INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIESA Newsletter of IFIP Working Group 9.4 and Commonwealth Network for Information Technology
| Volume 6, No. 2, April 1996 | Editor: Subhash Bhatnagar | |
| EDITORIAL COMMITTEE | CORRESPONDENTS | EDITORIAL OFFICE |
|---|---|---|
| S.C.Bhatnagar (WG9.4) Nick Manning (COMSEC) David Balson (IDRC) Mikko Korpela (WG9.4) |
Stewart Bishop
Richard Heeks Rekha Jain Shirin Madon Gerry Grant Tim Waema, University of Nairobi Victor Prochnik |
E.V. Narayanan Wing 4, IIM Ahmedabad 380015 India E-mail: subhash@iimahd.ernet.in |
I have in the past four months been a part of three international workshops discussing the potential use of IT for development. It appears that in most developing countries, we find that the administration and managerial climate is not conducive for exploiting IT. Access to information is opening up for few privileged individuals via the Internet. However, access to local information continues to be difficult because of bureaucratic controls. In India, in a small town called Beawar, a unique movement is taking shape. Citizens, largely illiterate, and several NGOs have got together to demand that district administrators share information on expenditure incurred on development in their region. They are demanding xerox copies of such details for wider circulation. Initially, administration was reluctant to provide such information, but is finally relenting at a slow pace. The district administration made a variety of excuses such as non-availability of xerox machines in government offices as a reason for not supplying the information. Shouldn't one be surprised that district offices in India boast of computers and links to wide area networks whereas basic facilities such as xeroxing are not available? Clearly, the idea of using sophisticated technology to create development seems a distant dream. Yet the small town of Beawar is showing us the way as to what needs to be done to make government accountable and to place a premium on bureaucratic transparency. This may lead to rationality in decision-making, and significant use of IT in government may follow.
On a different note, I must confess that it has been somewhat difficult to bring out this newsletter as there were few contributions. We should be grateful to those who contribute regularly but the number of such contributors has been dwindling. Chrisanthi has raised the issue of inactive members in her column. Contributions to the newsletter could be an excellent way of demonstrating one's participation in the group. Since we continue to receive positive feedback on the newsletter, I presume that the effort put in to provide an article is worthwhile. I hope we will have many more contributions for the coming issues. I do hope readers will pick on a variety of issues concerning IT in development and write about them for the newsletter.
The next issue of the newsletter will be out in July, 1996. We are looking for the following types of materials.
We encourage serious articles proposing new paradigms/frameworks, but these should be written in a style that would appeal to the many different constituents of our readership. Please provide only essential references.
The above list is indicative. Please feel free to send any material which you think will interest our readers. Your contributions should reach us by June 15, 1996 preferably by E-mail: subhash@iimahd.ernet.in or by post to Prof. SC Bhatnagar, IIM Ahmedabad 380015, India.
Since this issue is being made available as a MS Word file as well, we hope many readers will opt to forgo receiving the printed version. Please send an email to advise us if we can stop the postal delivery to you.
Converted to HTML by Dr. David R. Newman, Queen's University Belfast.