ICTs and leapfrogging development

Criticism of a criticism of UN-GAID

I came across an article today which was included in the UN ICT Task Force newsfeed. It's a commentary written by Nalaka Gunawardene on the SciDev.Net web about the new UN Global Alliance for ICT and Development (UN-GAID). Gunawardene is very critical of this new collaborative effort while he acknowledges the need to "link up the thousands of communications technology initiatives littered across the developing world". Gunawardene goes on to criticize the emphasis on computer-based communication technologies claiming that better established technologies, such as radio, television and mobile telephony, should receive more attention.

First of all, I think Gunawardene is wrong about the purpose of UN-GAID. I have not come across any literature related to the UN-GAID that suggests that the alliance will, or should, "link up [...] initiatives littered across the developing world". The UN-GAID is intended to function as a multi-stakeholder platform, i.e. bringing together the different players involved in development and the different aspects of the rapidly changing global economy. The question of linking the many existing initiatives may be a valid one (even though I can also think of arguments for a broad range of approaches), but it is certainly not one that the UN-GAID is specifically intended to address.

Gunawardene suggests that for many developing regions the jump to computer-based communication technologies is pre-mature. He therefore calls for "a broader strategy to gradually integrate ICTs into our societies". Gunawardene's representation of the issues involved ignores the forces that the ICT4D agenda aims to address. The goal is not to bring developing countries up to par "sooner or later", it is to adapt the development agenda to the increasingly rapid changes that impact the lives of everyone on a global basis. If we are to adopt a "gradual integration" approach, developing countries are likely to fall further and further behind as technological and related developments continue to speed up. We are rapidly doing away with the need for prohibitively expensive infrastructures to facilitate the adoption of computer-based communication technologies. So, why should we wait to implement them?

Lastly, Gunawardene does not seem to realize that there is a fundamental difference between the impact of mass broadcast-based communication technologies, such as radio and television, and computer-based communication technologies. While mass communication technologies can facilitate the dissemination of information, since it is a one-way, few-to-many communication technology, it is easily controlled and the audience is given little choice in what information it receives. Computer-based technologies, on the other hand, are controlled by the individual and are multi-directional, i.e. the individual can access information and can pass on information. That sort of empowerment on an individual basis is not realistic with mass communication technologies.

I'm certainly not suggesting that the UN-GAID is above criticism, but I think Gunawardene's criticisms mostly miss the point, and hence miss their mark.