This document discusses how information and communication technologies (ICT) can promote development. It outlines how ICT facilitates knowledge sharing, enhances economic growth through greater competitiveness and business opportunities, and improves delivery of social services. However, barriers like lack of infrastructure and digital literacy have led to a "digital divide". Countries must provide the proper regulatory environment and support digital literacy training, especially for small and medium enterprises, to ensure both developed and developing countries can benefit from ICT.

1. ICT for Development
Content Borrowed from the World Bank

2. Outline
• ICT and Development
• The Regulatory Environment
• Reality check
• Concluding remarks

3. Knowledge makes the difference between
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Thousands of constant 1995 US dollars
Rep. of Korea
Ghana
1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000
Difference
attributed to
knowledge
Difference due
to physical and
human capital
poverty and wealth
Source: World Development Report, 98/99

4. Knowledge Changes the Development
Process
 Creation and effective use of knowledge are key to rapid economic
growth
 ICT is changing the terms under which knowledge can be created
and disseminated:
- ICT facilitates the process of codification and transmission of
knowledge about technology;
- ICT enhances the positive learning externalities of knowledge
generation by magnifying the possibilities for recombination of ideas
and information;
- ICT dilutes the “tyranny” of geography by providing new ways for
researchers to escape national boundaries. The rate of international
co-authorship of scientific and technical papers, for example, has
increased significantly over the last decade;
- ICT increases the “distribution power” of innovation systems,
diminishing the time to market of new products and services, while
enhancing the dissemination, application, and use of “mature”
technologies.

5. But can ICT be of any help in LDCs?

6. ICT and development
 ICT and Economic Growth
- enhanced competitiveness
- increased business opportunities
- access to market for rural communities
 ICT and Improved Delivery of Social Services
- health/education/environmental/microfinance services
- reducing vulnerability to natural disasters
 ICT for Greater Transparency
- improved efficiency on government procurement
- reduced corruption
- increased civil society participation
 ICT for Empowerment of the Poor
- allowing the poor to better communicate their concerns

7. The concept of sustainable development
Economic
Sustainability
(productivity)
Social
Intergeneration
Sustainability
(equity)
Environmental
Sustainability
(protect/enhance
natural
resources)
Concerns

8. Digital divide
• Infrastructure (income levels, rural vs. urban)
• Digital literacy (barriers to absorption of IT)
• Content
• Gender
• Large companies vs SMEs…
• E-business practices

9. Regulatory Maze
• Telecommunications and Banking

10. The regulation maze
Layers of
communication
systems
Layer
characteristics
Relevant
regulations and
policies
Relevant fora for
international
negotiation/coordi
nation/debate
Content layer Services, images,
and applications
transmitted by the
network
Cyberlaws, taxation,
IPRs, consumer, privacy
and data protection,
competition law,
content regulation, trade
policies
WTO, OECD,
WIPO…
Code layer Protocols and
software that make
the network run
Internet governance,
competition policy,
IPRs, standards
ICANN, ISOC,
ITU, WIPO…
Physical
infrastructure layer
Wires, cables,
computers,
satellites… across
which bits of
information travel
Telecom regulation,
competition policy,
IPRs, trade policies,
standards and Now
Banking
WTO (BTA, ITA),
ITU, WIPO…

11. Reality check: implications for
developing countries
• Infrastructure: rapid improvement but major gaps
in coverage/affordability
• Regulatory environment: progress + complexity
(cyberlaws, security, PKI, IPRs, content
regulation, e-payment infrastructure, privacy…)
• Digital literacy: institutional constraints in the
educational sector + IT HR development at firm
level
• Content: localization/relevance/IPRs

12. Concluding remarks
• E-business and ICT use will continue to expand on a
global basis and their benefits can be substantial not only
at firm level, but also in promoting trade and enhancing
productivity at a macro level;
• Convergence in e-business practices can happen
(developing countries and industrialized countries, SMEs
and large enterprises), but …
• Unless governments provide the proper regulatory
environment for private action and support efforts to
expand digital literacy, with special attention to the needs
of SMEs, the digital divide between the developed and the
developing world, at the level of business practices, will
widen.

13. Concluding remarks (cont.)
• More evolution than revolution, but potential for
significant distribution impacts (within nations and
internationally), particularly, as e-commerce practices
spread.
• Importance of keeping in focus the implications of the
regulatory environment for innovation
• Cross-border disputes will also expand in the absence of
regulatory convergence (no hope for advancing this
agenda in a significant manner in the WTO in the near
future ).