The Information and Communications for Development series looks in depth at how information and communications technologies are affecting economic growth in developing countries. This new report, the fourth in the series, examines the topic of data-driven development, or how better information makes for better policies. The objective is to assist developing-country firms and governments in unlocking the value of the data they hold for better service delivery and decision making and to empower individuals to take more control of their personal data. We are undoubtedly experiencing a data revolution in which our ability to generate, process, and utilize information has been magnified many times over by the machines that we increasingly rely upon. This report is about how the data revolution is changing the behavior of governments, individuals, and firms and how these changes affect the nature of development: economic, social, and cultural. How can governments extract value from data to improve service delivery in the same way that private companies have learned to do for profit? Is it feasible for individuals to take ownership of their own data and to use it to improve their livelihoods and quality of life? Can developing-country firms compete with the internet majors on their own turf and be even more innovative in their use of data to serve local customers better? Though the report is aimed primarily at government policy makers, it also has great relevance for individuals concerned about how their personal data is used and how the data revolution might affect their future job prospects. For private sector firms, particularly those in developing countries, the report suggests how they might expand their markets and improve their competitive edge. For development professionals, the report provides guidance on how they might use data more creatively to tackle long-standing global challenges, such as eliminating extreme poverty, promoting shared prosperity, or mitigating the effects of climate change. The report’s chapters explore different themes associated with the supply of data, the technology underlying it, and the demand for it. An overview chapter focuses on government use of data and presentation of definitions. Part I of the report then looks at the “supply side†? of the data sector, with chapters on data connectivity and capacity (where data comes from, how it is stored, and where it goes) and data technology (specifically big data analytics and artificial intelligence) and how this is contributing to development. Part II looks at the sector’s “demand side,†? with a chapter on people’s use of data and another that examines how firms use digital platforms in the data economy and how that contributes to competitiveness. Part III brings together the policy implications for developing-country stakeholders, with a chapter considering government policies for data, including data protection and privacy. A closing Data Notes appendix looks at statistical indicators associated with the use of data and presents the 2018 update of the Digital Adoption Index (DAI), a composite indicator introduced in the 2016 World Development Report: Digital Dividends.

Mobile phones are close to ubiquitous in developing countries; Internet and broadband access are becoming commonplace. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) thus represent the fastest, broadest and deepest technical change experienced in international development. They now affect every development sector – supporting the work of hundreds of millions of farmers and micro-entrepreneurs; creating millions of ICT-based jobs; assisting healthcare workers and teachers; facilitating political change; impacting climate change; but also linked with digital inequalities and harms – with the pace of change continuously accelerating. Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D) provides the first dedicated textbook to examine and explain these emerging phenomena. It will help students, practitioners, researchers and other readers understand the place of ICTs within development; the ICT-enabled changes already underway; and the key issues and interventions that engage ICT4D practice and strategy. The book has a three-part structure. The first three chapters set out the foundations of ICT4D: the core relation between ICTs and development; the underlying components needed for ICT4D to work; and best practice in implementing ICT4D. Five chapters then analyse key development goals: economic growth, poverty eradication, social development, good governance and environmental sustainability. Each chapter assesses the goal-related impact associated with ICTs and key lessons from real-world cases. The final chapter looks ahead to emerging technologies and emerging models of ICT-enabled development. The book uses extensive in-text diagrams, tables and boxed examples with chapter-end discussion and assignment questions and further reading. Supported by online activities, video links, session outlines and slides, this textbook provides the basis for undergraduate, postgraduate and online learning modules on ICT4D.

Assessing what has worked, what hasn't, and why, this triennial report is an invaluable guide for understanding how to capture the benefits of information and communication technology around the world. This year's report focuses on mobile applications.

In recent decades, the world has witnessed, unprecedented in terms of speed and geographic coverage, diffusion of new information and communication technologies (ICT). The on-going digital revolution pervasively impacts and reshapes societies and economies and therefore deserves special attention and interest. This book provides extensive evidence on information and communication technologies development patterns and dynamics of this process across developed economies over the period 1980 to the present day. It adopts newly developed methodology to identification of the ‘critical mass’ and isolation of technological takeoff intervals, which are intimately related to the process of technology diffusion. The statistically robust analysis of country-specific data demonstrates the key economic, social and institutional prerequisites of ICT diffusion across examined countries, indicating what factors significantly foster or – reversely – hinder the process.

International development stakeholders harness communication with two broad purposes: to do good, via communication for development and media assistance, and to communicate do-gooding, via public relations and information. This book unpacks various ways in which different efforts to do good are combined with attempts to look good, be it in the eyes of donor constituencies at large, or among more specific audiences, such as journalists or intra-agency decision-makers. Development communication studies have tended to focus primarily on interventions aimed at doing good among recipients, at the expense of examining the extent to which promotion and reputation management are elements of those practices. This book establishes the importance of interrogating the tensions generated by overlapping uses of communication to do good and to look good within international development cooperation. The book is a critical text for students and scholars in the areas of development communication and international development and will also appeal to practitioners working in international aid who are directly affected by the challenges of communicating for and about development.

At the start of the 21st century, the relationship between media and development has never felt more important. Following a series of ‘media revolutions’ throughout the developing world – beginning with the advent of cheap transistor radio sets in the late-1960s, followed by the rapid expansion of satellite television networks in the 1990s, and the more recent explosion of mobile telephony, social media and the internet – a majority of people living in the Global South now have access to a wide variety of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs), and live in media saturated environments. Yet how can radio, television and mobile phones be most effectively harnessed towards the goals of purposive economic, social, and political change? Should they be seen as primarily a provider of channels through which ‘useful information’ can be delivered to target populations – in the hope that such information will alter those populations’ existing behaviours? Or should they be seen as a tool for facilitating ‘two-way communication’ between development providers and their recipients (i.e. as technologies for improving ‘participatory development’)? Or should new media environments be approached simply as sites in which people living in the developing world can define ‘development’ on their own terms? This timely and original book – which is based on a critical reading of the relevant literatures, and on the author’s own extensive primary research – introduces readers to all of these questions, and helps them to reach their own informed positions on each. It also examines the history of, and current debates regarding, media representations of development. Drawing on case studies from all over the world – including: ‘hate radio’ in Rwanda; theatre for development in India; telenovelas in Latin America; mobile banking and money in Africa, and; GIS and humanitarianism in Haiti – it will be of interest to all undergraduate and postgraduate students of media and development; international development professionals, and; simply to anyone with an interest in how media does, can, or should, change the world.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 14th IFIP WG 9.4 International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, ICT4D 2017, held in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, in May 2017. The 60 revised full papers and 8 short papers presented together with 3 keynotes were carefully reviewed and selected from 118 submissions. The papers are organized in the following topical sections: large scale and complex information systems for development; women empowerment and gender justice; social mechanisms of ICT-enabled development; the data revolution and sustainable development goals; critical perspectives on ICT and open innovation for development; the contribution of practice theories to ICT for development; agile development; indigenous local community grounded ICT developments; global sourcing and development; sustainability in ICT4D; and information systems development and implementation in Southeast Asia. Also included are a graduate student track, current issues and notes. The chapter ‘An Analysis of Accountability Concepts for Open Development’ is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license via link.springer.com.

Can information and communication technologies (ICTs) help to alleviate poverty in low-income countries? The paper investigates this question, focusing particularly on the role of ICTs in assisting the development of small and micro-enterprises. The investigation is based on a systemic understanding of both technology and enterprise. This suggests that ICTs will play a role mainly as a communication technology rather than as an information processing or production technology. Serious inequalities exist that constrain the use of ICT-based information by poor entrepreneurs. Information and communication technologies may therefore have a greater role to play in giving 'voice' to the poor; that is, in making the poor information providers more than information recipients. However, effective application must first overcome the 'ICT fetish' that dominates much development thinking at present, and which creates a series of identified opportunity costs. The paper concludes with a set of development priorities for information and for ICT use in poverty alleviation.

This book volume contains 31 papers presented at ICICT 2016: Second International Congress on Information and Communication Technology. The conference was held during 12-13 December 2016, Bangkok, Thailand and organized communally by G R Foundation, and Computer Society of India Division IV – Communication and Division V – Education and Research. This volume contains papers mainly focused on ICT for computation, algorithms and data analytics, and IT security.