Ref - Development 2.0: New ICT-Enabled Development Models and Impact July 12, 2010

Reference Development 2.0: New ICT-Enabled Development Models and Impact

Thank you Richard for your interesting article and related questions. I was  prompted to go to your original paper “Development 2.0: Transformative ICT-Enabled Development Models and Impacts”

The final paragraph there states "In the meantime, we can celebrate the fact that the foundations and assumptions of international development are changing. The tools for a digital economy are now - and will increasingly be -in the hands of the world's poor. Our view of them can start to migrate: from seeing them as victims to seeing them first as consumers, then producers then innovators of a digital age. And, as we do so, changing our views on the processes and structures of socioeconomic development: from Development 1.0 to Development 2.0"Cause for celebration indeed - especially Development 2.0 and related shifting assumptions and perceptions.

I would like to add one more role, which I think is very important. It is the role of "the poor" as consultants. I believe that development 2.0 should see the end of top-down projects and the emergence of genuine two-way flows of information. These would be neither top- down nor bottom-up flows of information. There would be a real shift of perception. The information would be seen as flowing across - from side to side - with both sides having equal respect for the other.

With the coming of Development 2.0, development interventions and research should be done "with" people - not "at" them.

To put it in plain language and over simplified terms - if "the poor" have got phones now, then why don't the researchers simply phone them up and ask them to provide information about how they are using their phones? And if the researchers don't know any of "the poor" then Development 2.0 should be about making those introductions and enabling the information to flow.

Obviously it's not that simple  - there are cultural barriers to cross, and so on - but the communication can and should be much more direct and two-way than in the past. This isn't just theory. In the practical world where I operate information is flowing in and out of rural areas much better than ever before.

Of course there will be those who say that treating "the poor" as consultants or collaborators can't possibly be done. Academia can't possibly pay "the poor" to give it the information it wants. There is no budget for accessing outside information like that. Money is tight and it is only available to access information in the traditional forms -  safely wrapped between book covers, or in journals, or coming fresh from the lips of other academics gathered together at International Conferences.

But this is the age of information, the age of the death of distance. ICTs are transformative and disruptive. Out of all the research communities it is the ICT4D research community that should be trailblazing the use of ICT in its approach to doing its research. All kinds of new opportunities are opening up with Development 2.0. Let us embrace them.

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In the interests of full disclosure - I'm co-director of Dadamac Knowledge Brokers (with John Dada). We introduce people to each other (mostly UK-Nigeria)and help them to do useful stuff together.