Dear GKD Members, I accepted to do an e-Readiness evaluation of Nicaragua based on the Harvard Evaluation-guide (which by the way is the almost the same as the Worldbank and the GDG-Foundation use).
The more I get into it, the more I feel that this approach does not fit to the specific situation of developing (hopefully) countries. Reason: the guide concentrates only of available infrastructure & it's usage producing the indirect impression the higher the scores, the more effectively (and appropriate) you are using ICT. As it concentrates only on supply and usage of ICT leaving out basic economic and social data, the final results are simply incorrect. Reason: ICT costs at least the same -if not more- in developing countries compared to the OECD-states. However the cost-structure of everything else -except maybe electric energy- is completely different: food normally is cheaper, housing -lower quality accepted- is cheaper, salaries are lower etc. Therefore the costs of opportunity (both in terms of pure money and in terms of effectiveness) of ICT compared with almost everything else are completely different. Rational local decision-making has to be based on these local cost-of-opportunity structure and not on what might be it's counterpart in OECD countries. However the above mentioned guide leaves just 0 space for this type of consideration. (Striking examples: if the Internet-connection-costs of a Computer-lab for a secondary school are equivalent to the whole budget for all teachers of that school, then it's simply nonsense to fire the teachers to set up the lab: the gain in efficiency and effectiveness would be extremely negative. Or: a complete toolset to produce high-quality handicraft furniture costs more or less the same as a fully equipped computer. Buying that toolset will have by far more impact on the economics of the workshop than buying a computer). Anyone else with similar experiences ? Yours, Cornelio ------------ ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, an NGO that is a GKP member*** To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: <http://www.edc.org/GLG/gkd/>
