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Information Lives of the Poor
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Why should we care about how the poor access and communicate
information? Intuitively, feeling safe and secure, obtaining
clean water and food, and preventing sickness and disease appear
to be much more important objectives for the poor.
Yet, all of these things are enabled or facilitated by information
and communication. Families need to be connected when emergencies,
disasters, or conflicts occur. Farmers must know where
they can get the best prices for their produce. Health workers
need to know, quickly and accurately, where a disease outbreak
is occurring.
What’s more, the process of exchanging information has gone
through a revolution in the past decade. Mobile phones have
gone from being a luxury item to one commonly used by most
people around the world. Mobiles are now crucial to collecting
and communicating information, so much so that economist Jeffrey Sachs described mobile phones as “the single most transformative
technology for development.”
Considering the importance of information, communication,
and the technologies that enable them, IDRC has supported a
vast array of research in this area. From its inception, IDRC
focused on information sciences that explored how emerging
ICTs enabled researchers around the world to carry out their
work in global networks.
The Information and Communication Technologies for Development
(ICT4D) program area was a prime example of IDRC’s
field-building efforts. Through this program, IDRC supported
developing-country researchers who realized that if the ICT era
passed them and their organizations by — creating the so-called
digital divide — it would have a dramatic impact on informed
policymaking, research for development, and development itself.
Thus, ICT4D’s early tactic was to concentrate on research that
investigated the regulatory and policy environment, and pursued
innovative approaches to the physical infrastructure necessary
for providing broad access to the technology.
1st Edition
978-1-55250-571-7
NONE
Information Lives of the Poor
Management
English
International Development Research Centre
2013
Canada
1-107
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