This report is based on a conference on the applications of microcomputers in development sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in collaboration with a host country.

The growth of microcomputer applications in industrialized countries is predicated on an existing base that includes the ready availability of affordable hardware and software, trained personnel, capable maintenance, efficient communication systems, and a benign environment; applications are selected and facilitated by a wide range of underlying ex

Explains and assesses the uses of computers in record-keeping, accounting, education, CAD-CAM, expert systems and geographic information systems, and provides a methodology for attacking the problems of resource assessment, utilization and communication.

World Bank Discussion Paper No. 281.This study examines the best practices of eight OECD countries--Canada, Germany, Ireland, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States--in designing national policies and programs to accelerate the effective use of information technology in support of industrial competitiveness. New technologies in computing, communications, and multimedia are changing the competitive advantage of industries, services, and entire economies. Enterprises must therefore increase their technological development and education through government assistance.The emerging experience is rich and diverse. The study draws on the tacit knowledge of the designers and implementors of national policies and programs to establish key rules-of-thumb for future programs. The authors outline broad directions for adapting these practices to the conditions of developing countries.

Drawing on recent research in the Sudan, Ivory Coast, Kenya and Tanzania, the contributing authors analyze broad patterns of social and political change brought about by the rapidly increasingly use of microcomputer technology in Africa.

This book examines administrative changes and reforms carried out in the developing nations: it looks at the role of the state, various administrative reforms carried out at the behest of the West but never fully materialized, and events leading to policy failures and administrative mishaps. It is a story of failed developmental goals told through the looking glass of administration and it is about directing, managing, and controlling the means used in and by Third World countries to achieve development. In addition to a history of development administration, this volume includes an analysis of bureaucratic corruption and accountability, the issue of capability building in science and technology transfer, the new challenge of the 1990s - how to achieve environmentally sustainable development in the face of resource constraints and ever-growing public demands and expectations, and a strategy for sustainable development administration as the Third World prepares for the 21st century.

Today, information and the technologies that store and disseminate it are producing deep-rooted and widespread changes in society - changes of the same magnitude as those that occurred during the Industrial Revolution. The purpose of this book is to give a complete picture of the information society by examining in detail the social, economic, political, and cultural roles of information and information technology. This book is effectively a second edition of the author's classic The Information Society. In it, the author illustrates the major trends in and inter-relationships between information, information and communication technologies, and the global economy and society. In tracing the direction of information-based change he reveals the implications for ordinary citizens, for the quality of everyday life, for economic and social activity, and examines the prospects of nations and trading blocs. This book provides a new way of looking at society, one that is essential for understanding social and economic structures and processes in the information age.