Access and Equity

Governments and donor agencies are working to provide the overt resources, but realistically the poor will not own the ICTs, and the poor will be very unlikely to control the ICTs or to use the technology hands-on in any significant numbers for the foreseeable future. The main strategy has therefore been to provide ICTs to intermediary institutions such as government agencies and NGOs. The most popular model is the ‘telecentre’ with an Internet-linked computer providing a multi-function resource. Telecentres provide public access to basic information and communication services to poor people who cannot afford private ownership. A large body of literature has examined the rapid growth of ‘telecentres’ in rural areas (Gurstein, 2000; Roman & Colle, 2002; TeleCommons Development Group, 2000; Richardson, 1999; Ervin, 1998; Falch, 1998). These programmes can be divided into two categories: (i) privately owned telecentres where local operators cater to business demand for limited services such as phone, fax and photocopying; and (ii) donor/government/NGO funded Multipurpose Community Telecentres (MCTs) that incorporate Internet access, email and other computer applications to existing community access telephone centres. The growth of these centres may signal an important shift away from the ‘universal service’ goal of bringing a telephone into every household to a more realistic and cost-effective goal of universal community access.

The process of the initiation, diffusion and adoption of the telecentre idea has, however, been largely devoid of systematic research and planning (Benjamin, 1998).

It is therefore not surprising that the conceptualisation and deployment of telecentres often ignores the needs of the alleged beneficiaries and addresses priorities that are not necessarily theirs (Fortier, 2000). A range of important issues are associated with the operation and success of telecentres. These include: sustainability, community relevance, government policy, research, community partnerships, training of telecentre management and business planning (Ernberg, 1998a, b; Roman & Colle, 2002). And even if access is made affordable, as in telecentres that are (more often than not) driven by the not-for-profit sector, much of the information the Internet offers is of little relevance to people living in poverty (Heeks, 2002b; Hedley, 1998;

Main, 2001). Currently, the overwhelming dominance of English as the principal

medium of exchange on the Internet coupled with low-levels of pro-poor content are major drawbacks to its use by poor people (Skuse, 2001:10).

How can ICTs be used to support communities in their efforts for social and economic development? Fundamental to this is access to the technology, since without at least minimal access, little can be accomplished. Clement and Shade (2000) identify seven discrete levels of ‘access’: (i) governance and policy; (ii) literacy; (iii) social facilitation; (iv) service providers; (v) content and services; (vi) software tools; and (vii) devices and carriage facilities. This includes ‘technical’ (telephone connections and computers), ‘economic’ (the cost of using and maintaining these systems),

‘social’ (cultural, education/literacy, and social barriers limiting use of the systems) and ‘physical’ access (as for the physically disabled).

If ICT, poverty and development initiatives are to deliver the empowerment of socially and economically disadvantaged individuals and communities on which they are premised, then it is vital that key issues concerning the broadening of access to ICTs are identified and addressed. While access is consistently identified as a key principle in policy discussions, it is not an end in itself. Access simply enables further activities that can only partially be specified beforehand. There are three main questions to address: (i) Access for what purposes? (ii) Access for whom? and (iii) Access to what? The new technologies cannot therefore be easily divorced from relations of power based upon existing social and economic structures (Sclove, 1995).

We need to recognise that ICTs can as easily act to reinforce existing patterns of exclusion as to provide opportunities for global networking. Following Samarajiva and Shields (1990:100):

“An adequate theory of telecommunication [and the Internet] and development requires an adequate treatment of power. Banishing power from explicit discussion results in faulty analysis and policy”.

Technologies never occur fortuitously; they are always created and implemented through funding, R&D, production, improvements, commercialisation and support, with purposes that become an integral part of what they are, and can or cannot do.

Not surprisingly then, dominant social sectors, i.e. those who control both investment and most technological development, have the opportunity to select options that are

best suited to their own interest, not to a broader, vaguely defined, social progress (Stewart, 1978; Noble, 1984). It cannot therefore be taken for granted that ICTs are necessarily beneficial either to a society as a whole or, in particular, to groups already exploited and oppressed within a society. In order to understand the social implications of ICTs it is therefore necessary to understand multidimensional processes, with ICTs being affected and shaping social relations, throughout their development and deployment (Stewart, 1978; Noble, 1977, 1984; Sussman, 1997;

Feenberg, 1991).

The new ICTs have been introduced into an asymmetric global system and are unequivocally an engine of inequality. The UNDP finds that the “The Internet is contributing to an ever-widening gap between rich and poor which has now reached

‘grotesque’ proportions” (UNDP, 1999:1). Contra to the UNDP, the World Bank (1999) claims that the new ICTs are quite positive and have tremendous equalising potential. The World Bank (1999) points to dozens of stories showing that telemedicine, distance education and falling ICT costs are having positive and dramatic impacts on the growth prospects of poor people and poor countries. The optimistic claims about the inevitably progressive impacts of ICTs are untested empirically and flawed logically. When ICTs are introduced into a societal context already marked by substantial structural inequalities, whether global or domestic, then the dispersion of the ICTs are likely to follow these same structural patterns of inequality (see, for example, Heeks, 1999a; Castells, 2001).

Even if developing countries gain from ICTs, can we be sure that the poor in these developing economies will benefit? In general, the logic of ICT inequality linkages is that when a new technology is introduced into a social setting where scarce resources and opportunities are distributed asymmetrically, the greater likelihood is that those with more resources will employ them to gain additional ones, including ICTs (Freire, 1999). Poor countries have much lower levels of human capital than rich countries.

They therefore have fewer people with the capacity to work with and benefit from ICTs. These few are likely to benefit disproportionately from ICTs. Meanwhile, the groups of disadvantaged individuals who have not had access even to basic levels of education are likely to be out of the race from the start.

The potentially devastating impact which unequal ICT access has for people of the South should not be underestimated, and yet neither should the equation of technology and development be accepted uncritically. Rather than creating ‘new’

dimensions of inequality and poverty, ICTs may actually exacerbate existing inequalities (McConnaughey & Lader, 1998). Yet it is not only a lack of access to the technology which is perpetuating existing inequalities; it also has to do with what Buffoni (1997) calls capabilities, i.e. the skills and resources (meaning not only the economic resources but also cultural and social resources) necessary to enact this access. Yet training people to use technologies in isolation from an identified need or desire to use such technologies is proving just as pointless as providing disadvantaged groups with the hardware and software to do so (Loader, 1998).

The key issue for both governments and donors is to ensure that ICT access reaches even the most marginalised groups, while at the same time ensuring that ICT projects meet the needs and demands of the target population. Under what conditions can ICTs be progressive and contribute to greater social equality? The cardinal challenge is to learn how to deploy ICTs reliably to promote human development in a sustainable and equitable manner. ICTs can play an enabling role in the alleviation of poverty, but will be of greatest value as a technology to provide information from and about the poor. ICTs may have a greater role to play in giving ‘voice’ to the poor;

that is, in making the poor information providers more than information recipients.

There is a general assumption within much writing about ICTs that the poor are merely recipients of technology, information and knowledge. Yet poor communities all produce their own information and knowledge. ICTs can play a positive role by allowing that information and knowledge to be more widely disseminated.

Madon (2000) argues that research on indigenous communication has concentrated on using indigenous channels to promote exogenous (increasingly ICT-based) innovations rather than on the dissemination of indigenous knowledge among communities. This has led to neglect of local initiatives in the design of development efforts and threatens the erosion of indigenous and informal systems due to the influence of formal, ICT-based, Western-oriented information systems. Alternative strategies must therefore focus not primarily on the technology per se, but on the

political relations that shape its social insertion, that is the actual control of both information systems and content.