Approaches to ICT for development (ICT4D): vulnerabilities vs. capabilities

Abstract

Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) scholars have often criticised that most researchers in this field tend not to use theory to build, test or extend further concepts in their projects (Ogan et al., 2009, Heeks, 2007) while Burrell and Toyama (2009) reflected that it is precisely because of its breadth and range of research that ICT4D lacks a common foundation of concepts and terms. Heeks (2007) lamented that very little work has been deduced from the ‘D’ of ICT4D. In this paper, the author will attempt to review recent literature which contributed to arguably the two most contentious concept-based researches in ICT for Development – Amartya Sen’s and philosopher Martha Nussbaum’s capabilities approach (Sen, 1999a, Nussbaum, 1988) against a very different vulnerabilities approach of poverty and debate the validity of both approaches to ICT4D research. This paper posits that both paradigms can be applied to the same development project depending on its enthymeme and suggests the acceptance that all of these viewpoints will and should continue to coexist within the realms of the academic and practitioner communities for the benefit of this new and emerging field called ICT4D.

Keywords

Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D)capabilities approach vulnerabilities approach poverty alleviation

Both the vulnerabilities and capabilities approaches can provide valid theoretical foundations for ICT4D

Introduction

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are often heralded as solutions for alleviating poverty, improving economic development as well as empowering the marginalised segments of the populace (Greenberg, 2005). This is more so in recent years; ICTs have penetrated the realms of scholarly articles on development communication, particularly in the titles of top academic journals (Ogan et al., 2009). Yet scholars like Ogan et al. (2009) noticed that most ICT4D research often does not rely on theoretical paradigms to build, test or extend further concepts in their development projects. A few other scholars have critiqued the lack of rigour in ICT4D research (Heeks, 2008, Burrell and Toyama, 2009). Brown and Grant (2010) went further to explain that this lack of academic thoroughness is due to the dissonance between academia and the requirements of practitioners on the ground; for example, some advocates possess an excessively ideal and unrealistic belief in the part that ICTs contribute to development, concentrating too much on the ‘ICT’ and neglecting the ‘development’. Similarly, Heeks (2007) lamented that very little work has been deduced from the ‘D’ of ICT4D and offered suggestions as to how theoretical ideas from the social sciences can be applied to this field of research, by categorising ICT4D into a continuous range of frameworks of knowledge, for example, “theory-based, framework-based, model-based, schema-based and concept-based” work (Heeks, 2007: 2–3). Burrell and Toyama (2009) also reflected that it is precisely because of its breadth and range of research that ICT4D lacks a common foundation of concepts and terms.

In this paper, the author will attempt to review recent literature which contributed to arguably the two most contentious research paradigms in ICT for development – Amartya Sen and philosopher Martha Nussbaum’s capabilities approach (Sen, 1999a, Nussbaum, 1988) against a very different vulnerabilities approach to poverty.

Literature review

‘Development’ in international development

The genesis of ‘international development’ is frequently credited to Harry Truman’s speech in 1949 (Esteva, 1992) when the American President appealed that “we must embark on a bold new programme for making the benefits of our scientific advances and industrial progress available for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas” (p.6). The predominant modernisation approach to development theories in the 1950s and 1960s was debated by dependency scholars like Munoz (1981) and Escobar (1985), who argued that it was technological under-development in the developing countries that was making the latter dependent on the developed countries. The study of development was initially based on the impact of changes in gross domestic product (GDP) on transformations in the industrial sector (Easterly, 2001). Under a rising GDP, recognition of a growing income divide between the haves and have-nots resulted in more focus on the needs of the poorest segments of society (Basu, 2001).

Vulnerabilities and sustainable development

From a broader perspective, Moser (1996) defined vulnerability as the “insecurity of the well-being of individuals, households or communities in the face of a changing environment… because people move into and out of poverty, the concept of vulnerability better captures processes of change than mere static measures of poverty” (p.2). On a more specific level, scholars like Schipper and Pelling (2006), who examine sustainable human development from a vulnerabilities perspective, argue that natural disasters can mitigate years of hard work in development, yet the vulnerability of the populace to these environmental hazards increases due to development; for example, growth in some geographical locations often results in “unsafe urban hill slopes, coastal fringes or other marginal areas” (p.23). Fukuda-Parr (2011) alluded that the Millennium Development Goals (MGDs) adopted by the United Nations reflect international development when viewed from the vulnerabilities approach, but it was Schipper and Pelling (2006) who provided specific rationale on how environmental risks impact vulnerable communities under each of the MGDs.

Capabilities and development

The prior notion of ‘development’ was criticised as something being done to individuals rather than involving them (Esteva, 1992, Escobar, 1985); and Haq (1995) suggested that it was the capabilities-centred paradigm espoused by Sen (1999a), of enhancing peoples’ capabilities to live improved and more affluent lives through greater freedom and opportunity, that guided the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Human Development Index (HDI). As argued in Anand and Sen’s (2000) paper, human development should not be restricted only to income-based metrics. As such, the concept of development started to be discussed not only in economic terms, but also considering the social aspects (Haq, 1995) of the communities involved. The HDI uses indicators like “life-expectancy, adult literacy and educational enrolment as well as GDP, to measure positive change” (UNDP, 2013). Sen (1985) stated that ‘development’ as a goal combines both welfare as well as agency, which is related to the individual’s ability to participate in decisions that benefits himself or herself.

The following sections will examine the philosophical foundations of these two seemingly dichotomous approaches to development – vulnerabilities and capabilities.

The vulnerabilities approach

Birkmann and Fernando (2008) categorized ‘vulnerability’ into two key dimensions of ‘susceptibility’ and ‘coping capacity’ (p. 84), arguing that coping abilities and methods determine the ability or difficulty of recovering from a disaster (Bohle, 2001, Chambers, 1989, Wisner, 2002). The negative definition of ‘susceptibility’, however, describes the prediction of damage, bereavement and stoppage of income in a dire event (Wisner, 2002). Many studies have tried to develop policies and dimensions of vulnerability to identify resources to strengthen a community’s ability to insure itself against such events (Commosioung and Duggan, 2008). For example, Alwang et al. (2001) rationalised that “households are vulnerable to suffering an undesirable outcome and this vulnerability comes from exposure to risk” (p.2) while Ligon and Schechter (2003) proposed a simpler algorithm of vulnerability by totalling the exposures to “i) aggregate risk, ii) idiosyncratic risk, and iii) unexplained risk, plus measurement error” (p. C98). Heijmans (2001) suggested that the vulnerabilities approach has shifted and enlarged into three different views: i) nature as cause of people’s vulnerability, e.g. disasters and hazards; ii) cost as a cause of vulnerability, e.g. prediction and mitigation technologies are expensive even though they can detect natural disasters or economic shocks; iii) societal structures as cause, positing that it is the “socio-economic and political processes in society that generate vulnerability” (p.2). In terms of its applications, Heijmans (2001) also observed that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) use the idea of ‘vulnerability’ to analyse the features and procedures governing the plight of the poor in societies, while Ligon and Schechter (2003) went further to posit that the vulnerabilities approach determined how “some paternalistic donor or NGO” would pick which project or households to sponsor (p. C97). As can be inferred above, there are myriad ways of assessing, calculating and applying the concept of vulnerabilities within the development literature.

Vulnerabilities – economic, social and environmental

The concept of vulnerability is often implicitly mentioned rather than defined in the economics discipline, to the point that poverty dynamics research actually sidesteps the term ‘vulnerability’ altogether (Kanbur and Squire, 1999). There appears, however, to be some congruence when it comes to the meaning and measurement of poverty, such that poverty can be defined in terms of the poor’s lack of accessibility to services, food security, etc. (Alwang et al., 2001: 6). Briguglio (1997) posited the vulnerability hypothesis by theoretically classifying vulnerabilities into three separate categories: social, economic and environmental. The following scholars attempted to expound on each category in their respective theses.

Social vulnerability is mainly demonstrated in the reduction of asset possession because it often means lower opportunities for social mobility (Moser, 2001). Commosioung and Duggan (2008) suggested that indicators such as “low-wage employment and unemployment, high levels of crime, comparatively high HIV/AIDS infection rates, and other indicators of impoverishment”, can also represent social vulnerability (p.398).

In terms of economic vulnerability, Alwang and his colleagues (2001) argue that a socially recognized lowest standard must be established for each level to ensure the applicability of the vulnerability approach; for instance, scholars suggest that we can use a poverty line with regards to defining vulnerability. The Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP), defined the poverty line with a simplistic US$2,000 per year or US$2 per day (Prahalad and Hammond, 2002). The theory has generated enormous interest, and Prahalad (2009) has received much credit as well as opprobrium for popularizing this invisible market of 4 billion poor in the world (Landrum, 2007). The model suggests that the private sector should develop enterprises that are not only socially responsible, but also enhance the lives of the poor (Rost and Ydrén, 2006). Since 2004, research on the BoP has focused mostly on critique of Prahalad’s work (Karnani, 2007), or praise for the principles he espoused in his book (Landrum, 2007).

Environmental vulnerability refers not only to exposure to natural disasters, but also to human activities which make a country’s natural surroundings susceptible to hostile environmental threats, such as the erosion of topsoil for farming or the situation of fishing communities next to tsunami-hit coasts (Kaly et al., 2003), producing serious threats to the lives of inhabitants and to economic development (Commosioung and Duggan, 2008). The following sections will highlight some of the practical uses of ICTs, grouped under Briguglio’s (1997) vulnerabilities hypothesis.

Social vulnerabilities – ICT for health

McNamara (2003) outlined ways that ICTs can help to reduce healthcare vulnerabilities facing developing countries, such as responding to disease outbreaks where healthcare providers assemble and share timely information to control epidemics, improving hygiene and health-related behaviours such as through HIV/AIDs campaigns, and enhancing the effectiveness of health care providers through remote diagnosis and treatment, such as Aceh Besar Indonesian midwives’ use of mobile phones using the Technology Community Management (TCM) model (Chib et al. 2008).

Economic vulnerabilities – ICT for sustainable livelihoods

Grunfeld (2007) suggested that the ‘sustainable livelihoods approach’ (SLA) by Ashley et al. (1999) can provide a way for the poor to escape deprivation and empower them to diversify the contributions to their livelihood. Grunfeld (2007) also cited Duncombe’s (2006) paper, which stated that the premise of a livelihoods analysis for ICT development should be rooted within a context of vulnerability. Essentially, there is a “key analytical role for information when assessing the vulnerability context” (Duncombe, 2006: 85). Ellis (2000) criticised the sustainable livelihoods approach for not being able to acknowledge socio-cultural dimensions that affect the poor’s accessibility to economic tools and assets, while Chib and Ale (2009) highlighted that the approach does not examine the barriers to ICT resources faced by the community. There also appears to be a paucity of research which supports Prahalad’s theory that selling to the poor would lead to improving their lives (Landrum, 2007). This dearth of studies is especially so for ICT development for the BoP market (Tarafdar and Singh, 2011), even though Prahalad (2009) had predicted that BoP consumers will “accept advanced technology readily” (Prahalad, 2009, e-book, Chap. 1).

Environmental vulnerabilities – ICT and disasters

ICTs appear to be important implements in the prevention as well as the mitigation of disasters after the fact, such as the early flood warning system instituted by Thailand’s Royal Irrigation Department in 10 of its most vulnerable water basins (UNDP, 2005). The system “uses mobile vehicles with loud speakers, manned warning boards, local radio and television” (p. 166). Chib and Ale (2009) extended the original Technology-Community-Management (TCM) framework to disaster recovery in India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and China.

The above literature seems to suggest that ICTs for countering social and environmental vulnerabilities feature more strongly than economic vulnerabilities. With this, the following research question is suggested to debate the validity of the vulnerabilities approach to ICT development:

RQ1: Does the vulnerabilities approach provide a valid theoretical foundation upon which ICT for development can be based?

The capabilities approach

In alternative literature reviews about development, the ‘capability approach’ developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum places the individual’s human capabilities at its centre (Oosterlaken and Hoven, 2011). The premise of this approach is to regard dispossession, not only from the lack of explicit benefactions, but also in terms of the lack of freedom for the individual to realize his or her powers (Sen, 1999b). Corbridge (2002) explained that through linking capabilities to human and social capital, the capabilities approach also defined livelihoods in material and experiential terms. Besides capabilities, Sen (1999a) also highlighted three other dimensions of poverty: opportunity, security from economic risk and violence, and empowerment, as well as arguing for development to be an enlargement of freedoms (Alkire, 2007). It is this advocacy for political and social freedoms in the capabilities approach which Grunfeld (2007) suggest differentiates this approach from other frameworks advocating growth at all costs, because individuals are responsible for their welfare, and they decide the capabilities that are important to them (p.5).

The role of ICT within the capabilities approach for advancing development

Grunfeld (2007) posited that the association between ICT and capabilities is mutually beneficial as individuals need capabilities to take advantage of ICT and improve their information accessibility, which in turn is essential to democratic freedom. Scholars like Birdsall (2011), however, have critiqued that Nussbaum (1988) was overly fixated on traditional, adverse communication liberties, e.g. freedom of speech, such that the capabilities scholars should reassess this notion of “traditional rights”, because even if the poor have the “traditional right” to speak up, many of them are still restricted in their access to ICTs and their resulting low participation in societal dialogues (Birdsall, 2011: 102). Sen (2005, 2010) himself, however, has recently been more vocal in supporting the contributions of ICTs in expanding the individual’s capabilities, even though many scholars were and still are analysing the affiliation between ICT and the capabilities approach (Garnham, 1999, Barja and Gigler, 2005, Alampay, 2006, Mansell, 2006, InfoDev, 2008, Thapa et al., 2012). The following sections will briefly describe some of the practical uses of ICT under the capabilities approach.

ICT for livelihoods

The chief improvements as a result of the co-operativisation of milk manufacture and processing through ICT at Amul Dairy in Gujarat, India, have been extensively reported (UNDP, 2005). Where previously milk processing was done manually, the more transparent and efficient computerized system helped rural farmers to improve collection and payment, substantially increasing their incomes (UNDP, 2005: 57). Analyses of the Grameen village phone scheme in Bangladesh showed that half of the calls made using the Grameen network were for livelihood objectives like confirmation of selling prices, job openings and transfers of money (Richardson et al., 2000, Cohen, 2001). Abraham (2007) found that mobile phones, with their ability to transmit knowledge and correct massive information inefficiencies that existed in the fishing community in Kerala, India, led to greater market integration and gains in productivity, and reduced price dispersion and fluctuations.

ICT for education

Accessibility to information and training is crucial in enhancing the individual’s capabilities, and the Internet is gradually becoming the key distributor of knowledge to segments of communities that were previously unable to access educational resources and curricula (UNDP, 2005). The pilot programme World Links, which introduced computers and the Internet into learning environments in developing countries, has shown that teachers and students become greatly empowered, even believing that they can compete in a global knowledge-based economy (Hawkins, 2002). The One-Laptop-Per-Child-Programme (OLPC), was promoted as a revolutionary educational programme in that all school-going age children in the developing countries, if given a low-cost laptop, would be able to link up with the rest of the world and gain knowledge from others (OLPC, 2013).

ICT for gender empowerment, freedom and democracy

The UNDP’s (2005) report cursorily mentioned the innovative uses of ICTs in increasing political participation, greater transparency and accountability of governments. Six years later, in the 2011 Arab Spring uprising, it seems that the Internet has become a new channel for critics of repressive governments to express their dissent, effectively enabling communities that were previously unable to do so, to engage in political debate and expression (Chokoshvili, 2011, Khan, 2012, Ardic, 2012). While relating the story of the girl-whipping incident which led to the ejection of the Taliban from the Swat valley in Pakistan, Sen (2010) himself acknowledged that mobile phones have become a major way for raising awareness and running social media campaigns that advocate political change. Marginalised groups like women, whose voice had largely been silenced because of social restrictions or uneven power systems, are now able to influence social and political transitions through communication tools like ICT (Ogan et al., 2009).

Based on this, the following research question is advanced:

RQ2: Is the capabilities approach a valid theoretical foundation upon which ICT for development can be based?

With the conceptual definitions of both the vulnerabilities approach and the capabilities approach debated, the next segment will attempt to deliberate the theoretical problems of both the vulnerabilities and capabilities ontologies with regards to ICT4D applications.

ICTs cannot reduce all vulnerability and risks

Alwang et al. (2001) highlighted that the vulnerabilities approach is overly dichotomous in its focus on either the risks or the outcomes of the solutions. For example, in sustainable livelihoods literature, different modules of vulnerability are connected to the overall conditions of poverty, yet the literature provides very little guidance on empirical applications of each module. Alwang et al. (2001) further argued that the existing literatures on vulnerabilities “tend to be either conceptually strong and empirically weak or conceptually weak and empirically strong” (p.23), citing the poverty dynamics literature, where the discourses employ sound empirical methods to understand what caused the outcomes, but are woefully scarce when it comes to details of their causes.

With regards to ICTs in health management, McNamara (2003) also cautioned that some of the most dire health challenges cannot be solved by information, communication and knowledge flows and ICTs – for example, the lack of affordable access to vaccines and medicines. Clarke (2005), in his introductory foreword for the UNDP report, stated that “a multimedia computer with Internet connectivity is of little use in a school with leaking roofs – or no roof at all” (p. vi).

Capabilities approach in ICT4D – conceptual and methodological problems

While the capabilities approach has notably received numerous citations by philosophers, economists and social scientists who praised its contribution to economics, ethics and development studies (Robeyns, 2000), other scholars have criticised its advocacy of liberal justice as unworkable (Rawls, 2001), while Roemer (1998) has raised the notion that the approach is not specific enough. As evaluated from outside the economics realm, the most scathing denunciation came from Gasper (2002), who pointed out that the capabilities approach comes across as overly simplified, insufficient as a theory of welfare and “hardly a theory of the ‘human’ in human development” (p. 436) – especially given its importance on the individual’s choice, anonymities in key concepts, and its development from a discourse between finance and philosophy “without much involvement from psychology, sociology and anthropology” (p. 436).

Grunfeld (2007) cautioned against ICT scholars who posit the superiority of the capabilities approach to other ICT4D theories. He decried these researchers as not having done enough in-depth field studies to critically evaluate the effect of ICT on the individuals’ abilities in a “systematic, forward looking, longitudinal manner through a participatory approach” (Grunfeld, 2007: 5), resonating the view that the association between ICT and capabilities at the observed level is therefore inadequate.

Another often heard criticism of the capabilities approach is that it focuses on the individual rather on groups (Corbridge, 2002). Ratan and Bailur (2007) observed that, while the achievement of certain capabilities is reliant on the freedom and conduct of the poor, other capabilities depend on “collective choices”, especially when it comes to ICT4D policies (p.3). Perhaps the most relevant example of this fallacy is the One-Laptop-Per-Child (OLPC) initiative. Kraemer et al. (2009) reflected that the OLPC organization was naïve to expect that a laptop can effect such ground-breaking changes in education, while Buchele and Owusu-Aning (2007) argued that the technology was wrongly premised in that providing smartphones with Internet accessibility would be a more viable option. Arguing from the stance of economics resource allocation, James (2010) questioned the product’s non-sharing principles as being inefficient, i.e. it is one-laptop-per-child, not many-children-per-computer, as well as the claims by the project towards eradicating worldwide poverty:

“On the one hand, the vast majority of laptops from the project have gone to three relatively wealthy Latin American countries, while on the other, the allocation of health and education resources in these countries is notoriously unequal.” (p.389).

Abraham (2007) cautioned capabilities scholars to not exaggerate the role of ICT in livelihoods enhancement for the poor. When Kerala fishermen were asked what technological improvement would make the most difference to their lives, they replied that “mechanization and improved roads and transportation” were more important than mobile phones (p.16). Clearly, not all livelihoods solutions can be addressed only by ICTs.

Conclusion and discussion

Which approach to ICT4D – capability or vulnerabilities?

As the economist Fielding (2002) explained, economic growth contributes to democratic development while education results in better health management and conversely, health is important for education development. From this perspective, Ngwenyama et al. (2006) suggest that development is a confluence of all aspects of the nation such as health, education and political development. A notable attempt by Chib and Ale (2009) was made to group both approaches under community-oriented theories, as opposed to procedure-based theories – those which define the processes in ICT projects without the involvement of the community. Chib and Ale (2009)’s arguments, however, were focused mainly on disaster recovery and not on a wider spectrum of other ICT uses under the vulnerabilities, such as in health, livelihoods, etc. To date, there appears to be little existing literature which attempts to compare both the vulnerabilities approach and the capabilities approach within the realms of ICT4D research.

In this vein, perhaps one can argue also that the capabilities approach in ICT4 Livelihoods, ICT4 Education and ICT4 Political Development, and the vulnerabilities approach in ICT4 Health and ICT4 Disaster, need not be in opposition to each other. In fact, they can complement each other in development theories for any nation and both paradigms can coexist within both academia and practice, as alluded to by Heeks (2007). This confluence of approaches can be examined in the ICT4 Health literature, where research discovered that social networks contribute to influencing behavioural changes in individuals and can be even more crucial than using ICTs in mediation efforts (Ogan et al., 2009).

With regards to the two research questions posed above, it appears that both the vulnerabilities and capabilities approaches can indeed provide valid theoretical foundations for ICT4D. This paper arguably demonstrates that both approaches can be applied to the same project, depending on its enthymeme. This premise is verified in the case studies of the Kerala fishing community, where both the capabilities approach and the vulnerabilities approach can be used to explain the phenomenon of ICT for livelihoods. Abraham (2007) and Jensen (2007) found that the fishermen’s quality of life is greatly enhanced as they feel less vulnerable to risk in the event of emergencies, although interestingly, the reduced risk did not translate directly into increased incomes for the fishermen (Abraham, 2007: 13). Abraham (2007) argued that if not for the reduction in vulnerabilities, the fishermen’s capability to increase their income would have been more onerous.

Ogan et al. (2009) posit that instituting ICTs into the discussion of development has made scholars assume that ICT is the “magic multiplier for the poorest of the poor” (p.656) and encouraged policymakers to view projects like telecenters or information kiosks as the solution to becoming more globalized and stimulating the local economy. Scholars like Torero and Braun (2005) argued that one basic consideration often neglected in ICT4D research is the poor’s digital literacy, and James (2005) was also critical in his investigation of ICT4D literature, noting that field research in ICTs is moving towards the Internet and away from traditional media like television and radio, to which the poor may have easier access.

For ICT4D, perhaps what is really paramount is an acceptance that all of these viewpoints will and should continue to coexist within the realms of the academic and practitioner communities. Instead of expending our efforts in trying to denigrate other approaches, it is perhaps more beneficial to seek to understand work conducted in the frameworks of others and to respect the progress that has been made towards understanding the role ICT4D, because research based on different paradigms can still be considered good research (Burrell and Toyama, 2009).

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