ICT for Poverty Reduction: Think Big, Act Boldly

This article suggests that information and communication technologies (ICTs) can be effective in helping alleviate poverty in developing countries but that the amount of good they do is conditional and based on how they are used. Gunawardene believes that ICTs must be carefully chosen and implemented for appropriate purposes. His point is that ICTs can not turn "bad development into good development."

Gunawardene describes communication tools and delivery mechanisms as a means to an end. If ICTs for development (ICT4D) are to be effective they need to be adjustable to current conditions and must be practical in they way they offer solutions to problems. According to the article, in India, radio and television have been used through communication satellites as a way to reach over 2,400 villages. These older methods of communications can still offer the quickest, cheapest ways to reach hundreds of millions of people.

ICTs, whether old or new, must also take into consideration locally relevant content. Ensuring that content is customised to the current situation is critical for its level of success. ICT's need to be systematically addressed and may not be effective if they are carried out as scattered "pilot" projects, according to the author. Gunawardene states "if we are serious about addressing pervasive poverty and under-development, we should be irrigating the whole vast desert, not keep watering a few pampered oases."

Gunawardene suggests that ICT decisions are at times based on criteria such as "rural" circumstances when in fact, according to the article four in ten Asian people live in cities and have been overlooked by poverty experts. Other hindrances to their effectiveness include, for example a reliance on external support.

Gunawardene offers an example of telecommunications in Sri Lanka as having been highly effective in how they helped people conduct business. The article indicates that mobile phones now make up 60% of the country's 2.3 million telephone numbers. Gunawardene compares this market-driven example of success to donor-driven projects that either collapsed or never took off.

In conclusion, Gunawardene refers to a quote from Mahatma Gandhi who at one time proposed a simple test for the effectiveness of any development activity: "find out how the last man would be affected by it. We should adapt this as a test for ICT4D projects: how is the last man, woman and child reached, touched and transformed by them?"