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ICT4D for Sustainable Development: Empowering the Poor through Bricolage

This article explores the importance of ICT in addressing the needs of the poorest communities. It discusses various initiatives and projects that utilize ICT to improve resource allocation, enhance public service delivery, and empower marginalized groups. The challenges of sustainability in ICT4D projects are also examined, with a focus on financial, technological, social, and institutional factors.

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ICT4D for Sustainable Development: Empowering the Poor through Bricolage

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  1. ICT4DEVELOPMENT Sustainability and Bricolage Emmanuel C. Lallana, PhDChief Executive,ideacorp

  2. Certainly computing is great... (but) when you're looking at the poorest (of the poor)... a computer is not their most urgent need • - Bill Gates

  3. Why ICT Matters (even for the poor)‏ • ICT is key to improving the resource allocation process and the efficient implementation of programs. • eGovernment as enhanced delivery of public service • Do NGOs use ICT to improve internal operations and for more efficient implementation of program?

  4. Why ICT Matters (even for the poor)‏ • ICT also has much to offer in meeting the information-communication needs of rural communities.

  5. How ICT Matters (even for the poor)‏ • Karakoram Area Development Organization (KADO) in Hunza Valley, Pakistan • Telecenters are being run on cost-recovery basis in partnership with local communities. • Software training for rural women • handicraft e-commerce initiative to promote local products made by women and disabled artisans. www.kado.net.pk

  6. How ICT Matters (even for the poor)‏ • SeedNet of PhilRice • Enhance seed centres ability to multiply foundation seeds from local farmers & sell them to commercial seed growers for further multiplication. • 100 accredited SeedNet members, 35,000 seed growers and about 1m rice farmers. • by March 2006, the project was receiving more than 600 text queries per month.

  7. How ICT Matters (even for the poor)‏ Remote Medical Diagnostics or ReMeDi • Diagnostic equipment - ECG, Blood pressure, Heart sounds, Pulse rate, Temperature, Image capture • Telemedicine software - Video and audio conferencing, Data presentation and display, Electronic patient records are accessible at any time, print facility

  8. How ICT Matters (even for the poor)‏ • Since 1997 Grameen Telecom in collaboration with Grameen Bank, empowered thousands of rural women by providing them with “Money Making” Cellular Phone under the project “PALLI PHONE” which means “Village Phone (VP)”.

  9. How ICT Matters (even for the poor)‏ eSKWELA • ICT enhanced education for the Filipino out-of-school youth • 6 of 10 Filipino youth who enter Grade 1 drop out before they graduate High School • Certificate of Commendation for the Non-Formal Educator Category UNESCO ICT in Education Innovation Awards, 2007-2008

  10. How ICT Matters (even for the poor)‏ Bhoomi (meaning land in the local language) project aims to • restore the efficiency in management of land records in the Indian state of Karnataka. • rectify the existing inefficient system of creation, updating, storage, retrieval and issue of agricultural land records

  11. The road to hell... While we see a favourable structural impact through the use of Bhoomi project in Mandya (in the sense that farmers are facilitated in accessing more credit through formal channels and with an assumption that formal credit has a positive development impact on the farmers) that the projects designers would have hoped for, ....

  12. The road to hell... .... in Koppal, however, the project use tends to reinforce the existing (exploitative) land relations, which is contrary to what various land reforms initiatives have called for – land to the tiller. Amit Prakash and Rahul De’ Enactment of Technology Structures in ICT4D Projects : A Study of Computerization of Land Records in India

  13. Main ICT4D Challenges Context Community Participation • GKP Principles of Multistakeholder Partnerships Sustainability • financial, social, institutional, technological, and environmental

  14. Main ICT4D Challenges Sustainability • financial sustainability is the long-term ability of ICT projects to generate enough income to meet operational & maintenance costs, plus a reasonable surplus for renewing broken & obsolete equipment .

  15. Main ICT4D Challenges Sustainability • technological sustainability includes operational simplicity, flexibility, maintainability, robustness and also the availability and capability of technical and managerial personnel.

  16. Main ICT4D Challenges Sustainability • social sustainability requires user buy-in & participation • taking into account local traditions, differences within communities, empowering marginalized groups, sharing & aligning goals with local people & adapting to evolving community needs l

  17. Main ICT4D Challenges Sustainability • social sustainability is also about looking beyond equitable access and asking whether the access is actually to something useful and provides relevant content

  18. Main ICT4D Challenges Sustainability • institutional sustainability is closely related to social sustainability, pointing to the buy-in of key institutional actors

  19. Main ICT4D Challenges Sustainability • institutional sustainability • Implementation of ICT4D projects is a highly political process & the ICT artifact needs to become institutionalized & accepted by political actors. • Once the ICT artifact is accepted as a social fact it is maintained because of its legitimacy regardless of the evidence of its technical value.

  20. Main ICT4D Challenges Sustainability • environmental sustainability includes planning for eventual disposal or reuse of ICT hardware when they reach the end of their effective life

  21. Why ICT4D Projects Fail • unable to meet one or more types of sustainability • the design-reality gap • unintended consequences

  22. From Sustainability to Bricolage • Nothing has ever been sustainable, and nothing will ever be. Change is inevitable, and ICT for development project practitioners and theorists must be open to the fact that they are living in a fast-moving world.

  23. From Sustainability to Bricolage • Like stakeholder analyses, sustainability models and frameworks will not predict the future or guarantee a sustainable project. • Ali & Bailur “The Challenge of 'Sustainability in ICT4D”

  24. From Sustainability to Bricolage • Bricolage - tinkering through the combination of resources at hand. These resources become the tools and they define in situ the heuristic to solve the problem. • Bricolage is about leveraging the world as defined by the situation.

  25. no general scheme or model is available: only local cues from a situation are trusted and exploited in a somewhat blind and reflective way, aiming at obtaining ad hoc solutions by applying heuristics rather than high theory C. U. Ciborra (1994) p. 16

  26. End of Presentation eclallana@ideacorpphil.org

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