ICTs: Enabling innovation for enhancing rural livelihoods

December 3-7, 2012 will see India host an international conference on ways to that information and communication technologies are enhancing rural livelihoods.

Further details on the event website

Using ICTs to support Rural Livelihoods

Materials from a recent World Bank staff workshop on ICT's role in fighting rural poverty are available on the InfoDev web site.

The focus was on ways that a broad range of ICTs can be used to promote sustainable rural livelihoods by improving agricultural incomes, enhancing the efficiency and transparency of key rural institutions, increasing information flows, strengthening access to finance and reducing vulnerabilities.

Some of the topics covered:

• Using ICT to Support Rural Livelihoods: What do we know?
• Critical Success Factors in Harnessing ICT in Agriculture & Rural Development Projects
• Using ICT to Support Rural Livelihoods: Extension, Market Information, Access to Finance, Access to Weather Information, Disaster Early Warning and Country Preparedness.

The report of the workshop synthesized the lessons and identified key issues still to be addressed, including:

1. More work is needed on clarifying the conceptual framework for understanding, designing and assessing the impact of ICT interventions to promote rural development and sustainable agriculture.
2. Better coordination/integration of various developmental interventions: Neither the Bank nor its client countries are fully successful in capturing the synergies among various interventions in the rural space (ICT, infrastructure, small business development, public sector reform).
3. Particularly at the project level, we need better tools to evaluate the impact of ICT interventions in ARD projects.
4. We need to understand better how a broad range of ICT can increase both the variety of and easy access to relevant content for rural populations (e.g. price information, weather information).
5. We need to help traditional actors in agriculture and rural development (including, for example, extension agents, cooperatives, etc.) gain a better understanding of how they can successfully navigate the changes brought by ICTs, and how to respond to any opportunities.
6. Two very promising retail models – rural kiosks and mobile-based systems – dominate the market. Which models – or combination of models – is suitable in particular contexts, and for particular services/clients?
7. What are good models for increasing the advocacy and voice of rural stakeholders in national policy on ICT issues, including issues of rural access?

Tags: agricultural information ICT rural development

How ICTs contribute to sustainable rural livelihoods

How have Information Communications Technology (ICT) contributed to sustainable livelihoods of the rural poor?

This question is posed by researchers at IDS and ODI as part of a project about ICTs and Rural Livelihoods funded by infoDev. The research project comprises six country scoping studies in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, a global literature review and interviews with interested international development agencies.

The starting point for the study is the growing recognition that poverty has multiple, interrelated causes and manifestations beyond the core phenomenon of "income poverty". This recognition of the complexity both of poverty and of poor people's response to their conditions has led to a focus on the livelihoods of the poor, the strategies and practices they develop to navigate both their poverty and the broader social, economic and environmental conditions that reinforce that poverty.

There is some degree of understandable scepticism about whether information and communication technologies are appropriate tools for addressing the needs and challenges of the poor, particularly the rural poor. A number of donors and other international organizations have done good work on these issues. There are also several Northern and Southern independent organizations that have studied innovation by and for the poor, including innovation in using a range of technologies to improve the livelihoods of the poor. Yet knowledge about this set of issues is widely dispersed and not easy for donors and other key actors to access in a manageable fashion and, more importantly, to apply in specific contexts.

There is a pressing need to provide a clearer map of what we know (and what we do not know) about these issues, along with a general framework for thinking about these issues, and concrete evidence from successes and failures in the field.

An expert meeting will be convened by ODI on March 23, 2007 to present and discuss the research findings so far help to chart the next steps of the project.

Read more information on the project at Livelihoods Connect - www.livelihoods.org/hot_topics/ICT4D.html

Tags: agricultural information ICT