AAAS: How can ICT and Development work together?

Von torsten , 16 Februar 2008

BongosIt's one of those interdisciplinary questions still unanswered: If you have 50 people on above issue in the room, there'll be 45 of them ICT-people - that is, at least, when you're attending the annual AAAS conference in Boston. AAAS is the NGO publishing "Science", and thus I'm surprised that I do actually understand some  of the issues dealt with here. Their focus is "global", this year, so the keynote address was by Rwanda's president Kagame - Rwanda being probably one of the first examples of how ICT and Development people may work together. Did you know that the Rwanda-government seems to really have "figured it out"? They do not take donor money from USAID and the likes - who always want to "give" according to their plan.

Think about Laura Bush, insisting "we must do something about girls education, as this really, really is my issue" -- which then leads to some USAID guy developing (cause they must "own" it, of course) a project where they can throw money at.

Instead, Rwanda says "we've actually got a national education program which works pretty well - you may give us the money for this, but it won't give you a great payback - no glossy brochures, no evaluation reports". Which then might pose quite some problem to the USAID bureaucrat: Where to spend their money and - time?

As an addition to this, one might argue that it a business assessment of existing and planned infrastructure followed by some activities might be more competitive in engaging towards providing "parts of the picture". CSR and Development, yep.

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