Information and communication technologies, poverty and development : learning from experience

The goal of this report is to provide a framework for thinking about information and communication technologies (ICTs), poverty, and development that could guide further analysis and future projects. The particular focus of this report is on our current understanding of the nature of poverty and the challenges of development, an analysis of how ICTs might address those challenges, and some tentative lessons drawn from our experience thus far. Therefore, this report includes information and analysis on a number of ICT-for-development initiatives, but its goal is to provide not a detailed checklist of what works but a roadmap for understanding what might work and why in specific circumstances, informed by the successes, and failures, of a variety of projects in recent years. Its focus, therefore, is on ICTs as means, not ends, as tools that enable desired changes - in the performance of institutions and markets, in the livelihoods of poor people and the vulnerabilities they face, in the capacity of individuals and governments - since it is these changes, not ICTs, that lead to poverty reduction and sustainable development. These outcomes - fewer people in poverty, more vibrant developing-country economies, more responsive government institutions, reduced disease and illiteracy, greater gender equality - are the ultimate measure of the value and impact of ICTs in development. ICT-focused measures such as the increase or decrease of the "digital divide" are at best proxies of these deeper changes, and at worst distractions from them. The report concludes with general principles and priorities for action in harnessing ICTs as tools of development and poverty reduction. In general, the report is written not solely for ICT-for-development specialists, but for a broader audience of those working in development and interested in the role of ICTs. This reflects the overall message of the report: that the proper approach to harnessing ICTs for development and poverty reduction is to mainstream them as tools of, and subordinate them to, broader strategies and programs for building opportunity and empowering the poor.