ICTs for Poverty Reduction: Lessons for Donors

"We need more knowledge about the most conducive conditions for making ICTs an effective instrument for the poor to improve their own standard of living."

This article, based on a discussion paper comissioned by Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), attempts to analyse the problems and potentials of ICTs used by people living in poverty, such as illiterate people, unskilled labourers, self-employed micro entrepreneurs, subsistence farmers, women, people speaking minority languages, populations living in remote areas", says Walter Fust, Director General, SDC.

Gerster and Zimmerman discuss the benefits and challenges donor organisations should consider when using ICTs to reduce poverty. The article is divided into four sections:

Poverty Reduction

According to the authors, "The role of ICT in poverty reduction is not limited to reducing income poverty, but also includes non-economic dimensions - in particular, empowerment." Four strategies for poverty reduction using ICTs are listed:

• a production-oriented growth strategy, including pro-poor corrective measures;
• the sustainable livelihoods approach, putting people first;
• a distribution-oriented strategy, emphasising the redistribution of assets;
• a rights and empowerment strategy, promoting knowledge about basic rights and empowerment of people.

From Information to Communication

"ICTs facilitate the creation, storage, management, and dissemination of information by electronic means" such as the radio, television, telephone, fax, computer, and the internet. The authors define four characteristics to describe ICTs:

• Interactivity: ICTs are effective two-way communication technologies.
• Permanent availability: the new ICTs are available 24 hours a day.
• Global reach: geographic distances hardly matter any more.
• Reduced per unit costs for many: relative costs of communication have shrunk to a fraction of previous values.

Challenges and Lessons Learned

Three main challenges to implementing ICTs are defined as:

• ICTs are technologies and as such cannot solve political or social problems that are often at the roots of poverty;
• Due to the requirement of “connectedness” (roads, power, telephone), most of the ICTs have an urban bias and discriminate against rural areas;
• The potential poor beneficiaries of ICTs are often unskilled, illiterate people, mainly women, who may also speak a minority group language.

The authors discuss radio and internet ICT initiatives and their different effects on poverty reduction, "Even a collective access to Internet in village telecentres shows low relevance and use of the Internet compared to other ICTs, particularly radio. Radio and telephony are rather cheap; their use requires relatively few skills, while, in terms of context and language, they enjoy great flexibility. The direct added value of the Internet to the poorest has yet to be conclusively demonstrated."

Recommendations for Donors

Based on their research, the authors put forth five recommendations to donors who are interested in supporting ICT initiatives to reduce poverty:

• "Donors should intensify the stock-taking exercise to identify ICT components in the current bilateral and multilateral programmes;
• Based on the experience gained, donors should start giving mainstream attention to the information and communication components of poverty and the appropriate use of ICTs in the bilateral operations;
• In policy dialogue with partner countries, donors may consider insisting on an enabling environment (overall and ICT-specific, including Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers, PRSPs) in view of pro-poor outcomes;
• Beyond mainstreaming, donors should continue to strengthen the voices of those in poverty in the international arena (multilateral negotiations, NGO advocacy, media) and to support the empowerment of local institutions and networks;
• In the framework of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and other multilateral negotiations, the nation should enhance multilateral rules empowering developing and transition countries as well as people in poverty, strengthening their self determination and enhancing their opportunities."

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