Paradise Lost? Reinstating the Human DevelopmentAgenda in ICT Policies and Strategies

View From Practice

Almost a year ago, the world’s attention was unquestionably focused on the high-leveldelegations marching into the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva.In the wake of its furor were a multitude of delegations debating, deliberating, and ferventlyhoping to shape the future of the information society of tomorrow. Within these demandsand statements, critical questions of how Information and Communications Technology(ICT) is actually able to address global, regional, and national human development issueshave begun to come to the forefront of debates taking place around the world. WSIS in Tunislater this year will surely see much of these issues coming back to the forefront, yet again.

The debate essentially lies in two primary conjectures. On one side, the critics expoundon how ICT is not essential in the context of development and is thus dispensable in the fightagainst world poverty. It is also put forth that a positive relationship between ICT and humandevelopment is either weak or absent. The proponents of ICT, however, strongly believe thatICT has the capability to provide developing nations with an unprecedented opportunity tomeet vital development goals and thus empower them to “leapfrog” several stages of theirdevelopment far more effectively than before. It is argued that those nations that succeedin harnessing the potential of ICT can look forward to greatly expanded economic growth,dramatically improved human welfare, and stronger forms of democratic governance, thusplaying a specific role in furthering and enhancing sustainable development. Even theprotagonists of ICT for development, however, argue that growth of ICT should not becomea “techno-quick-fix” for solving development problems, as these may be unacceptabletradeoffs in less developed countries.

It is within this contested notion of the role of ICT and development that UNDP-APDIP1

together with the UNDP-APRI2 set out to examine the highly pertinent questions on therelation of human development and ICT while attempting to reinstate human developmentat the heart of ICT deployment and initiatives. This initiative has led to the developmentof a Human Development Report entitled Realizing the Millennium Development Goals:Promoting ICT for Human Development in Asia.3

In order to systematically assess the role and impact of ICTs on human development, theclear targets of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were used asbenchmark for human development. The MDGs include:

1Asia Pacific Development Information Programme2Asia Pacific Regional Human Development Reports Initiative3http://www.apdip.net/projects/rhdr/

Information Technology for Development, Vol. 11 (1) 97–99 (2005) C© 2005Wiley Periodicals, Inc.Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/itdj.20005

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• eradication of poverty• universal primary education• gender equality and empowerment of women• reduction of child mortality• improvement of maternal health• fight against major diseases such as HIV/AIDS and malaria• promotion of a sustainable environment• development of a global partnership for development

The report, based on research conducted in nine countries in Asia (China, India, Indonesia,Malaysia, Mongolia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam),4 reveals that if wiselydeployed, technological applications and innovations in the ICT sector can affect humandevelopment in several ways.

ICT as a Sector of Economic Activity. An obvious impact of ICT is its contributionas an industry to the overall economic growth of a nation. The ICT sector and industry havewitnessed unprecedented growth in the past decade. Global spending on information andcommunications technology was expected to grow from US$2.1 trillion in 1999 to US$3trillion in by 2003.

ICT as an Enabler for Enhancing Human Productivity. The pervasive potentialimpact of ICT emerges from being used as control technology, leading to innovationsin products and processes in the manufacturing sectors and resource extraction industries.ICTs have become indispensable ingredients in all forms and processes of economic activityranging from stock inventories, product and service information, marketing, manufacturing,and design. Quantitative assessment of the impact of ICT becomes difficult, as it is soembedded and integrated in all industrial and services sectors. ICT directly influences humandevelopment through access to information, knowledge and enlarging choices: The long-term impact of ICT lies in its ability to directly expand human choices through increasedaccess to information and knowledge. ICT breaks barriers to human development in at leastthree ways not possible before or with other forms of technology:

• Breaking Barriers to Human Knowledge. The Internet and other ICT tools are in-creasingly becoming key delivery mechanisms for sections of the population thatdid not have access to educational infrastructure and content. ICTs are also beingactively used in promoting life-long learning and continued education, reintegratingunemployed people into the workforce through re-education and retooling of skills.

• Breaking Barriers to Participation. Internet and ICT based news and informationgroups have contributed to the creation of a far more vibrant public sphere. In manyparts of Asia, where the mass media have been and continue to be strictly controlledby governments, the Internet has offered a new medium of political mobilization andparticipation.

• Breaking Barriers to Economic Opportunity. Since the ICT sector requires less ini-tial investment than the more traditional sectors of industrial activity, it lowers thebarriers to entry into the economy for people who could never break into the indus-trial sector; for example, compare the cost of setting up a steel plant with setting up

4The countries were chosen from the UNDP Technology Achievement Index, including leaders, potentialleaders, dynamic adopters, and marginalized countries, Human Development Report 2001.

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desktop publishing. ICT provides new and unprecedented opportunities to people whohave proficiency in handling ICT tools and have an idea or service to sell. This wasundoubtedly one of the underlying forces of the dot.com boom.

The analysis of ICT policies and e-strategies in place within the countries studied clearlyindicate that with regards to specific areas of human development, strategic deployment ofICTs can help in advancing human development by alleviating poverty, enhancing educationand improving healthcare.

However, it must be stressed that a simple and technologically deterministic vision ofICTs and their impact on human development must be avoided as there lie many challengesand obstacles compounded and reflected by the ever-growing digital divide. Towards thisend, the state, NGOs, and the private sector have complementary roles to promote andachieve the Millennium Development Goals. What must be noted is that in spite of thelimitations of ICT, digital divide and the experimental nature of many of the applicationsfor human development, the way forward is to support the growth and spread of ICT,constantly steering it in the direction of human development applications and ensuring thetrue purpose of ICT utilization for the betterment of society is not lost.

The Executive Summary and Technical Report of the Regional Human DevelopmentReport on Promoting ICT for Human Development in Asia 2004: Realizing the MillenniumDevelopment Goals are available at http://www.apdip.net/projects/rhdr/

The Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme (APDIP) is an initiative of theUnited Nations Development Programme (UNDP) that aims to promote the developmentand application of new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for povertyalleviation and sustainable human development in the Asia-Pacific region.

UNDP’s Asia-Pacific Regional Human Development Reports Initiative (APRI) was ini-tiated to bring the concept of human development into regional development strategies andpolicies, and improve capacities in cross-country human development analysis.

James George ChackoProgramme Specialist

UNDP Asia Pacific Development Information ProgrammeE-mail: james@apdip.net

James George Chacko is the Programme Specialist at United Nations Development Programme’sAsia-Pacific Development Information Programme. His work includes developing strategies forAPDIP’s equal access program, and he focuses on ICT and Millennium Development Goals, re-gional ICT policies and e-strategies, e-government and e-governance, learning and literacy, and ICTand SMEs. He is a recipient of several awards including the British Chevening scholarship and theLiam Holden Memorial prize.