ICT4D
Vincent Shaw
What I found in exploring the topic
• The D of ICT4D is very
under-developed
• The ISR literature has
not paid much attention
to the D
• That the ISDC literature
is not really engaging the
development world
The focus of this presentation
1. Defining ICT and Development
2. Development as conceptualised currently
by the
– Development practitioners
– ISR literature
3. Framework based on Sen’s work
4. Explore the use of the framework
5. Implications for future research
1.1 Defining ICT
• ICT is an umbrella term that
covers all technical means for
processing & communicating
information.
– radio and television services, and
– other digital technologies including
• methods for communication protocols,
• transmission techniques,
• communications equipment,
– techniques for storing & processing information using
computers, & similar devices like handheld palmtops and
PDA’s.
Graphing the expansion in access to ICT’s
PC’s
Comparing mobile penetration across
Africa
80
160
% Penetration
Population #
70
140
60
120
50
100
40
80
30
60
20
40
10
20
0
0
South Africa
Algeria
Morocco
Egypt
Nigeria
Implications for use
of mobiles:
• % penetration
• Expected growth
Gaining some perspective
1000
900
80
Population (M)
Internet content (%)
70
800
60
700
600
50
500
40
400
30
300
20
200
10
100
0
0
Manderin
Spanish
English
The languages
spoken across
the world and
language of
internet content
Gaining some perspective
Only 15% of
rural
households in
sub-Saharan
Africa have
access to
electricity
What should
we be
tracking?
Coverage or
Use?
Bahati’s story
Defining Development:
Sen’s Capability Approach
• Sen defines development as a
“process of expanding the real
freedoms that people enjoy”.
• A substantially different
approach to that of using GNP
or incomes
• Focus on freedoms shifts the
emphasis towards the ends
rather than the means of
development
The Capability Approach:
Functionings and Capabilities
• Functionings are the things we can do –
the beings and doings of our lives
– They are our actual achievements
• Functionings provide us with a “capability
set”
– This represents our potential achievements –
or the opportunities we have
• Commodities are goods and services that
are the means to achieve
Functionings and Capabilities
2. Development as empowerment
Empowerment is the expansion of assets
and capabilities of poor people to
– participate in,
– negotiate with,
– influence,
– control, and
– hold accountable institutions that affect their
lives.
(World Bank, 2002)
Development as Empowerment
Agency
Iterative
Relationship
Degree of
Empowerment
Development
Outcomes
Opportunity
Structure
Alsop, 2006
Development as Empowerment
Agency and Assets
Agency
Iterative
Relationship
Opportunity
Structure
•Assets provide power – a combination of
resources and rules
•Interaction
takes place between
the
Degree of
Development
assets
and opportunity structures
Empowerment
Outcomes
•Examples include:
•Psychological – capacity to envision
•Human – skills of various kinds,
literacy
•Informational
•Organizational
•Material
Alsop, 2006
•Social
•Financial
Development as Empowerment
Agency
Opportunity Structure
Iterative
Relationship
Opportunity
Structure
Degree of
Development
•Institutions
that govern people’s
Empowerment
Outcomes
behavior, and which influence the success
or failure of people’s choices
•The rules of society that shape human
interactions and peoples’ choices
•Formal institutions
•Informal institutions – unofficial rules,
Alsop,
2006
cultural practices and value
systems
Development as Empowerment
Agency
Iterative
Relationship
Degree of
Empowerment
Development
Outcomes
Opportunity
Structure
Degrees of Empowerment
The opportunity to make a choice exists
The opportunity is used
The choice brings about the desired effect
Alsop, 2006
Surprise finding:
Mobile use in rural
Nigeria
• “Self-developed”
report format
• Self-funded from
“free sms’s”
Degrees of Empowerment
• Improvement in mobile coverage created
“opportunity structures” for Bahati and the
CHEW in Gagure HC
• They both utilised a variety of personal
skills (functionings) to obtain cell phones,
and use them
• Their use of their agency, and the
opportunity structure (free sms) to
enhance their productivity and efficiency
• Despite the lack of material benefit (for
Gagure CHEW), they were empowered
3. A Framework for Evaluating Empowerment:
Domains and Sub-domains
• State
– Justice
– Politics
– Public service delivery
• Market
– Labour
– Goods
– Services
• Society
– Intra-household
– Intra-community
Which can be applied in a
framework to assess agency and
opportunity structures across a
number of levels:
•Micro (local, household)
•Intermediate (Regional,
State, Provincial)
•Macro (National)
Framework for Evaluating Empowerment
Domains
State
Sub-domains
Policy and regulatory framework
Public service delivery, such as
health, education, democracy
Governance and accountability
Micro
OS
Agency
OS
Agency
OS
Agency
OS
Entrepreneurialism and economic
activity/productivity
Agency
Market
OS
Goods
Agency
OS
Services
Agency
OS
Access to global markets and
resources
Agency
OS
Organisational (non-governmental
organizations)
Agency
OS
Society Intra-household
Agency
OS
Intra-community
Agency
Intermediate
Macro
Four Key Points
1. Empowerment is a relational concept
– it emerges from the interaction between
people and their environment;
– it plays out through the rights, rules, norms,
behaviours and processes governing poor
people and powerful actors;
– the relationship plays out at multiple levels,
and in different domains;
Four Key Points
2. Usually, marginalized/poor people
capabilities and attributes are conceptualized
as individual attributes, but where they are
disempowered, they often find a voice
through collective action/organizations;
3. Empowerment requires both top-down and
bottom-up approaches
– Top-down processes are required to change
structures and organizational processes
– Bottom-up for awakening individual assets
4 Key Points
4. Intervention points vary, depending on the
– Constraints and barriers
– What is feasible
– The developmental outcome desired
Intervention points can also change over
time
Summary so far
• ICT has been defined, and we have drawn
attention to the relatively superficial “bean
counting” strategies that track expansion so far
• We have suggested that more sophisticated
measures are required to monitor the use of ICT,
and how this contributes to development
• Defined development using Sen’s Capability
Approach
• Explored a framework used in the development
domain to track empowerment
Early ISR views on Development
• Development was seen as the antithesis of
poverty, and poverty could be addressed by
– funding for economic development
– transfer of economic and technological policies
from the “developed world” to the “developing
world”
• Failure due to instrumentalist view of social
life and people which ignores the various
factors that influence the well-being of
individuals and groups (Critiqued by Escobar, 1995).
Development and ISR
• Avgerou (2003) has
critiqued simplistic views
drawing on narrow
economic theory that links
ICT’s to development,
arguing that complex
interactions govern
whether ICT make a
meaningful impact on
development.
The Offending Reports
• Human Dev Report 2001,
• Human Dev Report 2002,
• Porter Global Competitiveness
Report (2001/2002),
• Global Information Technology
Report
• Avgerou argues that
The reports suggest that
institutional intervention (in
a virtuous cycle gets
the form of government and
established that can be
networked organizations as
left to market forces to
develop
watchdogs) are required to
regulate market dynamics.
• She concludes that emulation
Technological
innovation
of western based practices in
developing economies hardly
ever succeeds, and suggest
that “situated action
Human
Economic
appropriate to formative
capabilities
growth
contexts” should be
prioritized.
Development and ISR
• The effect of internet expansion has been assessed
by exploring the impact in specific areas
–
–
–
–
–
–
Economic productivity
Health
Education
Poverty alleviation and empowerment
Democracy
Sustainable development
• Useful study:
– Clear description of development initiatives over time
– Highlights the role of intermediary institutions in linking
local and global conditions in creating knowledge,
disseminating knowledge, and in human resource
development
Madon (2000)
Development and ISR
• Papers assessed according to the areas of
contribution
– Public infrastructure (e.g. health)
– Governance, accountability and civil society (e.g.
educational provision)
– Entrepreneurialism and economic activity
– Access to global markets and resources.
Thompson and Walsham (undated)
Papers reviewed in:
• Walsham and Sahay (2006),
• Avgerou (2008),
• Walsham et al (2007)
Reference to Development
• only 5 made an explicit attempt
to address development issues
Summary
• While there have been significant calls for an increased
focus on the role of ICT’s in development, the ISR literature
has responded mainly by
– Describing the areas in which developmental contributions have been
effected
– Warning against overly simplistic views on the link between ICT diffusion
and development;
– Highlighting the complex interactions that are required to effect productivity
gains related to ICT diffusion
• Most views on development continue to look at the extent of
access to ICT’s rather than their actual use
• There are a few articles that draw on Sen’s Capability
Approach
Capability Approach and ISR
• Madon 2004 framework for assessing
eGov project in Kerala:
– Range of ICT-generated applications
– What functionings are enabled
– What people do with the opportunities
– Barriers to achieving functionings
Development and ISR Contd
• Zheng and Walsham 2008
– Commodities:
• What type of technology?
• What characteristics of technology are relevant to local conditions?
– Conversion factors:
• Personal factors
• Social factors
• Environmental factors
– Agents:
• Whose capabilities are deprived
– Capabilities:
• What capabilities are deprived?
– Well-being freedom
– Agency freedom
4. Adapting the Framework
• State
– Policy and regulatory framework
– Public service delivery, such as health, education, democracy
– Governance and accountability
• Market
–
–
–
–
–
Entrepreneurialism and economic activity/productivity
Goods
Services
Access to global markets and resources
Organisational (non-governmental organizations)
• Society
– Intra-household
– Intra-community
Analysis based on Jacucci, Shaw, Braa 2003
Domain
State
Sub-domain
Policy and regulatory
framework
Public service delivery,
such as health,
education, democracy
Governance and
accountability
OS
Micro
Intermediate Macro
Data reporting requirements,
indicators, and standards
Agency
OS
PAH network
Agency
Voice and
collective
bargaining
power
PAH network
OS
Agency
Increased
confidence of roles
and responsibilities
Analysis based Shaw 2008, HISP-SA Case
Domains
Sub-domains
Market
Entrepreneurialism
and economic
activity/productivity
OS
Facility
Province/Region National/State
Health Information Practitioner (HIP) as a new cadre
in the health sector
Agency
Goods
OS
Services
Agency
OS
DHIS lists and hot-line support for HIP
Agency
OS
HISP as an International network
Access to global
markets and resources
Agency
Organisational (nongovernmental
organizations)
DHIS as a tool for HISD
International networks empowering employees,
opportunities for study (reciprocal relationship), etc
OS
Agency
HISP-SA as a
NGO, NPO
Voice for HIP
Analysis based on Zheng and Walsham, 2008 – SA Case
Domain
Sub-domains
State
Policy and regulatory framework OS
Agency
Public service delivery, such as
OS
health, education, democracy
Agency
Governance and accountability
OS
Agency
Market Entrepreneurialism and economic OS
activity/productivity
Agency
Goods
OS
Agency
Services
OS
Agency
Access to global markets and
OS
resources
Agency
Organisational (nonOS
governmental organizations)
Agency
Society Intra-household
Intra-community
OS
Agency
OS
Agency
Micro
Computer provided, software available, potential to be
comp lit
Inability to use information, absence of culture of
information use
Absence of regular support from superiors, district office
Absence of regular support from HISP
Software too complicated
Social hierarchy as threat to individual performance Information officer feels inferior in relation to prof nurses
Ability to recall individual cases with clarity
Value of the framework:
• Assess progress over time
• Comparative across time and space
• Different view to “failure” of IS projects, or
the paradox of ongoing “unsuccessful”
interventions
5. Implications for further research:
• Emergent themes:
– South vs North – the framework enables local
priorities to be set, and a range of OS and
agency tasks to be determined which are
understood to contribute to developmental
outcomes
• Longitudinal studies
Implications for further research
contd
• Use of particular theories:
– Complexity theory –
• non-linearity
• role of self-organizing groups
• Co-evolution
– Structuration theory
• Use of particular methodologies:
– Critical emancipatory action research
Concluding Remarks
• The “Capability Approach” is a useful
philosophical and analytical framework;
• Advantage to be gained from combining
perspectives from the “development
domain” with those from the ISR domain;
• Shift in thinking about ISR in DC, in
particular to consider different research
approaches, and the use of theory.