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Author: Edith Ofwona Adera
Publisher: IDRC
Published: 2014
Total Pages: 273
ISBN-13: 1552505391
DOWNLOAD EBOOK'ICT Pathways to Poverty Reduction' presents a conceptual framework to analyse how poverty dynamics change over time and to shed light on whether ICT access benefits the poor as well as the not-so-poor. Essential reading for policymakers, researchers, and academics in international development or ICT for development.
Author: Laurent Elder
Publisher: IDRC
Published: 2013
Total Pages: 107
ISBN-13: 1552505715
DOWNLOAD EBOOKInformation and communication have always opened opportunities for the poor to earn income, reduce isolation, and respond resiliently to emergencies. With mobile phone use exploding across the developing world, even marginalized communities are now benefiting from modern communication tools. This book explores the impacts of this unprecedented technological change. It looks at how the poor use information and communication technologies (ICTs). How they benefit from mobile devices, computers, and the Internet, and what insights can research provide to promote affordable access to ICTs, so that communities across the developing world can take advantage of the opportunities they offer.
Author: Jack J. Barry
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2020-09-30
Total Pages: 246
ISBN-13: 9780367665968
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDespite global economic disparities, recent years have seen rapid technological changes in developing countries, as it is now common to see people across all levels of society with smartphones in their hands and computers in their homes. However, does access to Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) actually improve the day-to-day lives of low-income citizens? This book argues that access to the internet can help alleviate poverty, improve development outcomes, and is now vital for realizing many human rights. This book posits that good governance is essential to the realization of inclusive pro-poor development goals, and puts forward policy recommendations that aim to mitigate the complex digital divide by employing governance as the primary actor. In making his argument, the author provides a quantitative analysis of developing countries, conjoined with a targeted in-depth study of Mexico. This mixed method approach provides an intriguing case for how improvements in the quality of governance impacts both ICT penetration, and poverty alleviation. Overall, the book challenges the neoliberal deterministic perspective that the open market will "solve" technology diffusion, and argues instead that good governance is the lynchpin that creates conducive conditions for ICTs to make an impact on poverty alleviation. In fact, the digital divide should not be considered binary, rather it is a multifaceted problem where income, education, and language all need to be considered to address it effectively. This book will be useful for researchers/students of development, communication technologies, and comparative politics as well as for development practitioners and policy makers with an interest in how modern technology is impacting the poor in the developing world.
Author: Jack J. Barry
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-07-24
Total Pages: 235
ISBN-13: 0429996195
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDespite global economic disparities, recent years have seen rapid technological changes in developing countries, as it is now common to see people across all levels of society with smartphones in their hands and computers in their homes. However, does access to Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) actually improve the day-to-day lives of low-income citizens? This book argues that access to the internet can help alleviate poverty, improve development outcomes, and is now vital for realizing many human rights. This book posits that good governance is essential to the realization of inclusive pro-poor development goals, and puts forward policy recommendations that aim to mitigate the complex digital divide by employing governance as the primary actor. In making his argument, the author provides a quantitative analysis of developing countries, conjoined with a targeted in-depth study of Mexico. This mixed method approach provides an intriguing case for how improvements in the quality of governance impacts both ICT penetration, and poverty alleviation. Overall, the book challenges the neoliberal deterministic perspective that the open market will "solve" technology diffusion, and argues instead that good governance is the lynchpin that creates conducive conditions for ICTs to make an impact on poverty alleviation. In fact, the digital divide should not be considered binary, rather it is a multifaceted problem where income, education, and language all need to be considered to address it effectively. This book will be useful for researchers/students of development, communication technologies, and comparative politics as well as for development practitioners and policy makers with an interest in how modern technology is impacting the poor in the developing world.
Author: Hernan Galperin
Publisher: IDRC
Published: 2007
Total Pages: 162
ISBN-13: 1552503429
DOWNLOAD EBOOKExamines the problem of inedequate access to information and communication technology (ICT) and the need to develop appropriate pro-poor ICT policies. Shows how market reforms have failed to ensure that the benefits of the Information Society have spread across the region.
Author: Richard Heeks
Publisher:
Published: 2019
Total Pages: 21
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKCan information and communication technologies (ICTs) help to alleviate poverty in low-income countries? The paper investigates this question, focusing particularly on the role of ICTs in assisting the development of small and micro-enterprises. The investigation is based on a systemic understanding of both technology and enterprise. This suggests that ICTs will play a role mainly as a communication technology rather than as an information processing or production technology. Serious inequalities exist that constrain the use of ICT-based information by poor entrepreneurs. Information and communication technologies may therefore have a greater role to play in giving 'voice' to the poor; that is, in making the poor information providers more than information recipients. However, effective application must first overcome the 'ICT fetish' that dominates much development thinking at present, and which creates a series of identified opportunity costs. The paper concludes with a set of development priorities for information and for ICT use in poverty alleviation.
Author: Maximo Torero
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
Published: 2006-01-01
Total Pages: 392
ISBN-13: 0801880416
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe IT revolution made some glorious promises to the world's poor: instant access to information and far-flung markets, political empowerment, greater growth, even the possibility that countries could leapfrog entire stages of development. But when none of that happened in a hurry, the hoopla gave way to concern that rather than closing the wealth gap, IT was exacerbating it. Yet for all the international debate and millions of words written about the digital divide, very little systematic empirical research or studies over time have been done to confirm claims and counterclaims and to guide policymakers on how this technology actually affects the development of low-income countries. In this volume, Maximo Torero and Joachim von Braun seek to address this omission with a collection of case studies exploring the relationship between information and communication technologies (ICTs) and development in Bangladesh, China, India, Ghana, Laos, Peru, and East Africa. Their conclusion is that yes, ICTs do have potential to serve and empower the poor by linking them to commercial and social networks, cutting transaction costs, and making the delivery of public goods like education and healthcare more efficient. But these benefits can accrue only when the supporting infrastructure is in place and when ICT policies take into account not only questions of connectivity but also of capability (how to help poor people use the new tools) and of content (what is relevant and in what form). All three c's are critical. Without coherent strategies and the right regulatory policies there is the very real likelihood that scarce resources will be misallocated and that ICT-induced growth will remain elusive. Contributors: Abdul Bayes, Arjun Bedi, Romeo Bertolini, Shyamal K. Chowdhury, Virgilio Galdo, K. Lal, Francis A.S.T. Matambalya, Maja Micevska, Dietrich Mueller-Falcke, Gi-Soon Song, Maximo Torero, Joachim von Braun, Wensheng Wang, and Susanna Wolfe, Gi-Soon Song, Maximo Torero, Joachim von Braun, Wensheng Wang, Susanna Wolf.
Author: Richard Heeks
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-11-08
Total Pages: 490
ISBN-13: 1317313569
DOWNLOAD EBOOKMobile phones are close to ubiquitous in developing countries; Internet and broadband access are becoming commonplace. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) thus represent the fastest, broadest and deepest technical change experienced in international development. They now affect every development sector – supporting the work of hundreds of millions of farmers and micro-entrepreneurs; creating millions of ICT-based jobs; assisting healthcare workers and teachers; facilitating political change; impacting climate change; but also linked with digital inequalities and harms – with the pace of change continuously accelerating. Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D) provides the first dedicated textbook to examine and explain these emerging phenomena. It will help students, practitioners, researchers and other readers understand the place of ICTs within development; the ICT-enabled changes already underway; and the key issues and interventions that engage ICT4D practice and strategy. The book has a three-part structure. The first three chapters set out the foundations of ICT4D: the core relation between ICTs and development; the underlying components needed for ICT4D to work; and best practice in implementing ICT4D. Five chapters then analyse key development goals: economic growth, poverty eradication, social development, good governance and environmental sustainability. Each chapter assesses the goal-related impact associated with ICTs and key lessons from real-world cases. The final chapter looks ahead to emerging technologies and emerging models of ICT-enabled development. The book uses extensive in-text diagrams, tables and boxed examples with chapter-end discussion and assignment questions and further reading. Supported by online activities, video links, session outlines and slides, this textbook provides the basis for undergraduate, postgraduate and online learning modules on ICT4D.
Author: Robin Mansell
Publisher: Oxford Handbooks Online
Published: 2007
Total Pages: 644
ISBN-13: 0199266239
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe production and consumption of Information and Communication Technologies (or ICTs) have become embedded within our societies. The influence and implications of this have an impact at a macro level, in the way our governments, economies, and businesses operate, and in our everyday lives. This handbook is about the many challenges presented by ICTs. It sets out an intellectual agenda that examines the implications of ICTs for individuals, organizations, democracy, and the economy. Explicity interdisciplinary, and combining empirical research with theoretical work, it is organised around four themes covering the knowledge economy; organizational dynamics, strategy, and design; governance and democracy; and culture, community and new media literacies. It provides a comprehensive resource for those working in the social sciences, and in the physical sciences and engineering fields, with leading contemporary research informed principally by the disciplines of anthropology, economics, philosophy, politics, and sociology.
Author: Van Slyke, Craig
Publisher: IGI Global
Published: 2008-04-30
Total Pages: 4288
ISBN-13: 1599049503
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe rapid development of information communication technologies (ICTs) is having a profound impact across numerous aspects of social, economic, and cultural activity worldwide, and keeping pace with the associated effects, implications, opportunities, and pitfalls has been challenging to researchers in diverse realms ranging from education to competitive intelligence.
