Options for ICT-Enabled Development

Abstract

Business experience and literature suggests that mastering the use of ICT has become a core competency for pursuing competitive advantage and sustained growth in many industries and services (many to list, but for example, Fung et al., 2008). It is also likely to become a core competency in national development and in delivering public services, education, and training, and even microcredit and poverty reduction programs. In fact, “the innovation that is crucial to the future of well-being of the (east Asia and other developing countries) region is unthinkable without ICT” (Yusuf, 2003, p. 326). To realize this potential, the current focus on investment in physical infrastructure and hardware and on isolated experimentation and piecemeal implementation must be broadened and scaled up to address the enabling policies, institutions, infrastructures, and skills and to devise national strategies that are capable of agile adaptation and participatory social learning.