infoDev is a global development think-tank in the field of technology for development working on behalf of international development partners. We deal with cutting edge issues and sponsor original research on themes of high current policy relevance. The research projects presented below highlight info Dev's 2010-2012 Work Programme.
If you are interested in joining infoDev's Donor Community or supporting any of the initiatives of our Work Programme 2010-2012, please contact us at research@infodev.org.
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infoDev Work Programme 2010-2012
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ICTs and Climate Change
Tackling Climate Change has been called "the moral challenge of our generation" by the UN Secretary-General. The need to develop realistic adaptation strategies is an essential part of this challenge. Closely associated with climate change are related threats such as desertification, food insecurity, and energy shortages, all of which are major barriers to communities wishing to from poverty. Thus, action on adapting to climate change is an essential component in any development strategy aimed at poverty reduction.
With this aim, infoDev has put together a proposal that explores the role that ICTs can play in climate change monitoring and adaptation. In particular, ICTs have an important and indirect role in raising awareness and dialogue about the effects of climate change on vulnerable communities.
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- ICTs and Climate Change: Proposal (June 2009) 6/25/2009
- Climate Change in Peru (World Bank) - In Pucarumi, a small community in the foothills of the snow-capped Peruvian Andes, Felipe mulls the fate of the life-giving Ausangate glacier. Year after year, the great white glacier of his boyhood has receded and slowly turned black. "We are feeling the effects of climate change," says Felipe, an alpaca herder whose animals graze on pastures irrigated by Ausangate's waters. "This loss of snow means we receive less water. This climatic factor is causing us great danger."
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ICT-Enabled Innovation and Growth
infoDev's Innovation and Entrepreneurship program aims to increase competitiveness and job creation in developing countries by building local capacity for ICT-enabled innovation and entrepreneurshp, in particular through the development of business incubators and innovation centers. This project finds it is supported by infoDev's experience in establishing and supporting a global network of over 150 business incubators that reach over 10,000 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and over 100,000 individual entrepreneurs.
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Harnessing ICTs in Education
Credit: World Bank
How are ICTs currently being used in the education sector in developing countries? What are the common challenges and constraints faced by developing countries in this area? What is actually happening on the ground, and to what extent are donors involved?
This project seeks to enhance support to development organizations as they advise client countries on the emerging use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to meet a variety of core developmental challenges and objectives in the education sector.
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- Harnessing ICTs in Education Proposal (June 2009)
- ICT Enables Distance Learning (World Bank) - This film looks at the incredible opportunities that having high speed connectivity provides. Students and academics in Madagascar, Burundi and Kenya explain how ICT opens a whole new world of learning opportunities. They also discuss how current Internet infrastructure and cost limitations are prohibiting African educational institutions from providing the best online resources for their students. The World Bank's US$424 million Regional Communications Infrastructure Program (RCIP) aims to bring affordable high speed connectivity to as many as 25 countries in Eastern and Southern Africa. RCIP will provide terrestrial broadband network infrastructure as well as finance capacity purchase schemes for Universities in Africa.
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ICTs for Sustainable Food Production and Agriculture
ICTs play a key role in improving the availability of agricultural production and market information in developing countries. ICT-based market information systems have a proven track record for improving rural livelihoods in middle income developing countries where they have been introduced. However, these systems are generally limited in scale and have not been effectively replicated beyond the local level. However, the current mobile revolution in Africa offers real hope for a different outcome now. The rapid spread of mobile phones in Africa has transformed the continent, with mobile ownership now exceeding one-quarter of the African population at the end of 2007.
This project will survey the current state of the art in the effective use of ICT in agriculture and food production, identify models that work, and examine the scope for effectively replicating these models on a wider basis, with the appropriate adaptation to local needs and circumstances. Another aim is to assist governments and local authorities in adaptive policy-making so that they are better able to respond to future food crises, whenever and wherever they occur.
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Disaster Risk Reduction in the Information Age
Since the 1990s, natural disasters have killed on average some 60,000 people a year and have also undermined decades of investment in infrastructure and social development. Developing countries’ losses due to natural
disasters are estimated to be 20 times greater (as a percentage of GDP) than those of industrialized nations. Developing countries are at highest risk from climate change because they lack the financial and material resources, including technological and institutional capacity, to prepare and to respond.
The Disaster Risk Reduction in the Information Age (RISK) Project aims to help policy-makers, development agencies, and other practitioners by providing knowledge about innovative and effective use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to improve community resilience in the face of natural disasters. This project will work in tandem with the World Bank’s Global Facility for Disaster Risk and Reduction (GFDRR), as well as the Bank’s regional disaster risk management response teams.
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Research on ICT Regulation
Since the launch of infoDev in 1995, research on the theory and practice of ICT sector regulation has been a cornerstone of our work, in particular of the “Access to ICTs for All” workstream. Highlights include the Telecommunications Regulation Handbook (first published in 2000), the ICT Regulation Toolkit (published since 2004 with ITU and the World Bank) and the Information and Communication for Development Report (published in 2006 and 2009, with the World Bank). This project will support the ongoing and new work in the other infoDev regulatory products and services.
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Global Capacity Building Initiative for ICT Regulators (GCBI)
The Global Capacity Building Initiative for ICT Regulators (GCBI) is a multi-stakeholder initiative, designed jointly by infoDev, ITU and the World Bank, and involving donors and private sector support, with the aim of addressing the challenges of creating an enabling ICT policy and regulatory environment. It will do this through a targeted, client–oriented capacity-building program for policy-makers and regulators from developing and least developed countries. The overall goal of the initiative is to create a sustainable capacity building framework that facilitates the development and transfer of knowledge to support regulatory reform and help governments in leveraging the role of the ICT sector as a key driver for economic and social development.
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The Development Impact of Broadband
Early in 2009, the number of broadband subscribers worldwide will pass the one billion mark with just under half being on fixed-line broadband (e.g., xDSL, fibre, cable modem) and the rest having high-speed internet access via third generation mobile phones. Thus, the conversion from a narrowband telecom world to a broadband one is now well underway and there are already a critical mass of broadband users, at least in developed countries. But the developmental impact of broadband is less well understood than, say, mobile communications or the internet. Furthermore, those studies that have been carried out tend to be focused on Europe and North America whereas Asia and most of the developing world has been under-researched.
This project aims to building on earlier World Bank research of the development impact of broadband which appears to indicate that the link between information and communication technologies (ICTs) and economic development is much stronger for broadband technologies than for their narrowband equivalents.
Learn more about this project and how to become a partner:
- The Development Impact of Broadband
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- Unleashing Africa's Potential - East and Southern Africa is the only region in the world not connected to the global broadband infrastructure. This 'missing link' explains why the region accounts for less than one percent of the world's bandwidth capacity. This video explores the jointed World Bank and IFC Africa Regional Communications Infrastructure Program (RCIP).
The Development Potential of the Virtual Economy
In Shenzhen, China, amid the sweatshops making printed circuit boards or cheap T-shirts, there is a newt type of business growing up where teenage boys engage in “goldfarming” by selling experience (XP) and power-leveling services for World of Warcraft gaming characters to clients in the Republic of Korea. In the Philippines, musicians earn extra income by creating polyphonic ringtones of popular tunes for sale to mobile phone owners in Germany. In Mexico, game players are creating digital artefacts that can be sold for Linden Dollars to Second Life avatars in the USA, and then converted into real dollars.
These are all examples of the growing virtual economy of products and services that only have an existence within the electronic world of games and devices and which offer opportunities to trade spare time for additional income. But how large is the virtual economy? Does it represent short-term opportunism on the fringes of legality? Or is it the harbinger of a much larger future digital economy that will create new opportunities for development and entrepreneurship? Is there a viable business model for ICT for development programmes here?
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MORE RESOURCES
- Towards 2020: ICT in Action in Rwanda (Connecting Africa) (World Bank, 2008)
This video features an interview with Rwanda's President Paul Kagame, this film illustrates how ICT serves as a cross-cutting enabler in helping Rwanda to achieve the 6 Pillars of its Vision 2020, and how the World Bank's eRwanda project is contributing to the process. In its Vision 2020 plan, the Government of Rwanda aims to transform the country from a largely agriculture-based economy to a knowledge and information based economy, in an effort to reach middle income status by 2020. The Government has emphasized its intention to use investment in ICT as the key driver for this transition and as a vehicle for improving the delivery of public and private services, particularly in the rural areas.
The World Bank's eRwanda project emphasizes the use of technology as an enabler to growth and development, and focuses on core activities, applications and content which have the greatest impact for the citizens. The project aims to improve efficiency and effectiveness of some internal processes of the Government of Rwanda, as well as the delivery of social services in selected key sectors.
- ICT Empowers People with Information (World Bank) Text messaging is one of the most popular means to communicate using cellular technology. Africa has embraced the text service as more than just a social tool. This film looks at how farmers can use SMS to get up-to-date crop pricing information as well as an SMS service called KAZI 560 which aims to match employers with job seekers -- all over a simple text message.
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Please contact us for further inquiries regarding the ICT dimension on these new research areas and for opportunities to fund any of these proposals.