Thanks to Sam Lanfranco for a refreshing perspective. I agree with much of
what Sam says regarding the reasons for the ICT & poverty reduction
research/evidence vacuum.

I would like to add an additional point, and draw on the insights of Tom
Wolfe on the social context of self promotion. In looking at the art
world of New York in the 70's, in his book "The Painted Word", Wolfe
realized that the *writing* about art had overtaken art... "without a
theory to go with it, I can't see the painting". 

At the risk of biting the hand that feeds... How about, "without a donor
commissioning a written piece on its ICT initiative, I can't see the ICT
initiative". 

Wolfe helped us understand that people can make something interesting
happen, but if no one writes about that interesting happening, it will not
attract attention, and it will certainly not attract additional support or
money. The written word is the key to the flow of money, social status,
recognition, etc... 

There is so much in the world of ICT & poverty reduction that is hardly
written about. If a donor does not fund an initiative, it is very unlikely
to receive written attention - or research attention. The lack of research
attention means that we know so little about which development
interventions might yield the most significant poverty reduction results.

What gets little written or research attention? Many ICT initiatives
from national NGOs that barely reach the donor radar screen. Many of
the ICT initiatives that are in the realm of the private sector, yet
yield positive impacts on poverty reduction, receive so little attention
- especially research attention - because no donor is involved. Some
examples of what we do not read very much about, and for which impact
assessment research is sorely lacking:

- the impact of voice telephony on rural livelihoods and poverty
reduction The telephone is such a "boring" ICT compared to computer and
Internet-based tools.

- the poverty reduction impact of basic email access through services
such Hotmail, Yahoo!, etc. Likely more impact here than all donor ICT
projects combined.

- the poverty reduction impact of "knowledge management" services
provided freely through Yahoo! Groups and related commercial services.
For example, there are well over 1,000 agriculture/farm oriented
discussion groups on Yahoo - a large number of which have been initiated
by people in Asia, Latin America, the Pacific, using local languages and
fonts. Anyone can start a discussion group in a few minutes, for free
(try that with Dgroups). Just two examples - the Centre for Information
on Coconut Lethal Yellowing (CICLY)
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CICLY/> - a clearing house for
information about lethal yellowing and similar diseases of coconuts and
other palms - generates messages from across the globe; litkaji
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/litkaji/> a group from Indonesia with 142
members (generating 134 messages so far this month) focused on
communication about agricultural research - all in Bahasa.

- thousands of indigenous web information services and portals developed
independent of donor funding, but which have poverty reduction impacts.
Pakissan.com a private sector web portal for the agricultural sector of
Pakistan is but one example - and, like so many others, Pakissan goes
unnoticed by the Development Gateway.

- hundreds of indigenous ISPs operated by local entrepreneurs in
developing countries.

- thousands of individual websites enabled by services like GeoCities,
indigenous ISPs

- thousands of small scale entrepreneurs who re-sell phone services,

- thousands of small scale entrepreneurs who start up telecentres (and
who often have to compete with the donor versions),

- dozens of private sector telecom operators who develop very creative
business approaches to serving rural and remote areas to generate
additional profit

- the people who slog away on telecom policy and regulatory reform in
their countries and whose written words can make such dramatic
improvements in telecom investments, rural & remote telecom coverage,
etc.

- bootstrap telecom equipment manufacturers in developing countries who
design and adapt equipment to meet the price sensitive, geographic,
regulatory, and consumer characteristics unique to their contexts

- add your example here...

A question - what can/should donors do to leverage the ICT and poverty
reduction impacts of initiatives through which they cannot take full or
direct credit such as the ones described above?

Positive examples are donors and multi-lateral financial institutions
(e.g. World Bank, CIDA, ITU, DFID) that sponsor important work on
telecom policy and regulatory reform - the results of which help provide
the fertile ground for many of the above initiatives. The results of
their efforts do not provide for immediately sexy stories or photo
opportunities, but the impacts can be huge.

Another question - how can we stimulate more research into the above
examples, regardless of whether a donor was directly involved or not????
Without such research, how can we make effective judgements on ICT and
poverty reduction investments?

A while back I was able to convince the late Tony Zeitoun of CIDA to
fund a case study assessment work on Grameen Telecom's VillagePhone
initiative - see <www.telecommons.com/villagephone/index.html>. Tony took
a chance - CIDA had absolutely zero involvement with the initiative, but
saw an opportunity to learn. At that point in time, Grameen Telecom was
not receiving any donor funding - it was a creative joint venture
between Telenor of Norway and the Grameen Bank. No donors were writing
about Grameen Telecom. The case study that Tony supported is today one
of the more highly cited research pieces on ICT and poverty reduction -
and one of the few that attempts to probe that impact in detail. Tony
deserves full credit for stepping outside the bounds of what his
organization funds. We need to see more of this.

Don Richardson
Director
TeleCommons Development Group
Stantec Consulting
361 Southgate Drive
Guelph, Ontario
N1G 3M5
Canada
Tel: 519-836-6050; Fax: 519-836-2493
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web: www.telecommons.com or www.stantec.com



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