“Information is a basic human right and the fundamental foundation for the formation of democratic institutions.”
Nelson Mandela

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for rural development is emerging as a new vision for worldwide poverty alleviation with the promise and the challenge by developed nations to transform the societies and economies of developing countries. This vision, according to the 1995 report by the World Bank Group (WBG) entitled “Harnessing Information for Development, A Proposal for a World Bank Group Strategy,” dictates a major agenda for structural adjustment for developing countries through the deregulation and privatization of the telecommunications infrastructure. The emerging strategy for poverty alleviation is linked to the formation of new market economies---information economies.

The advocates of the information economy, which was developed in and for the cultural and social norms of industrialized nations, are determined to globalize the market economy as the principal means to achieve social equity and sustainable economic development. But analysts in developing countries perceive this agenda, controlled principally by private sector market interests, as continuing and possibly accelerating deprivation and poverty for their peoples. Deregulation and privatization of the telecommunications infrastructure “amplifies the focus on telecommunications as a source of profit at the expense of telecommunications as a social service.” (Harris 1999) The self-interests of multi-national corporations perceive information and knowledge as a commodity in the telecommunications marketplace rather than a basic human right.

The emergence of information as a commodity is creating a phenomenon commonly referred to as the Digital Divide---the growing chasm of technology “have and have-nots, know and know-nots” defined along political, economic, and racial lines. The Digital Divide is today more insidious than previous cultural and economic breakpoints. The information revolution is creating a new class of people with highly specialized training, a centrally controlled technological infrastructure, and a global knowledge base conceptually and physically impenetrable to the untrained and the disenfranchised. (TADC Butcher) In a world with increasingly complex social, political, economic, and ecological stress points, it has been argued by many that there are, in fact, no alternatives to the adoption of ICT by developing countries. But it is uncertain how this transition will be managed and financed given the constraints of limited financial resources and the commercial focus of the private sector drivers of ICT development. Can and will donor nations and the market economy make the requisite resources available for the equitable distribution and affordable access to modern information and communication technology tools for human development?

ICT development is inextricably linked with economic prosperity and political power, and it is the principal driver of the new economic order. The propensity of this new economic order to meet the social and economic challenges of developing nations is unproven. It may ultimately contribute to greater debt for developing nations and lead to new political tensions. The danger in the current approach to ICT development is that a new “cargo cult” may arise, where developing economies merely observe the benefits that generations of ICT have brought to industrialized countries. As developing countries strive to achieve the same material outcome, they may blindly believe that similar benefits will quickly accrue to themselves. The results are likely to be disastrous, intensifying the perceived status of developing countries as one of subordination and ever increasing marginalization leading to social discontent and political distrust. (Harris 1999)

The potential for regressive international development trends brought upon by the emerging global information economy creates new challenges for the humanitarian service sector. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and faith-based organizations (FBOs) are likely to become increasingly taxed to meet the most pressing humanitarian needs worldwide while donor nations shift their focus from basic human services to structural adjustment strategies, pursuing market reforms and private sector investment to alleviate poverty. Numerous ICT strategists caution against this potentially regressive trend, as failure could cause an undeterminable setback among the peoples and governments of developing countries. (Harris 1999) The political and social gravity of this dilemma cannot be underestimated and calls for a constructive, coordinated response from the NGO and FBO communities to reinvent its service delivery and redefine its relationship to government and private sectors.

Access to information is a basic human right and needed human service. This proposal argues that it is incumbent upon NGOs and FBOs to develop a humanitarian information and communications infrastructure with the goal to empower beneficiaries with the information, the knowledge, and the process required to meet basic human needs while retaining their own cultural determination. It advocates access to information for rural populations in order to encourage and support appropriate social and economic decisions to achieve sustainable development objects that are locally defined and independent of structural adjustment programs and market reforms. A humanitarian information and communications infrastructure, both technological and human, is the necessary precondition for economic and social development. NGOs and FBOs are in a unique position today to influence the course of human development for the majority of the world’s population by supporting an ICT for rural development strategy that endows the impoverished and the disenfranchised with tools for self-determination---communication, information, and knowledge.

SECTION ONE: ICT FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT

“It can be no accident that there is no wealthy developed country today that is information-poor, and no information-rich country that is poor and undeveloped.”

Mahathir Mohammed
Prime Minister, Malaysia

Information and Development

Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) for rural development refers to the application of computer-based management information systems combined with digital telecommunications technologies to support social and economic development in geographical areas beyond the reach of the existing telecommunications infrastructure. ICT for rural development is about improving old and creating new channels of social interaction by applying a new generation of electronic information and communications capacity to populations that have not previously had adequate access to telecommunications infrastructures.

It is universally accepted that information and communications are essential preconditions for development. Development is, in fact, the process of applying scientific knowledge to improve upon traditional social management structures and cultural practices. More than 40% of the activity of rural development in government, in medicine, in agriculture, in education, and in commerce involves the active transfer of information. In recent decade, developed nations have successfully restructured paper-based information delivery systems employing generations of massive computer servers linked to electronic workstations, personal computers, and to the global information superhighway---the Internet. This paradigm shift in information and communications has yielded a remarkably rapid cultural and economic transformation in developed nations. In his Millenium Report to the United Nations General Assembly, the Secretary General describes the unparalleled growth of ICT:

“It took 38 years for radio to reach 50 million people, and 13 years for television. The same number of people adopted the Internet in just four years. There were 50 pages on the World Wide Web in 1993; today there are more than 50 million. A mere 143 million people logged on to the Internet in 1998; by 2001 the number of users will climb to 700 million. The market for e-commerce was $2.6 billion in 1996; it is expected to grow to $300 billion by 2002. And the Internet already has a far wider range of applications than any previous tool of communication ever invented.” Kofi Annan

The communication of information is the principal driver of the development process, and ICT has the potential to replicate the growth of rural economies similar to the growth rate that developed nations have recently experienced. But in order to achieve this growth as a consequence of the information revolution and truly alleviate poverty through the instruments of the marketplace, donors and beneficiaries alike will experience nothing short of a cultural revolution. ICT creates the capacity to transform social relations. Communications become dynamic and interactive, empowering beneficiaries to partner in the development process from conceptualization to implementation. Information flows are more equitable, allowing beneficiaries the ability to access diverse, critical perspectives and to contribute new, relevant information to affect both the process and outcomes of development.

ICT presents in and of itself a structural adjustment with a communications paradigm shift from the concept of one-to-many to the concept of many-to-many, horizontal versus top-down, creating the possibility of information and knowledge collaborations by and for affected communities. This paradigm shift will rebalance the relationship between donors and beneficiaries. In a report to the Rockefeller Foundation entitled “Communication for Social Change: A Position Paper and Conference Report”, Denise Gray-Felder and James Deane describe the paradigm shift in the rural development process that occurs with the application of ICT:

“[ICT] attempts to rebalance strategic approaches to communication and change taking the overriding emphasis…

• Away from people as the objects for change…and on to people and communities as the agents of their own change;
  
• Away from designing, testing, and delivering messages…and on to supporting dialogue and debate on key issues of concern;
  
• Away from the conveying of information from technical experts…on to sensitively placing that information into the dialogue and debate;
  
• Away from the focus on individual behaviors…and on to the social norms, policies, culture, and a supportive environment;
  
• Away from persuading people to do something…and on to negotiating the best way forward in a partnership process;
  
• Away from technical experts in ‘outside’ agencies dominating and guiding the process…and on to the people most affected by the issues of concern playing a central role.
  

(Grey-Felder/Deane 1999)

It is perceived by developing countries, however, that this paradigm shift has been at the expense of those who are disenfranchised from information resources due to the numerous barriers---political, technological, educational, and financial---to ICT development. But the most significant barrier is cultural. The adoption of science-based innovations and technologies by local people is often stifled by perceived incompatibility with traditional value systems and cultural practices, requiring a delicate balance between asserting the western empiricism embedded in information technology and strengthening the capacity for the diverse traditional knowledge of local people. (Brodnig 2000) The dialectic tension between these two epistemologies needs to be continually monitored, addressed, and resolved to prevent ICT for rural development from being plagued by the cultural disparities that have resulted in the failure of previous technology development initiatives.

It is only in the recent past that decision-makers and members of the political scientific communities have “discovered” that indigenous people are experts in many fields, including environmental management, agriculture, and medicine. This discovery is reinforced by Chapter 26 of Agenda 21, which calls for the “recognition of [indigenous peoples’] values, traditional knowledge, and resource management practices with a view to promoting environmentally sound and sustainable development.” (Quarrie 1992) Yet the complexity of political, social, economic, and environmental impacts on developing countries as a consequence of globalization render traditional knowledge insufficient to cope with the complexity required for analysis and problem solving. Scientific inquiry embedded in an experiential, participatory process can provide the integration of technology resources with traditional knowledge. But potentially negative patterns cultural convergence, which may manifest itself in the disruption of cultural practices along intergenerational lines, must be adequately safeguarded lest freedom of information degenerate into a digital anarchy.

A humanitarian information and telecommunications infrastructure for rural development strategically managed by and in partnership with non-governmental agencies and faith-based organizations can provide the technical capacity and the requisite social structure to safeguard against the cultural disruption of traditional practices inherent in ICT for rural development.