Over the last decade, there has been an ongoing debate regarding the role that Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) should play in development cooperation programs in general, and more speci.cally in support of poverty alleviation. Strongly held opinions included:
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ICTs have proven useful in so many areas, they MUST be important here;
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Developing countries are lagging behind in technology (i.e., the Digital Divide), and that in itself is a problem that must be addressed;
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ICTs are useful only for addressing administrative business processes.
There has been abundant anecdotal evidence that ICTs could be applied to livelihood enhancement and thus directly address financial poverty, but it was not at all clear that these applications were reproducible, scaleable and sustainable.
Along with most cooperative development donors and partners, Sida felt that there was a need to consolidate the evidence and to start to understand how (or if) ICTs should be used in support of poverty reduction exercises. This present report was commissioned as the first step in that process.
Poverty, ICTs and Poverty Alleviation:
The terms Poverty and ICTs are freely used, but the definitions vary, making comparisons difficult. Poverty alleviation is also defined in a number of ways, many difficult or impossible to measure. In this report, a broad view of poverty is used, encompassing lack of material resources, poor access to healthcare and education, and the lack of rights, freedom, empowerment and opportunity. Poverty alleviation is also broadly defined to include any change-for-the-better in these areas. Although measurement is good, difficult-to-measure benefits are accepted. ICTs refer to any electronic means of capturing, processing, storing and disseminating information.
The Challenge of ICTs:
Even in the developed world, the successful use of ICTs involves many obstacles. ICT projects are often poorly designed and implemented, and even when successful, it can take decades to reap substantial benefits from them. For a number of years, the developing worlds lack of readily accessible digital technology the Digital Divide was viewed as a core problem rather than one of the symptoms of overall deprivation. This misunderstanding of the problem resulted in a large number of poorly directed programs. It is increasingly clear that ICTs must be subject to the same guidelines as those applied to other development cooperation programs: they should be affordable, scalable, practically implementable and ultimately self-sustaining. As ICT-based projects are particularly risky, it is important that ICT practitioners be involved in the specialization and design of projects in which ICT will be a component.
Can ICTs Help Address Poverty?
The short answer is YES. There are increasing examples in multiple domains where ICTs can help address poverty. Moreover, there are a growing number of scenarios where aspects of poverty will not be addressed without ICTs The report addresses a number of areas where ICTs have demonstrably helped to alleviate poverty. The focus is on using ICT as a tool to help address some aspect of poverty, and not on funding interesting uses for the latest ICT fad. There may be benefits of introducing the latest ICTs into developing countries, but they are not likely poverty reduction benefits. There is no claim that the areas on which this report focuses are the only areas where poverty alleviation benefits are possible, but they do represent situations where major strides can be made in poverty alleviation while controlling the risks of failure or non-sustainability. There is one characteristic that is common to most of the ICT-related poverty alleviation programs. The ICTs used are typically basic ones telephone and radio are most common, and when computers or the Internet are involved, they are for restricted, targeted uses.
To know more about the research and its findings read the full report available at SIDA.
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