Using indicators of ICT access as a proxy for development is problematic. It is entirely possible for ICTs to be universally available to everyone in a specific population whilst at the same time as levels of well-being, health and freedoms decline. The UK and USA are examples of countries where indicators of mobile and internet penetration have rapidly increased at the same time as economic depression, and expansion in health and income inequalities…
ICT4D often imagines that provision of internet access – and to the wealth of information on the world wide web – is itself empowering and that it constitutes ‘development’…
Amartya Sen argues that “critical agency is important in combating inequality of every kind”and that it is ‘pivotal’ to human development.
If this is true then any digital development initiative that is concerned to combat inequality or otherwise contribute to human development will want to make critical agency part of its process. So what is ‘critical agency’?
“Mobile Phones Promote Economic Growth” was the simple, technologically deterministic claim made by The Economist in 2007, citing as evidence Robert Jensen’s now famous study of mobile phone adoption in India. In the single most cited piece of research in the history of ICT4D, “The Digital Provide”, Jensen studied the price of landed fish in Kerala between 1996 and 2001 before and after fishermen first gained access to mobile phones…
Given his philosophy of interconnectedness, the Buddha might be reduced to smiling compassionately at the technologically deterministic claims of some ICT4D folk that their ICT is the sole cause of a particular development outcome…
Wayan Vota wrote a great blogpost this week on whether the goals of sustainability and using open source ICT4D are compatible within the context of international development. It is a stimulating and thoughtful piece. I think that Wayan and I have the same overall aims. However I dispute a couple of the assertions that he makes and therefore come to a different conclusion…