ICTs and the MDGs: On the Wrong Track?

Richard Heeks's article seeks to challenge current "e-development" priorities with respect to information and communication technologies (ICTs). Heeks contends that an assumption has already been made that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are viewed as a priority for application of ICTs. He suggests that different priorities should be considered, given the opportunities that new technologies provide.

Heeks characterises the MDGs as an invention of the North imposed on the South by international agencies. His view is that developing nations "have been dragged from one Northern-inspired orthodoxy to the next..." Heeks asks, "where is the breathing space and support for countries to construct their own individual agendas?"

Heeks suggests that ICTs are being used in places where "they are often least able to be implemented, least able to succeed, least able to sustain and, hence, least able to make a contribution to development as seeking to address fundamental injustices and inequities that everyone faces worldwide." He points to projects which the media
tout as successful, such as rural telecentres or e-commerce microenterprises found in remote regions. While acknowledging that there may be a few exceptions, he believes that these projects rarely work. He points to a survey that suggests that "at least one-third of such projects are total failures and one-half are partial failures." To bolster this argument, Heeks cites a project to install computer kiosks in Gyandoot, India. He says that, in 2000, "amid much fanfare, this won awards from the Stockholm Challenge and the Computer Society of India. Later studies of Gyandoot in 2002 did not hit the headlines, but they found kiosks abandoned or closed; absurdly low usage rates of once every two-three days; and few signs of developmental benefits."

Heeks argues that ICT priorities would be better focused on building ICT sector enterprises. This does not just mean attending to large initiatives like India's Tata Consultancy Services, which may be among the top ten in software globally. It also means supporting some of the tens of thousands of tiny backstreet database developers, personal computer (PC) assemblers, and others. He makes reference to the Kudumbashree Initiative that is helping to elevate women from below-poverty-line families into the ICT sector through hardware and services enterprises. Heeks mentions that in this case direct benefits are being created for economically poor communities: jobs, incomes, skills, empowerment and gender equality - "in a way ICT consumption projects
cannot."

Heeks suggests that agencies which invest in ICT consumption projects should consider an "organic" approach of following "fashion" rather than the inorganic approach of trying to create one's own fashion statement. Heeks points to trend already being followed in so many developing communities - reliance on the cell phone - in lieu of the personal computer. Therefore, his point is that "agencies should be paying far more attention to the development potential of mobile telephony."

In conclusion, Heeks states that the MDGs "run the risk of skewing the development agenda, and they also run the risk of marginalising ICTs." Thus, he suggests that challenging the MDGs with respect to how ICTs can contribute to socio-economic development is important because otherwise we "may miss a generational opportunity to properly harness new technology for the good of all."