Dear Colleagues, Whether profit is essential on not for successful ICT for Development activities depends on the nature and over all mission of the activity under question. Profits are certainly necessary for financial sustainability.
As far as I know, however, the "profit" is not the problem/issue at all -- the issue should be probably what is the price mark-up on the ICT for Development activities -- which activities/services are charged for profit? We may recall that one of the reasons why rural communities can not use ICT to improve livelihood is cost and availability of ICT resources. It's not an either or situation; once ICT tools are made available (e.g., Telecenters) they should be affordable. You also notice that affordability is relative to community economics. On the other hand, it's OK for an ICT for Devlopment initiative to seek profits to ensure that services are available the next day. Detailed planning would have to be made to decide upon which services to charge for and which will be essential for fostering development - where profit-motivated charges could kill interest for the service. A strategy that I have found useful is to identify a few core services that businesses would charge less for (e.g., cost recovery fees) for their community development impact, and leave others on a full cost basis to support sustainability. This would ensure that poor people are not neglected for services in pursuit of profits. The rush for profit (in the extreme) is an engine for promoting the digital divide and growing the gap between the rich and poor. I understand it is the bedrock of the growth of civil society organisations to balance up effects of private sector led development around the world. There is also such a thing as cost-recovery which can be applied to critical services selectively. Regards, Meddie Mayanja ------------ This DOT-COM Discussion is funded by USAID's dot-ORG Cooperative Agreement with AED, in partnership with World Resources Institute's Digital Dividend Project, and hosted by GKD. http://www.dot-com-alliance.org and http://www.digitaldividend.org provide more information. 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.dot-com-alliance.org/archive.html>
