utilitarian technologies that have to generate returns on investment. The search for killer apps is likely to be fruitless because technological adoption is conditional upon need and absorptive capacity. The paper raises questions about the continuing support for ICT4D among proponents.

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Notes

  1. Broadly defined, ICTs can include any and all technology that follows directly from Shannon's (1948) fundamental exposition of the transmission, flow and capture of information through a channel. Thus, any technology that processes information or is itself a part of a larger system in which information is processed as binary digits (bits) can be called an ICT. Popular perception limits ICTs to those concerned with computational or communication functionalities, including hardware, software, middleware or their permutations and combinations. Chen and Dahlman (2005) present this viewpoint in their all-inclusive definition of ICTs as consisting of ‘hardware, software, networks, and media for collection, storage, processing transmission, and presentation of information in the form of voice, data, text, and images. They range from the telephone, radio and television to the Internet.’ The business and management literature uses IT (information technology) as the preferred phrase, and ‘technology’ itself is considered at a higher level of abstraction. Here I define ICTs as consisting of the three ‘platform’ technologies – strictly speaking, bundles of technologies – which the common man associates the acronym with.

  2. This paper uses the phrase ‘mobile technologies’ simplistically, though in fact there are competing standards that can be technically incompatible. Broadly speaking, Global System for Mobiles (GSM) dominates in most parts of the world, including India, the world′s most dynamic mobile market, and Europe. This is a somewhat older technology, the new challenger being Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA). This has the advantage of being excellent for data transfer, and is understandably popular in countries with sophisticated usage patterns like Korea and Japan. The US is the only market which is evenly split between GSM and CDMA. The point to be noted that both these standards are evolving, and there seems to be some sort of a consolidation happening within the standards. For an excellent discussion, see Gruber (2008).

  3. See Chaudhuri (2010) for a methodological criticism of the much reported but unreplicated World Bank (2009) study. For a more acid review of the research usually forwarded by the ‘ICT for Growth’ lobby, including the often cited Waverman et al. (2005) study funded by Vodafone, see Kenny (2011).

  4. Source: http://hdrstats.undp.org/en/countries/profiles/LSO.html (accessed 11 May 2012).

  5. URL: http://www.gov.ls/documents/Lesotho_ICT_Policy_Final.pdf (accessed 11 May 2012).

  6. URL: www.nitda.gov.ng/images/stories/PDFs/national_information_technology_development_agency_act_2007.pdf (downloaded 11 May 2012).

  7. Source: http://www.nitda.gov.ng/index.php/ict4d-nitda/ict4d-action-plan (accessed 11 May 2012).

  8. A list of the agencies working in this area can be found at: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTICTTOOLKIT/Resources/ResourcesSection1.htm (accessed 28 November 2010).

  9. Homepage: www.itu.int.

  10. www.un-gaid.org.

  11. UNESCO, ICT in Education. Homepage: http://www.unesco.org/webworld/en/ict-education.

  12. Homepage: http://r0.unctad.org/ecommerce/index.htm.

  13. URL: http://go.worldbank.org/0SVRFYVD90 (accessed 26 October 2010).

  14. URL: http://www.adb.org/ICT/policies.asp (accessed 26 October 2010).

  15. AfDB, Information Note on the Bank Group Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) Activities. ADB/BD/IF/2010/05.

  16. URL: http://groups.itu.int/wsis-forum2012/Home.aspx (accessed 11 May 2012).

  17. URL: http://www.elearning-africa.com/ (accessed 11 May 2012).

  18. URL: http://eindia.eletsonline.com/ (accessed 11 May 2012).

  19. Govt signs MoU with Nokia on ICT penetration. The Guardian Nigeria. Monday, 30 April 2012, 00:00. URL: http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=84609:govt-signs-mou-with-nokia-on-ict-penetration&catid=31:business&Itemid=562 (accessed 17 September 2012).

  20. Cisco: http://csr.cisco.com/pages/education. Intel: http://www.intel.com/cd/corporate/csr/apac/eng/education/casestudies/casestudies6/376502.htm (both accessed 11 May 2012).

  21. URL: http://www.safaricom.co.ke/personal/m-pesa/m-pesa-resource-centre (accessed 17 September 2012).

  22. URL: http://www.vodafone.com/content/annualreport/annual_report10/performance/corporate_responsibility.html. See also Mobillising Development: Corporate Responsibility Report for the year ended 31 March 2009, available online at: http://www.vodafone.com/content/dam/vodafone/about/sustainability/reports/2008-09_vodafonecr.pdf (accessed 17 September 2012).

  23. The biggest repository of these is hosted by InfoDev(www.infodev.org), an international consortium housed within GICT. Some studies do attempt a balanced coverage of success and failure (see, e.g., UNCTAD, 2010). But case studies of failures naturally do not tend to be popular among funding agencies.

  24. Italics in the original. Negroponte (2010), in a rebuttal to Toyama, expresses even deeper faith in technology being the causal agent of development and social upliftment, unfettered from human intentions.

  25. See Heeks (2010) for an overview of ICT4D.

  26. Source: RITA projects webpage: http://www.rita.gov.rw/?page=projects (accessed 1 December 2010).

  27. Homepage: www.computeraid.org.

  28. Homepage: www.sakshat.ac.in. Frequently asked questions about the genesis of the program, pricing and tendering process are available at: http://www.sakshat.ac.in/pdf/Final_FAQ_Aakash.pdf (accessed 12 July 2012).

  29. URL: http://www.homeaccess.org.uk/ (accessed 24 November 2012).

  30. The paper also shows that such a program increases computer skills of the beneficiary students, but that should hardly be surprising.

  31. http://www.hole-in-the-wall.com/Publications.html.

  32. http://www.hole-in-the-wall.com/abouthiwel.html (accessed 12 July 2012).

  33. Homepage: http://www.laptop.org.

  34. See Vision: http://laptop.org/en/vision/index.shtml (accessed 24 November 2010).

  35. Homepage: http://laptopfoundation.org/.

  36. URL:http://blog.laptop.org/2009/01/07/refocusing-on-our-mission/ (accessed 1 December 2010).

  37. The management of the program was recently transferred to the Telecentre.org Foundation. See: http://www.telecentre.org/notes (accessed 28 November 2010).

  38. Homepage: http://www.usaasa.org.za/index.html. The number of telecentres have been obtained from USAASA Business Plan 2011/12, p.9. Available at: http://www.usaasa.org.za/export/sites/usaasa/resource-centre/download-centre/downloads/USAASA_Business_Plan_2011-2012.pdf (accessed 17 September 2012).

  39. Source: http://info.worldbank.org/etools/docs/library/91628/telecentres/telecentres/workshop/sbt-pdf/case-studies/NakasekeCaseStudy.pdf (accessed 28 November 2010).

  40. Homepage: http://gyandoot.nic.in/ (accessed 24 November 2010).

  41. Homepage: http://www.csc-india.org/Default.aspx (accessed 24 November 2010).

  42. Homepage: http://www.echoupal.com.

  43. Homepage: http://www.globalimpactstudy.org/. The database can be accessed at: http://database.globalimpactstudy.org/datasets (accessed 1 December 2010).

  44. Source: http://www.itcportal.com/ruraldevp_philosophy/echoupal.htm (accessed 17 May 2012).

  45. For a snapshot of the website from 2 August 2008, see: http://www.itcportal.com/rural-development/echoupal.htm (accessed 17 May 2012).

  46. See Aker and Mbiti (2010) for a discussion of the potential rationale for m4D. Also see Donner (2008) for an extensive review of mobile use in developing countries.

  47. Homepage: http://www.globe.com.ph/gcash/ (accessed 3 December 2010).

  48. Homepage: http://smart.com.ph/money/ (accessed 3 December 2010).

  49. See Kalba (2008, Table 3–1) to realize the stark difference in the compositions of the high-prepaid and high-postpaid markets.

  50. A slightly dated, but otherwise excellent reference is Brock (1998).

  51. Toyama and Kuriyan (2007) present a long list of reasons of why kiosks fail; they can be summarized to the three I mention.

  52. Trend Data (Adults). Pew Internet and American Life Project. Last Updated: February 2012. http://pewinternet.org/Static-Pages/Trend-Data-%28Adults%29/Online-Activites-Total.aspx (accessed 17 September 2012).

  53. See, for example, NTIA (1999).

  54. A recent Indian example of how the road paved with technology can lead to bureaucratic bloat is the case of 272 municipal councilors of the capital city of New Delhi demanding operators for the personal computers that had been given to them. The computers had cost the exchequer more than $280,000, while the estimated annual salary bill for the operators exceeds $360,000 (assuming US$ 1=Rs. 45) (see The Hindustan Times, 2011).

  55. The UNPAN data are available at: http://www2.unpan.org/egovkb/datacenter/countryview.aspx (accessed 2 December 2010). World Bank data are for the year 2008, available at: http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/index.asp (accessed 14 September 2010).

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Acknowledgements

I thank Bhaskar Chakrabarti for giving me the opportunity to lecture the course on ICT4D at IIM-Calcutta. I presented some early thoughts under the title Mobiles, Income and Utility at the National Forum on Mobile Applications for Inclusive Growth and Sustainable Development, organized by TRAI and the World Bank in April 2010. I have benefited immensely from discussions with the ever-patient and knowledgeable Pierre Montagnier (OECD). Torbjörn Fredriksson (UNCTAD) provided exceptionally detailed critique on successive drafts. Ambuj Sagar (IIT-Delhi) brought me up to speed on wider technological policy debates. Kentaro Toyama pointed out arguments that needed additional bolstering. The sterling feedback from an anonymous referee caused a substantial overhaul in the final version. I am indebted to Swati Bhattacharyya for acquiring the ITU data used in the paper.

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  1. National Institution of Science, Technology & Development Studies, New Delhi, India

    Anindya Chaudhuri

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Appendix

Appendix

Governance and e-governance

The major problem with e-Government is that the means can and frequently do become more attractive to governments rather than the ends. Electronic information systems are easily created – governance is more difficult. I use the e-Government index data from UNPAN for the year 2010 in an Analysis of Variance model against indicators of governance from the World Bank (Table A1).Footnote 55 The strong alignment between traditional and electronic governance would indicate that responsive governments tend to regard the newer electronic channels as means of extending good governance, which must ultimately be judged in sociological, not technological terms. It is thus interesting, but not surprising, that an impact assessment study by the Department of Information Technology in India found state e-Government projects to have had minimal impact on regular governmental operating procedures (DIT, 2008). Where governance is itself the problem, e-governance will likely not be the solution.

Table A1 Anova of e-governance and governance indices
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Chaudhuri, A. ICT for Development: solutions seeking problems?. J Inf Technol 27, 326–338 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1057/jit.2012.19

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