✍ Scribed by Richard Heeks
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Arrival of the Internet in the late 1990s as a `global' phenomenon has sparked many changes. One has been a change in terminology. Where before we talked simply of information technology (IT), we now talk of information and communication technology (ICT). This re¯ects the convergence of digital computing and telecommunications. Computers were largely focused on the processing of information. ICTs undertake both processing and communication of information, with recent interest tending to highlight the latter.
These changes have also affected development. e-DevelopmentÐuse of electronic ICTs like the Internet to support developmentÐhas arrived. Donors, attracted by a combination of the hype and hope generated by ICTs, have altered their funding priorities and pushed ICTs up the development agenda. Within that agenda has begun to appear the idea that ICTs lead to the death of distance', create a level playing ®eld' in which the small and the new compete on equal terms with the large and the well-established, and permit leapfrogging to an information economy'. If ICTs are thus seen as critical to development, then great concern must be expressed about those who lack access to ICTs. Hence, the creation of bodies like the G-8's DOTForce to combat this digital divide': seen by some as a key target for development action.
Like sharks drawn to blood in the ocean, a whole host of consultants, academics, vendors, and development organization staff have been drawn in to the e-development arena by the scent of money. OthersÐlike the serial divorcees convinced the next marriage will be the one that worksÐare drawn in by the hope that, this time, a real answer to the problems of development has been found.
The result has been an explosion of activity and writing, much of it poorly thought out and with little understanding either of history or of development realities. An enduring theme of such work has been overemphasis on the technology itself, to the exclusion of other parameters.
This current collection of papersÐwritten by dolphins rather than sharksÐaims to move beyond the current enthusiasm for derivative description and technological determinism. It aims to introduce a deeper and more balanced understanding of the relationship between ICTs and development.
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