Emmanuel C. Lallana, PhD Chief Executive, ideacorp

1
Emmanuel C. Lallana, PhDChief Executive, ideacorp

• ICT4DEVELOPMENT
• Sustainability
• and Bricolage

2

• Certainly computing is great... (but) when you're
  looking at the poorest (of the poor)... a
  computer is not their most urgent need
• - Bill Gates

3
Why ICT Matters (even for the poor)?

• ICT is key to improving the resource allocation
  process and the efficient implementation of
  programs.
• eGovernment as enhanced delivery of public
  service
• Do NGOs use ICT to improve internal operations
  and for more efficient implementation of program?

4
Why ICT Matters (even for the poor)?

1. ICT also has much to offer in meeting the
   information-communication needs of rural
   communities.

5
How ICT Matters (even for the poor)?

• Karakoram Area Development Organization (KADO) in
  Hunza Valley, Pakistan
• Telecenters are being run on cost-recovery basis
  in partnership with local communities.
• Software training for rural women
• handicraft e-commerce initiative to promote local
  products made by women and disabled artisans.
• www.kado.net.pk

6
How ICT Matters (even for the poor)?

• SeedNet of PhilRice
• Enhance seed centres ability to multiply
  foundation seeds from local farmers sell them
  to commercial seed growers for further
  multiplication.
• 100 accredited SeedNet members, 35,000 seed
  growers and about 1m rice farmers.
• by March 2006, the project was receiving more
  than 600 text queries per month.

7
How ICT Matters (even for the poor)?
Remote Medical Diagnostics or ReMeDi

• Diagnostic equipment - ECG, Blood pressure,
  Heart sounds, Pulse rate, Temperature, Image
  capture
• Telemedicine software - Video and audio
  conferencing, Data presentation and
  display, Electronic patient records are
  accessible at any time, print facility

8
How ICT Matters (even for the poor)?

• Since 1997 Grameen Telecom in collaboration with
  Grameen Bank, empowered thousands of rural women
  by providing them with Money Making Cellular
  Phone under the project PALLI PHONE which means
  Village Phone (VP).

9
How ICT Matters (even for the poor)?

• eSKWELA
• ICT enhanced education for the Filipino
  out-of-school youth
• 6 of 10 Filipino youth who enter Grade 1 drop out
  before they graduate High School
• Certificate of Commendation for the Non-Formal
  Educator Category UNESCO ICT in Education
  Innovation Awards, 2007-2008

10
How ICT Matters (even for the poor)?

• Bhoomi (meaning land in the local language)
  project aims to
• restore the efficiency in management of land
  records in the Indian state of Karnataka.
• rectify the existing inefficient system of
  creation, updating, storage, retrieval and issue
  of agricultural land records

11
The road to hell...

• While we see a favourable structural impact
  through the use of Bhoomi project in Mandya (in
  the sense that farmers are facilitated in
  accessing more credit through formal channels and
  with an assumption that formal credit has a
  positive development impact on the farmers) that
  the projects designers would have hoped for, ....

12
The road to hell...

• .... in Koppal, however, the project use tends
  to reinforce the existing (exploitative) land
  relations, which is contrary to what various land
  reforms initiatives have called for land to the
  tiller.
• Amit Prakash and Rahul De Enactment of
  Technology Structures in ICT4D Projects A Study
  of Computerization of Land Records in India

13
Main ICT4D Challenges

• Context
• Community Participation
• GKP Principles of Multistakeholder Partnerships
• Sustainability
• financial, social, institutional, technological,
  and environmental

14
Main ICT4D Challenges

• Sustainability
• financial sustainability is the long-term ability
  of ICT projects to generate enough income to meet
  operational maintenance costs, plus a
  reasonable surplus for renewing broken obsolete
  equipment .

15
Main ICT4D Challenges

• Sustainability
• technological sustainability includes
  operational simplicity, flexibility,
  maintainability, robustness and also the
  availability and capability of technical and
  managerial personnel.

16
Main ICT4D Challenges

• Sustainability
• social sustainability requires user buy-in
  participation
• taking into account local traditions, differences
  within communities, empowering marginalized
  groups, sharing aligning goals with local
  people adapting to evolving community needs l

17
Main ICT4D Challenges

• Sustainability
• social sustainability is also about looking
  beyond equitable access and asking whether the
  access is actually to something useful and
  provides relevant content

18
Main ICT4D Challenges

• Sustainability
• institutional sustainability is closely related
  to social sustainability, pointing to the buy-in
  of key institutional actors

19
Main ICT4D Challenges

• Sustainability
• institutional sustainability
• Implementation of ICT4D projects is a highly
  political process the ICT artifact needs to
  become institutionalized accepted by political
  actors.
• Once the ICT artifact is accepted as a social
  fact it is maintained because of its legitimacy
  regardless of the evidence of its technical value.

20
Main ICT4D Challenges

• Sustainability
• environmental sustainability includes planning
  for eventual disposal or reuse of ICT hardware
  when they reach the end of their effective life

21
Why ICT4D Projects Fail

• unable to meet one or more types of
  sustainability
• the design-reality gap
• unintended consequences

22
From Sustainability to Bricolage

• Nothing has ever been sustainable, and nothing
  will ever be. Change is inevitable, and ICT for
  development project practitioners and theorists
  must be open to the fact that they are living in
  a fast-moving world.

23
From Sustainability to Bricolage

• Like stakeholder analyses, sustainability models
  and frameworks will not predict the future or
  guarantee a sustainable project.
• Ali Bailur The Challenge of 'Sustainability in
  ICT4D

24
From Sustainability to Bricolage

• Bricolage - tinkering through the combination of
  resources at hand. These resources become the
  tools and they define in situ the heuristic to
  solve the problem.
• Bricolage is about leveraging the world as
  defined by the situation.

25

• no general scheme or model is available only
  local cues from a situation are trusted and
  exploited in a somewhat blind and reflective way,
  aiming at obtaining ad hoc solutions by applying
  heuristics rather than high theory
• C. U. Ciborra (1994) p. 16

26
eclallana_at_ideacorpphil.org

• End of Presentation