Implementing ICT4D: ICTs for Development

Editor's Notes

• #2 Aim – to explain how best to put ICT4D into practice   Objectives – participants will be able to: Explain the steps of ICT4D strategy Describe good practice in ICT4D implementation Utilise the design–reality gap model in ICT4D implementation Identify key determinants of ICT4D adoption and use Summarise key ICT4D evaluation frameworks and issues
• #3 Last session introduced the ICT4D value chain and looked at boxes on left half of the model: the component foundations that make up ICT4D. This session switches from boxes to arrows: the processes that make up ICT4D: strategy, design/implementation, adoption/use, evaluation of impact.
• #4 3.1. ICT4D strategy Overview as three questions: Where are we now: what is the current status of ICT4D? Where do we want to get to: what should be the future of ICT4D? How do we get there: what actions should be taken to transform the current situation into the future one?
• #5 Understand ICT4D strategy as a series of steps: 1. Create ICT4D planning structures/roles: set up a strategy group to oversee the process.   2a. Audit current ICT4D: “Where are we now?”: available data and information (I); data flows, interactions and transactions (C); technologies are available and used (T); general state of socio-economic development (D). 2b. Get guidance from wider strategy: “Where do we want to get to?”: align ICT4D with wider strategy – development goals of community or organisation or government or donors.   3. Set ICT4D objectives and principles: what change is ICT4D intended to deliver and what principles will it follow when it does that?   4a. Determine ICT4D technical architecture: ICT4D strategy can be seen as needing to lay out the ITPOSMO dimensions for the future. Then proceed to slides 5 and 6 before returning via slide 5 … Later: 5. Disseminate and plan ICT4D actions: disseminate defined ICT4D strategy statement and break into detailed implementation plans.   6. Manage, evolve and review ICT4D strategy: cyclical approach, so monitor implementation: performance against objectives; unintended benefits and problems; resource usage; contextual changes. May lead to incremental or more major changes to the strategy; the latter leading full cycle to repeat. EXERCISE Analyse content of CRS (2010) source (see Box 3.2). Then move to slide 7.
• #6 Reminder of ITPOSMO dimensions, and division into two architectures. Later: 4b. Determine ICT4D social architecture: final four dimensions (OSMO) covering management of change, management systems, methodologies for ICT4D development, training, financing approaches. Then return to slide 4.
• #7 Use Chapter 3 explanation of data model, process model, ICT model, data flow model, data management model. Then return to slide 5.
• #8 3.2. ICT4D Design and implementation ASK What would you conclude from this slide? >There’s a lot of ICT4D failure around. >Not unique to ICT4D but wasteful. >Try to avoid this: see Figure 3.4 in textbook – ICT4D Project Implementation Principles aiming to avoid failure and increase success rates.
• #9 ICT4D Project Implementation Principles draw particularly from Principles for Digital Development. DISCUSSION Look through the Principles for Digital Development (http://digitalprinciples.org/). Select the one principle that you feel is most important. Why is that the most important? >No right or wrong answer here, but discuss and reflect. >Also see link to design–reality gap model (see slide 5 for reminder): there is always a gap between the design of an ICT4D system and the reality into which it is introduced. The larger that gap, the greater the risk that the ICT4D project will fail. >For example, “Design with the User” principle ensures designers understand user realities, so design is closer to those realities, creating a small gap.
• #10 Key task of ICT4D project managers is to: evaluate design–reality gap size; identify large gaps; and reduce them by changing design or changing reality. EXERCISE Use a design–reality gap case study analysis (e.g. www.egov4dev.org/success/case/) and make recommendations for action to reduce size of design–reality gaps.
• #11 3.3. ICT4D adoption and use 3.3.1. Foundational models of ICT4D adoption and use Strategy, design and implementation are not enough – need to ensure users adopt and use ICT4D systems. They ask ICT4D prime question – “What’s in it for me?” – so focus on motivations, incentives and ensure fit of both social and technical design.
• #12 3.3.3. Diffusion of innovations theory First, the social part: two curves from Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations theory: bell curve: staggered nature of adoption over time by different types from innovators to laggards. S-curve: cumulative adoption over time – slow at first, then rapid take-off, then plateau. Understand both different ICT4D users and points in adoption cycle.
• #13 Second, the technical part and five attributes of any technical innovation. Use description of five attributes in Section 3.3.3. EXERCISE Compare two different ICT4D systems, e.g. feature phone vs. tablet, in terms of the five attributes. Discuss whether one emerges as clearly better, or whether each has a role to play in ICT4D.
• #14 3.4. ICT4D monitoring and evaluation 3.4.1. An overview of ICT4D evaluation Key foundational questions when planning ICT4D evaluation: Why doing this – to find out what has been achieved, or to predict what might happen in the future – to be held to account for expenditure? Who doing this for – who exactly is the audience?
• #15 Changing focus for ICT4D evaluation over time: 1990s: are countries ready for ICT4D? Turn of century: is ICT available in developing countries? 2000s: how much are ICTs being adopted and used in developing countries? 2010s: what development impact are ICTs having?
• #16 3.4.2. Different approaches to ICT4D evaluation Growing complexity of ICT4D evaluation: more goals, more actors, more methods including triangulation of evidence. EXERCISE Select an ICT4D case study (e.g. one from Box 3.7): what would the main goals of the different main actors have been?
• #17 3.4.3. Perspectives on ICT4D evaluation results Perception vs. reality Respondent perception may not match reality and/or there may be a reporting bias.   Whose evaluation? Alternative approach of evaluation owned, designed, driven by beneficiaries.   Unintended outcomes See Figure 3.10 allowance for “other impacts”, not just focusing on initial goals.   Negative outcomes Incorporate “digital harm”: computer crime, pornography, gambling, threats to privacy and security and freedom of expression, etc.   Attribution What causes observed ICT4D outcomes: the technology, parallel social changes, some combination?
• #18 Summary of different views on ICT4D impacts and their attribution (see discussion in Section 3.4.3). DISCUSSION Where do your views fit into the diagram? Are there right and wrong perspectives?