Development Divide in a Digital Age

"This paper considers the role that information and communications technologies (ICTs) can realistically be expected to play in improving the level of living and quality of life of people in different parts of the world. It focuses above all on low-income countries, where most development assistance efforts are concentrated and where the challenge of utilizing ICTs effectively is greatest. The title of the paper reflects its central argument. The digital divide is an integral part of a much broader and more intractable development divide. The likelihood that people in low-income countries can improve their life chances is often sharply limited not only by their lack of access to modern means of communication and sources of information, but also by a complex network of constraints ranging from unresolved problems of poverty and injustice in their own societies to the structure and dynamics of the global economic system. When designing ICT programmes in developing countries, these broader constraints must be explicitly taken into account. Thus, at the international level, discussion of possibilities to use the Internet for improving trade and employment opportunities in low-income countries must be accompanied by a frank evaluation of impediments associated with the current global financial and trade regime. If the surrounding context for proposed innovation is not sufficiently analysed, and remedies for pressing economic problems addressed, many well-meaning efforts will have short lives and minimal results.

...Research can play a critical role in generating knowledge about what particular groups and countries do need, and about what approaches seem to be most effective in resolving specific problems. In fact, strengthening institutional capacity for analysis and debate in Third World countries is an indispensable element in the construction of knowledge societies. It can improve the quality of information on which effective policy must be based, as well as the solidity of the political process that stands behind formulation and implementation of that policy. It can also provide an opening for donors to reconsider their own role in the promotion of development, perhaps recasting their efforts in a more participatory fashion..."