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The age of globalisation has been defined in terms of access to modern information and communication technologies (ICTs) by some scholars. Scholarly debate about the role of ICTs as an agent of social organisation and transformation has raged on before and since, from discussions about the networked information society and consideration about the commercial potential of the technology to critiques of the systemic divides in organisation, access, use, adaptation and impact. Since these initial considerations, we find ourselves living in a world where ICTs have diffused widely to far-flung corners of the globe and are being deployed to confront some of the world’s most complex problems. Scholarly debates in domains such as the global digital divide continue, in which some argue that technologies such as mobile phones have led to the expansion of socio-economic opportunity for the developing world, to those who claim that inequalities remain, with resultant limitations on their societal impact. We focus here on notions of the impact of ICTs on international development, going beyond issues of access and use, well documented elsewhere.

This chapter highlights the near absence of research into the nonacademic impact of ICT4D research within the ICT4D literature. It draws on studies in international development to review the literature on the impact of research on development policy and practice and reflects on the implications for ICT4D research. Noting the cultural and professional differences between researchers and practitioners as well as their differing perspectives of impact, it goes on to describe the dominant themes in the literature. ICT4D research is characterised as lacking in certain respects, which would tend to inhibit its capacity for policy impact, but having overcome these, further adjustments to research conduct and culture are implied for such impact to emerge. Consequential recommendations include revised incentive structures for academic institutions as well as closer engagement between researchers and practitioners.

It was a cold February morning in 2010 when a select group of development workers assembled at Raamweg 5, The Hague. The motley group represented major sectors, themes, stakeholders, and continents in the Global South. Hosted by the International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD) and sponsored by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), they convened with a singular purpose in mind: to put their heads together and attempt to bring coherence to the information and communication technology for development (ICT4D) discourse.

There is a growing interest within researchers to find ways for their work to be relevant to society. The possibility of influencing policy is one option to catalyse change in the use of information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D). This paper proposes a set of questions to aid the ICT4D community in exploring the complexity of the policy processes where their research could be of use. The final aim is to better inform all stakeholders by understanding the context where they participate in policymaking. The main argument is that influencing policy requires intent from the onset of a research project and not only ex post communication strategies. After all, not all research can or should influence policy. In the case of ICT4D, the review of the existing literature shows that policy has not been an explicit area of interest in the domain due to the notions of “policy” and “development” that prevail. The framework developed in this chapter is aimed at allowing the research community interested in policy impact to take into consideration aspects of the policymaking process and to not only communicate results wisely but also identify meaningful and timely research questions and their connection with policies and pinpoint appropriate methods.

This chapter provides a review on the debate and latest literature around Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and its connection to poverty. The review first acknowledges the trend of global poverty, which today can be measured in a multitude of dimensions. This multidimensional poverty measurement approach has emerged within ICTs and Development (ICTD) research alongside a new contribution called “digital poverty”. When looking at the empirical linkages between the concepts of poverty and ICTs, the literature reveals heterogeneity in the measurement choices as to who are the poor and whether the poor have ICTs across developing countries. Yet in various cases where the poor have ICTs, some are found to be sensitive to changes of price and see variability within equity of affordability. Furthermore, only few studies have been able to show causal inference to make the micro-level impact linkage between ICTs and poverty. In reviewing this literature, we provide some of the major themes, gaps, and recommendations towards improving the understanding of ICTD and poverty.

After more than two decades of research on technological interventions in the transition to information societies, the burgeoning of mobile phones in developing countries has shifted the information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) research lens to the different domains of mDevelopment. While advances have been made in domains of mHealth, mGovernment, mBusiness and mEducation, mFinance initiatives have had impressive adoption upon implementation in certain geographic locations. Services such as M-Pesa have been widely reported in the mainstream press and form the test beds for various scholarly investigations.

This chapter presents an analytical framework to guide the assessment of information and communications technologies’ (ICTs) impact on individual-level development (or wellbeing). Based on the content analysis methodology, we argue that the amount of polysemy and lack of common basic guidelines in ICT’s research fields constitute one of the main barriers to both the incorporation of ICT into a broader research problems spectrum (outside the ICT researchers’ communities) and, consequently, to widen ICT’s impact research. After a synthesis of the historical development of the digital divide concept (a framework for the analysis for digital inequalities), we discuss and select some plausible analytical models to assess ICT’s impact on wellbeing. Based on Selwyn’s approach, we advocate the idea that every researcher testing an ICT-related hypothesis should analyse at least three stages of hierarchical digital achievements (access, usage and appropriation) plus one last divide stage: ICT’s outcomes (measured by the effect of previous stages on the dependent wellbeing variable). Finally, we propose some guidelines for the applications of this framework and present an actual case of use, showing how this framework guided the research design of this author’s SIRCA II’s project, which tested the effect of digital skills on education-to-work transition.

Scholars have argued that information and communication technologies (ICTs) offer many benefits for educational systems. These include innovative instruction, enhanced access to educational materials that allows for the reformulation of teaching through more flexible and interactive methods and facilitation of communication between stakeholders. ICTs have been increasingly recognized as catalysts in improving education in developing countries, with significant efforts being channelled towards development of educational applications for classrooms with the goal of targeting marginalized populations. The belief is that educational systems are instrumental in expanding capabilities and empowering individuals economically, socially and psychologically.

As there has been a considerable investment in ICT for development (ICT4D) initiatives, policymakers, practitioners and academics are calling for a more comprehensive and meaningful assessment of the impact of such initiatives. While the impact assessment of ICT4D can be carried out from multiple perspectives, the institutional lens is opportune in examining the softer aspects of the impact such as the behavioural, cultural, and social dimensions. ICT4D interventions juxtapose two institutional logics, that of designer and of the users, which may or may not align with each other. The impact of the initiative depends on how the interplay between the logics unfolds. We exemplify the importance of institutional context in impact assessment of ICT4D initiatives by examining the interplay of the institutional logics in the healthcare system. We conceptualise healthcare system in terms of the logic of choice, perpetuated by the ICT for health initiative, and the logic of care which is embedded in the core of the health system. The interaction between the two logics, in turn, determines how the intervention evolves. We arrive at a framework outlining the tensions arising from the interplay of the logic of choice and logic of care in the healthcare system when an ICT4D intervention is introduced.

This chapter examines the underside of the Philippine Information Society—the cybersex phenomenon. In looking at cybersex, we take stock of the Philippine ICT framework’s aim of building “a people-centered, inclusive, development-oriented Information Society” through the state promotion of Filipinos as “world-class” workers and citizens. We also look at how the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 complements this state policy aspiration. We argue that the cybersex phenomenon in the Philippines illustrates how institutional development strategies could inadvertently already marginalized sectors of society. We use the perspective of affective labour to argue that, because ICT-led development failed for these sectors, the response is an illegal service industry that also makes use of, if not feeds off of, the same technological infrastructure largely supported by foreign capital. Cybersex is a potent example of how the marginalized learn to transform conditions of exclusion and illegality into creative, practical, and thus, productive strategies of survival. Cybersex is not the solution to achieving a decent quality of life, but the existence, persistence, up to the embodiment of the workers of this phenomenon signifies that the State’s vision of ICT for development is not living up to its promise of socioeconomic upliftment; and through the institutionalized uses of technology, a culture of creative ICT use is constrained rather than promoted. Cybersex thus foregrounds some problematic ramifications of the present ICT framework and the institutional mechanisms supporting it. It puts to question the goal of inclusive development in Philippine ICT policymaking and legislation, hinting at the risks and repercussions of creating an information society under the neoliberal market economy. Addressing this challenge, we propose, begins with a reconsideration of cybersex as a form of ICT-facilitated affective labour and learning from the multifaceted narratives that constitute informal uses of ICTs.