Dear Michael, I am well aware of the claimed "global" impact of ICT on overall capital-productivity, i.e. that improved supply- and distribution chain-management reduced the amount of capital bound to goods in store, that improved decision making reduced time-to-market, that standardizing procedures in all types of financial services improved the ratio of employees per client etc.
In general that ICT reduced, sometimes dramatically, turn-around-time of invested capital with likewise dramatic increases in profits. But I'm also aware of hundreds if not thousands of dot-com business-models that simply burned billions of dollars, and that looking backwards had no sound economic base right from the very beginning. In "Development Policies" ICT & MISME (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises) combine two trendy models: the MISME as driving engine for economic development and ICT as "enabling" if not "empowering" technology. MISME as development-engine parted from the statistically correct observation that in many, many developing countries 40% and more of "employment" is provided by micro- and small-businesses with between 3 and 15 employees. More over, that MISME acted as an absorbing buffer when due to the impact of structural adjustment policies hundreds of thousands of persons lost their jobs in public administration, formerly public owned utilities or closed industrial plants. Not to talk about MISME as a segment fed by rural-to-city migration. Balancing money invested against jobs created, agencies found out that 1000 US$ channeled to micro- and small enterprises created -at least apparently- more jobs than the same 1000 US$ channeled to industrial or big infrastructure projects. With falling prices for equipment -not to talk about re-cycled equipment from "developed countries"- and improved communication-infrastructure, ICT starts to appear as a possible "short-cut" to leverage even more the very large informal sector in developing countries. Again there appear to be "sub-trends": the first focuses on the role of the middle-man and claims that by improving information-flows small producers in remote areas may obtain "fairer" prices and small consumers in remote areas may pay "fairer" prices. It should be noted however that already as a model this trend does not tackle productivity but rather distribution-problems (who earns the greater share). The second trend claims that ICT improves dramatically access-to-market opportunities. Despite that arts & crafts manufacturing represents only a tiny fraction of the whole informal sector, there are literally hundreds of projects that claim that they either already improved market-access dramatically or that they will improve it. So my question still is: is there any hard evidence that in a replicatable and scaleable way ICT for arts & crafts has improved the economic situation and impact of this segment or, more generally, is there any hard evidence that ICT for arts & crafts is the most efficient and effective way of using funds for global poverty-reduction. I like to note, that about 80% of projects I've seen concentrate on market-access, more precisely on improved marketing. Very, very few tackle the management as such of supply, production and distribution. As an example, I searched in vain for software packages to support cooperatives, i.e. that would ease bundled purchases of supplies and tools, manage the internal distribution of those supplies and tools, and improve recollection of produced goods for bundled sales or exports; where this would be precisely the counterpart to supply-, distribution- and production-management in developed countries. 99% of the offered "solutions" are for the individual usage by the individual micro- or small entrepeneur. In my humble opinion many "will-be-a-big-success" stories read as if they were dot-com-era "business"-models. If as economy you have excess-money to spend, "burning" some billions might not hurt much nor many unless those who saw their retirement-funds vanishing, if however your whole economy is on the brink -as in many developing countries- "burning" money easily may drive you over the edge. Yours Cornelio ------------ ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, a Non-Profit Organization*** 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/>
