Information and Communication Technologies and Large-Scale Poverty Reduction

This 56-page document discusses how information and communication technology (ICT) can best serve to alleviate poverty. It is a collection of discussion papers published by the Panos Institute and the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation (SDC) and written to serve as background documents prepared for panel discussions at the WSIS 2005 Tunis World Summit. It compiles lessons learned from Asia, Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean that specifically focus on policies, strategies and project development for serving the economically poor using ICT for development. A part of the analysis in all chapters speaks to up scaling, or taking functioning projects and spreading their function to larger segments of the population.

Detailed regional samplings of field projects linked to lessons learned are described in the document. Chapter titles are listed in a Table of Contents following the discussion of strategies. The main communication strategies outlined in the
overview and detailed in the case studies are:

• Participation and empowerment: Each regional discussion focuses in large measure on the importance of multiple aspects of community and local client participation as stakeholders. According to this document, language, content, cultural presentation, and relevance of application need local contribution and validation to insure utilisation of ICT tools. Community participation in local to national policy decisions can result in empowerment. Training and delivery structures insure involvement and satisfaction that leads to sustainable use. Attention to a demand- and content-driven frame of reference for planning rather than an infrastructure-building framework has potential for serving the economically poor. Diversity inclusion is consistent with the democratisation of knowledge. Examples such as training women to run telecentres in Asia so that women will use them, putting telecentres in Dalit villages in India to cross class or caste barriers, developing content in indigenous languages in Latin America are all lessons that have the potential to extend the reach of ICT for poverty reduction.





• Enhancing access and using existing ICT infrastructure: The breadth and proliferation of infrastructure offers vital potential for converging technologies, according to the publication. Microfinance, for example, which has been a useful tool in poverty reduction, can be enhanced by opening bank branches through the use of internet technology, as franchises run by existing traditional money lenders in distant locations. Mobile computing might also enhance the exchange of money through a remittance transfer system that links migrants to home village banking systems.
  
  
  Radio, because of its wide penetration and reach, is a tool already being used in poverty reduction programmes. Not only can it serve as a model of local participation for other ICT development, but it can help promote the expansion of ICT use through marketing cyber use and through its own use of the internet for news and information. Radio is a model for multistakeholder partnerships in that ownership can be public, private, and organisation-based. Increased funding might be found through alliances that create shared radio magazines, programmes encouraging diverse community voices and work on conflict resolution. A Panos poll of radio stations in Africa listed access to better technology as their top priority. More study of financial sustainability and poverty reduction impact is needed.





• Create a knowledge sharing, regulatory, and investment environment to support ITC deployment: Mechanisms are needed for reducing investment risk and costs, possibly through scaling up to replicate successes and creating synergy. Competition stimulates efficiency and effective deployment, especially the use of low cost and appropriate ICT tools. Investment in community infrastructure such as local area networks using high frequency radio signals to transmit and receive data (WiFi) may be an economic stimulus. The sharing of lessons learned, especially as a basis for scaling up, can be enhanced by building knowledge platforms, bridging the divide between ICT for development and the rest of the development community, and systematising and diffusing project experiences through national and international information networks, with some focus on South - South knowledge exchanges.
  
  

  Fast track licensing, deregulation in favour of communities, ICT licensing obligations that induce funding mechanisms for community initiatives, and encouraging public private partnerships (PPP) for funding open possibilities for the economically poor. Using open source content tools and up scaling the creation of knowledge/telecentres that use multiple ICT tools increase access.





• Strategic alliances: The document recommends putting lessons learned into policy at all levels and inviting in stakeholders from communities, donor organisations, and governments to create strategic alliances. From these alliances can come: funding from multistakeholder partnerships, enabling legal frameworks, flexible infrastructure frameworks, policies giving equal access and opportunities to the economically poor, and attention to financial, ecological and social sustainability.

The Table of Contents from this document is below:

• Introduction and Overview
• Chapter 1: Enhancing access and the development Impact of ICT: policy challenges, options and innovation
• Chapter 2: ICT for development in Latin America and the Caribbean: Scaling up for projects at a national level
• Chapter 3: Up-scaling Pro-poor ICT Policies and Practices: the Chennai Statement and lessons learned
• Chapter 4: From a small beginning to a mass movement: the story of India's Mission 2007
• Chapter 5: Local radio in the Information Society: technology, participation and content in Africa
• Chapter 6: Building microfinance through ICT innovation