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ICTs and Rural Development: Review of the Literature, Current Interventions and Opportunities for Action
Robert Chapman and Tom Slaymaker, Overseas Development Institute (ODI)
November 2002

This document is available online at:
http://www.odi.org.uk/publications/working_papers/wp192.pdf

Summary
Industrial society has moved into an era of advanced technological innovation, affecting the way developed countries run their businesses, their institutions and lead their lives. One of the areas in which these technological advances are dramatically influencing people’s lives is information technology and telecommunications – hence the claim that we are in the midst of a ‘digital revolution’ that is driving us towards an ‘information society’. As during previous societal revolutions based on technological advances there remain many countries and people that are largely unaffected by the changes that are taking place.

This paper investigates the role that information and communication technologies (ICTs) have to play in developing countries, focusing particularly on those rural areas that are currently least affected by the latest advances in the ‘digital revolution’. Section one aims to look beyond the current ‘digital divide’ debate which focuses on information disparities to assess the potential role of ICTs in the context of current rural development paradigms. This section addresses the current divergence between the technology drivers and the potential beneficiaries in rural areas in developing countries, together with the opportunities arising from the continued convergence of ICTs, old and new. The section considers some alternative approaches that are being pioneered to harness ICTs for development goals including private sector, public sector and NGO-based initiatives. This leads on to a discussion of changing approaches to technology transfer drawing on lessons from agricultural extension experience to illustrate how ICTs could be harnessed for rural development.

This theme is further developed in Section 2, which focuses on how ICTs can play a more strategic role in rural development. It assesses the potential for pluralistic approaches to encourage widespread adoption of ICTs. The need for flexible and decentralised models for using ICTs is discussed in the context of ‘content and control’. The challenge of achieving rural development goals by supporting knowledge and information systems is analysed through an epistemological perspective illustrated by case studies from the literature and the authors’ research on the operation of these systems at the community level. The concept of building partnerships at the community level based around information exchange is explored, using ICTs to improve systems for the exchange of information sources that already exist locally and also providing established information intermediaries with the facilities to enhance their capacity for information sharing.

Responsibility for incorporating technological innovation in ICTs into development strategies has traditionally fallen to those with the mandate for infrastructure within governments and development agencies. This is largely due to the large scale and high costs of building telecommunication, electricity and to a certain extent broadcasting networks. As the technology becomes more powerful and more complex, with satellite-based and fibre optic cable networks encircling the globe with increasing density, the position of ICTs within this infrastructure mandate is unlikely to diminish. ICTs, however, also consist of a wide range of equipment nowadays that can be operated individually or within small, local networks that do not require vast infrastructure investments. Long lasting batteries, solar and wind-up power sources are now being used to enable ICTs to operate in remote areas. This paper focuses principally on the role of ICTs as flexible and powerful tools for social development through small scale strategic interventions, linking to, and extending beyond, formal and centralised systems operating on a larger scale. It is in this role as tools for social development that much of the experimentation at the community level is currently taking place, to harness the existing capacity of many ‘off the shelf’ ICT products to serve community development needs. This paper explores how ICTs could have a greater role in future rural development strategies through the integration of available technologies and the diverse institutional and knowledge landscapes that exist in developing countries.

The paper concludes that there are numerous, well established barriers to improving information exchange. Knowledge capture, the high cost of information access and infrastructure constraints all affect the equitable distribution of information in rural areas. However, technological advances in ICTs have reduced the cost and increased the quantity and speed of information transfer dramatically. This is set to continue and the technologies are already being designed to accommodate a wide range of user choices. This flexibility points towards a potential for adaptation to the diverse needs of rural areas in developing countries that responds directly to the current paradigmatic emphasis on democratic decentralisation and pluralistic approaches, with participatory and demand-driven, market-based and diversified developmental change. The contradiction between the potential for ICTs to address the challenges faced by rural development and the current failure to harness them for this purpose is striking. To pursue ‘universal access’ and one size fits all applications to ‘bridge the digital divide’ is to ignore the real potential of ICTs to be used locally, in order to enable those individuals and institutions that are the priorities of rural development strategies to access the information that is relevant to their own multi-dimensional livelihoods. The need for a concerted effort to build knowledge partnerships and to engage the private sector and technology drivers in the pursuit of rural development goals is paramount if ICTs are to have a role in future strategies.

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