Development Through Electronic Networks

What do developing countries have to do with modern information and communication technologies (ICT)? This question, which has often been discussed but has rarely been explored in any detail, will be addressed in this book with respect to sub-Saharan Africa in particular, a region of the world that faces considerable obstacles to development. The focus will be on Internet use, something which requires an especially large number of prerequisites to be met. Significant hurdles still exist in this region that make it difficult for modern ICT, and the Internet in particular, to be used in a way that promotes development. The results of the study, which was based on a diverse range of materials and also entailed research at the local level, point not merely to the potential of ICT for development, however, but also reveal that the Internet is already being used in a wide variety of ways and is currently undergoing dynamic development. The information society in this region of the world needs to be expanded; such expansion would offer significant opportunities, not only with respect to the fields that formed the main focus of this study (democratisation, the economy, education and research). A further section of this volume is devoted to proposals for political responses and for the promotion of development through electronic networks.