Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have emerged recently as an area of increasing academic interest alongside the rise of the internet. Donor agencies have focussed mainly on Information Technology (IT) in the form of Tele-centres. This approach is mainly focuses on IT, and so brings with it problems of outreach and literacy that are associated with the particular medium. The potential of other available media such as radio, video and telephony are thus neglected. Also underemphasised are development discourses on appropriate technology and empowerment. This discussion hopes to attempt to address the role of ICTs in development with an integrated "multi – media" approach, taking into account the discussions on appropriate technology and empowerment.

The potential role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in development: A first glimpse

"Give a man a fish and you can feed him for a day. Give a man a fishing rod and teach him how to fish, and you can feed him until the fishing rod breaks. Teach a man to fish, and then how to make a fishing rod from locally available materials, then he will eat for as long as there are fish to be caught. Organise the man and his neighbours into a common pool resource management scheme and they will be able to fish at sustainable levels. Support them in organising themselves, and they will be able to decide if they wish to earn their livelihood by fishing, or by some other means."

This adaptation of the classic development anecdote "teach a man to fish," loosely parallels the history of debate on local agency and empowerment within development discourses. From the direct provision of welfare services to the provision of the means of production; From the debates on local institutional and ecological sustainability to discussions on political and social empowerment, for practitioners the problems encountered in development have often centred on how to provide not only for immediate needs, but for the more strategic aims of increasing people's control over their own lives. This dissertation will attempt to explain how "appropriate" information and communication technologies (ICTs), as a component of supporting people in organising themselves, have a key role to play in development.

Defining and analysing ICTs

Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) are sometimes defined as being distinct from media. This I believe is an attempt to distinguish ICTs from mass media, which are far more centralised and far less interactive in character. I believe that an integrated approach to information handling is required, due to the growing convergence between techniques (See TIME web-site in General web references.) I will include media such as radio, video and telephony within my definition of ICTs, and take the level of centralisation involved in techniques as a criterium for the analysis of them. Print based media will also be referred to somewhat, despite the severe limitations that literacy levels place upon their outreach. I use the term Information Technology (IT) to indicate that I am talking about computers, laptop or desktop, without reference to their connectivity to the internet or lack of it. I use the term internet to include certain commonly used internet services such as the use of email and the world wide web. It should be borne in mind that other services may become increasingly significant in the future. I define a "technique" as a technology along with the accompanying skills for using it, including to some extent, maintenance and repair. The context of social relations and institutions in which a technique has evolved, and is inevitably formed by, is not included in this definition, and is described as a form of "social capital." (see dedicated section later on in this chapter.)

Participation and Empowerment: The implications of viewing information as a form of consensus.

Within the discourses on development, the problems surrounding agency and empowerment in development have been discussed within the context of the "participation" of "recipients" in "development projects". All of these terms have proved problematic, partly because they are seen to contradict one another in certain circumstances. One particular area of controversy has been the extent to which one can say that "recipients" can, wish to, or really do participate in an effort that is most often initiated by outsiders, and is, more often than not, planned by them. Rahnema takes Paulo Friere's concepts of "empowerment as conscientisation" as a starting point for a critique of how participation was and is often practised within development circles. (Rahnema in Sachs, 1992) Friere's ideas centre around developing the critical faculties of oppressed groups, by engaging them in discussions as part of a communicative style of teaching within a literacy program. This was partly to empower them to access printed information. The core of his philosophy centred on the ability of these groups to articulate, reflect upon and then criticise their situation as the precondition for them organising to improve their situation. He frames empowerment as the awakening of such an articulate critical consciousness (Friere, 1970).

Rahmena points out that whilst participation has served to restore legitimacy to the development sector after its dismal early record of achievement, especially in terms of poverty alleviation, consciousness raising and empowerment amongst participants has not really occurred. Friere's aim was to allow people to deconstruct the ideologies internalised by the oppressed that rendered them helpless within their own minds. Rahnema points out that development practitioners seldom examine if they carry such oppressive ideologies within themselves, and so are prone to merely replace one sense of helplessness and dependency amongst "recipients", with a sense of helplessness and dependency centered around them as a powerful outsider.

Rahnema's critique highlights the problems of facilitating local agency. This is greatly dependent on a practitioner's personal qualities, especially their understanding of their own influence on, and responses to, power relations, making the process very hit and miss. He advocates that such conscientisation be led from within to prevent the power distortions created by the presence of outsiders. Unfortunately this critique seems to set up outside intervention of as being fundamentally incompatible with empowerment ( for more on this theme and the central role of communication in such problems see Hobart, 1993 and a response from Grillo, 1997 ). His solution ignores the fact that dis-empowerment may be a very entrenched phenomenon within the power relations local to the group, making such spontaneous empowerment unlikely. It does, however, indicate the possible value of a more "hands off" approach.

David Mosse engages with the issue of local power structures in the context of participatory community development exercises, which come under the heading of "Participatory Rural Appraisal" (PRA.) He points out the danger of assuming that the "informal" approach taken by outsiders in PRA will lead to a relaxed and open discussion involving the whole community and leading to an unbiased view of local conditions. He points out that, regardless of how practitioners behave, a gathering of the whole community in a public space to discuss issues that may affect the future material wellbeing of the group is bound to create a highly formal context, where the opinions of dominant members are very likely to be adhered to. Those in a less powerful position, especially women and poorer members, are likely to be inhibited from expressing their opinions in a public domain. Whilst such reticence might be overcome by a successful PRA process, he also points out that by putting the community on the spot in this way, the legitimacy of dominant groups might be enhanced: They may well be perceived as the only agents able to "play" the situation to the best advantage of the community, especially where previous contacts with outsiders with "official" interests have been negative. This tendency for the formation of a rigid consensus in such a formal setting, tending to exclude the views of less powerful groups, is seen as damaging the chances of PRA outcomes leading to general benefit for the community. His opinion seems to be that the risk is very high for this consensus to reflect the private interests of dominant groups, leading to them being able to co-opt whatever resources are on offer (1994).

The issue of the articulation of local practise, and the formation of consensus lies at the conceptual core of this discussion. Information has been defined as a special form of knowledge that can be transmitted via media (including the spoken word). Such articulated knowledge is distinct from tacit knowledge which is possessed by an individual or group of individuals, but is not articulated in a way potentially comprehensible by others (Elliasson 1990). This is not a fully rigorous definition, but it serves to illustrate the relationship between information and consensus. Since the process of articulation almost always involves discussion with another, this is a process based on building a form of consensus, with all the political implications this involves. Where the other is from outside of an individual's "self identification groupings" (family, village, tribe, religious group etc…) there may then exist a process of representing that group to the outsider, with all the political implications that this carries.

Whilst social action within a group can be based on tacit knowledge, such shared "unspokens" suffer three disadvantages compared to articulated information. Firstly it is difficult to reflect upon and innovate around unspoken knowledge (Mosse, 1994) Secondly, as I have just outlined, it is difficult to represent such knowledge to the outside world, creating problems of political voice for the group. Thirdly it is hard to adapt and adopt new knowledge where existing knowledge(s) remain unspoken, as this limits the scope for comparison, and so makes it hard to integrate the new knowledges into the local context. The articulation of tacit knowledge into information carries with it the potential for three new types of empowerment, or, in other words, three new potential avenues for "capacity building." (See chapter 3, the role of intermediaries for more on this.) I will call the ability to reflect on practise and bring about change as "critical capacity," the ability to represent local knowledge to "others" as "political capacity" and the ability to fit new information from outside the community into existing practise as "learning capacity." These formulations might seem self evident. However by framing them in this way, attention is drawn to the power dynamics within the formation of knowledge. In addition, by acknowledging this process of consensus formation, these processes are presented as being deeply interconnected and dependent on levels of participation in communication processes.

Writing about recent agricultural reform in China, Elizabeth Croll makes it clear that access to novel forms of information can actually reduce the level of dominance by elite groups, by providing alternative routes of mediation with the outside world. In pre-reform communist China an absence of markets led to an lack of information exchange of any lasting character between production units. As such the elites, or "cadres," had a monopoly on information from outside the production unit, and the giving of information was a major part of the "gift economy" by which they secured political control. With the economic reforms of agriculture, farmers were expected to make more production decisions for themselves, and had contact with markets, alongside a freer media environment. This combination of necessity and opportunity resulted in a plurality of information exchanges and contributed to a lessening of the cadre's relative bargaining power (Croll, 1994).

For women in particular the opportunities offered by new means of communication for representation, innovation and opportunity capture are great, since normally their exclusion from formal and public discussion can greatly limit these capacities for them. Of course such new channels of communication are resources that elites may wish to co-opt for themselves (see Chambers, 1983 : 164) but where such communication resources are specifically directed towards women, they may prove highly effective in empowering them. (See the section on the Grameen Village Phone in chapter 2 for a case situated discussion of women's empowerment through ICTs.)

Information, trust and social capital

Social capital and trust have been emerging as areas of interdisciplinary interest within the social sciences recently (see Fukuyama, 1995 for an early popular account). It has been a discourse that emphasises the associational role of Civil Society (based on voluntarism) in development as a counterweight to the State (based on coercion) and a basis for transactions within the market (based on profit) (Skidmore, 2001). Social capital has been loosely defined as the economic value deriving not from natural or individual human resources, but from the operation of social norms. This is a somewhat hazy definition, and is not consistently adhered to in the literature. Trust has also been conceptualised in a variety of ways (see Furlong, 1996) but the broad outline of the discourse centres around the role of social norms in reducing the risk of exploitative or opportunistic behaviour during transactions. This has economic value because it makes transactions possible without the costs of policing them through more formal instruments such as a legal system. More broad definitions have included the ability to take on new practices based on existing social practise. Since trust and social capital are derived from the build-up of social relations, it seems reasonable to wonder if ICTs might have a role in facilitating this process. In one attempt to quantify social capital (see Moser, 1998) the number of local language publications in an area was actually used as an indicator of social capital, since it is also an indicator of "civic involvement." This approach fits nicely with the view of information production and consumption as potentially empowering processes. Certainly some of the literature on ICTs has included discussions of "social capital" as being crucial to the failure or success of ICT applications (see the discussions in chapter 2 of Tele-centres and Village Pay Phones.)

Focussing the discussion

In this dissertation I am going to primarily focus on the role of grassroots empowerment via ICTs in the meeting of basic human needs, alongside longer term issues of empowerment . I will take the view on needs adopted by the human development report, primarily focussing on health, education and income ( for example, (UNDP, 1996.) I choose to focus on immediate needs for four main reasons:

Since part of the focus in this discussion is on local empowerment, the discussion will centre on the role of ICTs in Civil Society. However ICTs can also contribute to empowerment via the market. Generally the relationship between information and the economy has been a growing area of academic interest ( See Stonier et al., 1989 and Elliasson, 1990.) Market access has long been a problem for poorer communities. The lack of access to capital markets inhibits the start up of small businesses. The lack of access to markets to sell their products inhibits the growth of enterprises run by groups with less "social access" to those with purchasing power. Micro-credit has emerged as a response to the credit problem. One of the limitations on the provision of micro-credit was found to be the work-load of administrating many small loans (Yunis, 1999). This implies that ICTs may have a role to play in empowering groups in the information handling required. Indeed a web based platform for an existing micro-credit scheme is currently being set up in India ( see Credit Watch under general web references, click on "empowering through IT" in the frame on the left) although literacy may limit access to this.

As for market access, ICTs may have implications in accessing global markets via e- marketing on the internet. The know-net initiative addresses this need by providing online tutorials on web design, and information on where to obtain free web-space (see under general web references.) On a more local level, travel to markets is costly, in terms of time and cash, and possibly risky. As such, information on prices can reduce the risks of such journeys to market. It may also reduce the reliance on middlemen as the sole sources of market information, reducing the opportunities for exploitation to occur. Such "transparency issues" are also an important part of the long term function of ICTs, in allowing Civil Society to monitor and document the activities of the State, and so limit coercive activities. This issue will be taken up in the discussion on "ICTs, Civil Society, Social Capital and the State" in chapter 2.

Whilst needs such as education and health are traditionally met by the State, local empowerment to influence such provision is of a strategic nature, stemming from the development of political voice by a community, via the media, legal or formal political means. I will not deal with these issues within this dissertation, defining them as being too long term to fit into my approach. The issue of income provision by the State is relevant in emergency situations such as drought. The importance of communications in such situations has been explored (Dreze and Sen 1989.) I will not go into the role of Media and ICTs in emergency situations, except that they are seen as growing in significance, especially in relation to the growing usage of mobile phones.

This leaves us with "the role of ICTs in Civil Society as a means to basic needs provision" as our main subject matter, alongside the market oriented issues, transparency issues and local level empowerment issues mentioned earlier. I will start by examining case studies of existing ICT applications, evaluating the appropriateness of the techniques used, and questioning if they contribute to providing the capacities and meeting the needs that I have outlined above. Then I will define an approach to ICTs that I consider appropriate in terms of empowerment and the meeting of needs. I will then round up by examining the issue of evaluating the impact of information.