ICT for poverty reduction in Lao PDR.

• Author: Haddawy, Peter

Information and communications technology (ICT) holds the promise of making the world a fairer place. Indeed, in many countries, increased information access and social networking are giving citizens a larger voice in local, national, and regional affairs. While the individual and social transformational capacity of information and communications technology is immense, it is often those who already have a voice in national agendas that benefit from the amplifying effect of the technology. The many millions of desperately poor people in remote rural areas who have traditionally had the least voice in government affairs and whose needs are perhaps least understood are also those who have, thus far, benefited the least from the technology.

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While researchers and development workers have explored the use of ICT to serve the needs of the rural poor for almost two decades, it is only recently that the potential has emerged for ICI to have a widespread transformational effect on the livelihoods of the bottom billion. Early attempts at using ICT to serve the needs of rural populations focused on the establishment of telecentres, centralized facilities that provided communication and access to information through the Internet. While there were notable success stories, the impact of this work was limited due to the cost involved in establishing the needed connectivity, the limited population that could be reached, and the inability for this mode of information access to become an integral part of people's lives. Imagine how different the impact of information technology would be in developed countries if people had to go to the local library to access the Internet! However, with the rapid growth of private sector investment in mobile communication, large numbers of poor and remote communities now have mobile phones and even Internet access, although they may not be using all of the available possibilities. Rapid diffusion of technology means that designs of advanced devices like smartphones are being inexpensively replicated in some developing countries. At the same time, the emergence of cloud services has begun to provide powerful and extensible computing platforms at little or no cost to those with Internet access. These developments have opened the door for ICT to have the .same or even a larger transformative effect on poor communities than it has had on the more affluent mainstream. But how can we realize the potential of...