Summary

Background / Terms of Reference

IT Parks provide infrastructure and support services for businesses, particularly high-quality (high-capacity) communications, real estate and office space. Frequently, IT Parks have links to research institutions providing a pipe line of both innovations personnel and advice. This serves as the technology transfer function. Some IT Parks offer support facilities for incubator activities as well as established IT companies thereby generating synergies in IT clusters. IT Parks usually entail conducive or attractive working environment for mobile IT professionals in the context of the global search for IT talent. Various models for IT Parks exist ranging from: self-sufficient towns of technology that encompass residential neighborhoods, shopping centers, technical universities, research centers, and often business incubators to relatively small self-contained establishments. Today, IT Parks are present throughout the developing world, including India, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic.

Due to the complexity of design and implementation, IT Parks can often take a number of years to mature and become fully sustainable, as well as requiring a significant investments in infrastructure. For example, the Government of Taiwan invested roughly US$483 million in developing the infrastructure of its 1,000 acre Hsinchu Science Based Industrial Park over a 15 year period, including two major universities and the Industrial Technological Research Institute. The Technology Park Malaysia (TPM), inaugurated in 1996, covers 120 acres and involves a state investment of US$80 million and is surrounded by five universities.

As a result of the commitment and costs associated with the establishment of IT Parks, they are often facilitated by public private partnerships (PPP). PPPs can help to accelerate the provision of infrastructure, improve the distribution of risk and incentives among the parties involved, enhance public management and improve quality of service[European Commission Report]. In some instances, such as Brazil, Indonesia and Mexico, the challenges of implementing IT Parks has required centralized management to oversee the integration of its various components. PPP can also take the form of partnerships between private sector companies and public sector educational and research establishments.

Given the potential complexity of these projects and scope of required investments, the growing interest of governments in developing and transition economies in designing and promoting such projects, and their needs for policy advice and financial support from the donor community, there is a pressing need for a synthesis of best practices and lessons learned (both from success and failure). To address this need, and to help its donors in their policy dialogue and investment decisions pertaining to such parks, infoDev, in cooperation with the Global ICT Department (GICT) of the World Bank Group, has commissioned a global best practice study on IT Parks which will draw on the experience of several countries and leverage infoDev’s global network of business incubators, which in many instances are housed within IT Parks.

The objectives of this study are:

1. To deliver a “Best Practice Guide”, documenting global lessons learned and best practices in establishing sustainable IT Parks and identifying the “critical business success factors”.  This analysis should include case studies capturing successful and failed experiences with IT Parks in both developing and developed countries.
2. To develop guidelines and options for policy makers based on a review of the effectiveness of public policy in place in selected countries with respect to stimulating substantial private sector investment in the IT sector and spillover into the broader economy (e.g. GDP growth, knowledge transfer development of support services). The “critical policy success factors” for investment and its wider impact (e.g. policy, regulation, infrastructure and human capital) will be identified for Policy Development.
3. To conduct three in-depth country case studies (Russia, Jordan and Vietnam), which will assess and benchmark each country based on the “critical business success factors” and provide recommendations on Policy Development actions (e.g. policy, regulation, infrastructure and human capital) to be taken to address constraints.
4. Based on the preceding analysis the development of an IT Park investment and implementation strategy that is tailored to the specific situation in Russia.

The study will be completed September 2007.