Abstract
It is undeniable that information and communication technology (ICT) offers immense opportunities for social change. ICTs such as the Internet, mobile phones and social media are becoming ubiquitous. However, their use for positive social change remains complex and contested, in that it involves a myriad of actors and perspectives, societies and cultures, strategies and policies and ultimately winners and losers. While there is an increased volume of talk over this topic, hardly any book incorporates the variety and complexity of this book. With his three-decade long career of research, education and practice, Richard Heeks (2018) attempts to address this topic in his recent book titled Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D).
The author aims to help students, researchers and practitioners understand how and to what extent ICTs can help fix some of the biggest challenges in the world. While ICTs can be widely employed for various purposes, the book explores the contribution of ICTs to international development and examines the ways in which ICTs may also be associated with digital inequalities and exclusions.
This book is organized in three parts. In part one, which comprises the first three chapters, the author breaks down the construct of ICT4D into its constituent parts, defines the terms and then explains the ways in which ICTs and development are interwoven. This part then delves into the essential ‘layers and components’ of ICT4D that primarily involve technology, institutions, people and money, and it also provides strategies for ICT4D implementation. The next five chapters expand the role of ICTs in achieving specific development goals in economic, social and environmental areas. The last chapter sheds light on the trends in emerging technologies and outlines the ways they shape the future direction of ICT4D research and practice.
As a prolific writer of development informatics, Heeks synthesizes his major works from the past and provides us enormous content throughout the book. It is an exceptional textbook, it extensively illustrates complex theories, models and other concepts related to ICT4D using figures, diagrams, tables, maps, boxed examples and discussion prompts at the end of each chapter. The illustration of an ‘ICT4D value chain’ in Chapter 2 and the complex continuum of digital divide, for example, are worth special attention. Whereas ICT readiness, availability, uptake and impact constitute the ICT4D value chain, Heeks finds no clear divide. For him, the focus of the digital divide is shifting across the phases of the value chain, from availability divide to accessibility divide and from adoption divide to impact divide. The author argues, ‘alongside the digital divide is also a “digital provide”’ (p. 88), meaning that even people without digital access benefit from digital technologies. Heeks thus attempts to amend the notion of digital divide to a ‘digital continuum’.
Another strength of the book is the focus on the emerging ICT trends and the ways they are set to shape the future direction of ICT4D research and practice and building a digital-intensive world. Heeks contemplates the critical role of ICTs in various development paradigms—from modernization to sustainable development, and based on the ubiquitous nature of digital technologies, he presages the plausibility of an ‘ICT4D development paradigm’. The new paradigm, which the author introduces in Chapter 1 and elaborates in Chapter 9, is theoretically informed by three visions of a future society, that is, information society, knowledge society and network society, all of which are deeply stirred by an ongoing ‘data revolution’. These visions also shape the emerging development models that Heeks categorizes into development 2.0, data-intensive development and open development, giving us an impression that the future of social change cannot be without digital technologies and ‘big data’.
The book lacks rigour in several respects. First, the place and interpretation of ICTs in relation to development, as Heeks discusses in Chapter 1, seem inadequate. Both ‘information’ and ‘technology’ are explained in detail, but the elucidation of ‘communication’ is omitted except for a short paragraph that describes communication at mechanical and transmission levels. This relegates the process of communication simply to a ‘means to an end’, which is such a limited view of communication. Communication can no longer be perceived just a means to an end. It is a basic human right (Traber, 1993), a major resource for self-actualization (Sen, 1999) and a vehicle for empowerment and social justice (Melkote & Steeves, 2015). Critical scholars (see Sen, 1999) would argue that communication is vital for human development, and it serves as a significant means for people to achieve their civil and political liberty. Therefore, any discussion of ICT and development without including the solidarity movements and the increased digital social justice activism and online social movements around the world, especially from the past 2 decades, would render a mixed message.
One of the development paradoxes—one that contests many of its idealized promises of social change—is how the role of communication technology has been romanticized in the theory and practice of development, from modernization to sustainable development paradigms. As the author claims it to be the first dedicated textbook on the topic, I had assumed that it would strive for a balance between the rhetoric and the reality of ICTs in relation to its role for sustainable social change. However, the author seems drawn to a deterministic, neoliberal view of technology in achieving specific development goals including economic growth and poverty reduction as is discussed throughout the middle five chapters. Indeed, ‘[t]he process of development cannot decrease the poverty of all but can certainly increase the affluence of a few’ (Melkote, 1991, p. 178). So, increasing development and decreasing poverty is not necessarily synonymous and concomitant. Melkote (1991) asks, ‘who gained from this phenomenal growth, or put another way, who suffered from this growth?’ (p. 180). A critical assessment of the extent to which ICTs genuinely help fix bigger development challenges would have added value and introduced readers to competing perspectives on the contribution of ICT.
As Heeks admits, the focus and organization of the book, in terms of both topic and content, are oriented to development activity as centrally coordinated by international agencies like the United Nations (UN) and national governments and their subsidized non-governmental organizations (NGOs). This would not go without consequences for two reasons: the readers would grapple with the conception of development itself that does not have a locus of local control, while on the other hand, the creative efforts of people in employing ICTs for local development and social change would barely have a space in this arrangement.
Admittedly, ICTs can enable development but never without cost, which would then make certain parties winners or losers. Heeks responds to why we need ICT4D and who ultimately benefits from ICTs. He believes that it is the poor who are on the front line of the world problems, but eventually all parties, rich and poor, North and South, benefit from ICT4D. The author finds two motivations towards working for ICT4D: ‘self-enlightened interest’ and ‘personal self-interest’. Heeks posits,
In a globalised world, the problems of the poor today can—through migration, terrorism, disease epidemics—become the problems of those at the top of the pyramid tomorrow. Conversely, as the poor get richer, they buy more of the goods and services that industrialised countries produce, ensuring a benefit to all from poverty reduction.
And there is personal self-interest. Compare designing a system for an African or Asian community to doing the same for a company in the global North. The former is quite simply more interesting—a richer, more satisfying, more colourful experience. (p. 3)
Clearly, such a thought commodifies poverty. It has the potential to turn ICT4D into a rich frontier of ‘digital capitalism’ (Shiller, 2014). Perhaps, the same argument normalizes the commissioning of ICT4D for developing countries while endorsing an assumption that the developed nations would not need such a thing. We should not ignore the fact that in the race towards globalization, all parties benefit in one way or another. However, the digital gap will continue to widen. Hence, the jury is still out on the fundamental debate of the role of ICTs in relation to sustainable development: Are ICTs a boon or bane for development?