ICT4D 2005-6

Lecture 3. Development challenges, the role of WSIS and the UN

Lecture outline

  1. The course: combining theory and practice

•Builds on previous work in first two years of degree course

  1. Your understandings of geographies of development

•Theoretical approaches of geographers?

•Practical differences made by geographers?

•Main aid modalities?

  1. Defining development

•Economic agendas

•UNDP HDI

•Sustainability

•Post-developmentalism

  1. Development as morality

•Making the world ‘a better place’

•Academic responsibilities

  1. Development practices 1995-2005

•Collapse of the former Soviet Union

•Washington Consensus

•Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs)

•Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

•Towards a critique

  1. Absolute poverty definitions
  2. Economic growth as a solution

•Dominance of budget support mechanisms in Sub-Saharan Africa

  1. DFID: a case study

•1997 and 2000 White Papers

•The 2002 Act

•DFID in practice

•2004 Annual Report highlights

  1. Global Interest in ICTs

•Late 1990s multiple interests

•Task Forces (DOT and UN ICT)

  1. The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)

•Geneva and Tunis Phases

•Principles

•Plan of Action

  1. Conclusions

Non-assessed essay

Write an essay of approximately 2000 words on one of the following:

  • Critically evaluate the role of donors in designing and implementing ICT4D programmes in Africa
  • Drawing on case studies from at least two countries evaluate the use of ICT in delivering the educational targets associated with the Millennium Development Goals.
  • Drawing on evidence from at least two countries, evaluate the contributions of open source and proprietary software solutions to development practice

Your essays should be submitted to me digitally by 2nd November 2005. If you wish to have feedback from others on the course before submitting the essays to me, you might consider posting them on the discussion forum.

Essential reading

You should be aware of all of these items. You do not necessarily need to read all of them, but you should at least skip through them, and you must visit all of the web-sites indicated. You might like to share comments about this material in the discussion forum. Items in bold really are essential!

DAC (2003) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) Donor ICT Strategies Matrix

DFID (2000) Eliminating World Poverty: Making Globalisation Work for the Poor. White Paper on International Development, Norwich: The Stationery Office (available at

DFID (2004) Departmental Report 2004, Norwich: The Stationery Office (Separate chapters available from

DFID web-site especially

  • History
  • About DFID

Gilhooly, D. (ed.) Creating an Enabling Environment: toward the Millennium Development Goals, New York: UN ICT Task Force (available at (copy in Reading Room)

ict4d.org.uk – donors and programmes page at

ITU – World Summit on the Information Society at

SciDev.Net(2005) The Millennium Development Goals: How Close are we? At

UN – UN Millennium Development Goals at

UN ICT Task Force especially

  • Welcome
  • Plan of Action

Unwin, T. (2004) Beyond budgetary support: pro-poor development agendas for Africa, Third World Quarterly, 25(8) 1501-1523

Relevant reading

Credé, A. and Mansell, R. (1998) Knowledge Societies… In a Nutshell: Information Technology for Sustainable Development, Ottawa: IDRC and the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development [available online at

DFID (2005) The UK’s Contribution to Achieving the Millennium Development Goals, London: DFID

Escobar, A. (1995) Encountering Development, Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Lafond, R. and Sinha, C. (eds) (2005) E-Commerce in the Asian Context: Selected Case Studies, Ottawa: ISEAS/IDRC [Available on-line at

McMichael, P. (1996) Development and Social Change: a Global Perspective, Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge.

Mohan, G., Brown, E., Millward, B. and Zack-Williams, A. (eds) (1999) Structural Adjustment: Theory, Practice and Impacts, London: Routledge.

Nicol, C (ed) (2003) ICT Policy: a Beginner’s Handbook, Johannesburg: Association for Progressive Communications (available at

Unwin, T. (ed) (1994) Atlas of World Development, Chichester: Wiley (especially Section 1, Definitions of development and historical context’)

Unwin, T. (1999) The end of the Enlightenment? Moral philosophy and geographical practice, in: Proctor, J.D. and Smith, D.M. (eds) Geography and Ethics: essays in a moral terrain, London: Routledge, 263-274

Williamson, J. (ed.) (1990) Latin American Adjustment: How Much has Happened?, Washington DC: Institute for International Economics.

WSIS (2003) The Geneva Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action, Geneva: WSIS (in Reading Room)

The Millennium Development Goals

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

  • Reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day
  • Reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger

2. Achieve universal primary education

  • Ensure that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling

3. Promote gender equality and empower women

  • Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015

4. Reduce child mortality

  • Reduce by two thirds the mortality rate among children under five

5. Improve maternal health

  • Reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio

6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

  • Halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS
  • Halt and begin to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases

7. Ensure environmental sustainability

  • Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes; reverse loss of environmental resources
  • Reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water
  • Achieve significant improvement in lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers, by 2020

8. Develop a global partnership for development

  • Develop further an open trading and financial system that is rule-based, predictable and non-discriminatory. Includes a commitment to good governance, development and poverty reduction—nationally and internationally
  • Address the least developed countries’ special needs. This includes tariff- and quota-free access for their exports; enhanced debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries; cancellation of official bilateral debt; and more generous official development assistance for countries committed to poverty reduction
  • Address the special needs of landlocked and small island developing States
  • Deal comprehensively with developing countries’ debt problems through national and international measures to make debt sustainable in the long term
  • In cooperation with the developing countries, develop decent and productive work for youth
  • In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries
  • In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies—especially information and communications technologies

Source: (accessed 5th January 2005)