Dear Colleagues, Sustainabiliy is a very critical issue for any ICT for Development project with the focus on rural areas. Still we didn't find any single project which can claim itself as Sustainable in terms of being financially viable and serving the local rural communities anywhere in the world. And again, the Profitablity is another major issue that needs to be addressed. Do all social initiatives need to be financially viable? Is it something of a purely business nature? Why are the organizations rushing for financial sustainability in the case of rural ICT projects? It also must have some donor driven ideology to make the development initiatives Commercially viable, which is not possible in a realistic approach.
Experience of different successful Rural ICT initiatives categorically shows that the social benefits of the rural ICT project is much more valuable than financial viability. These projects are aimed towards EMPOWERMENT of rural communities which can not be done through a commercial venture. So, can we put the idea aside to make all rural ICT for Development projects commercially viable? Best, Shahid Uddin Akbar ICT Consultant SwissContact / KATALYST BANGLADESH ------------ 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>
