Coordination, Convergence or Contradiction: Information and Communication Technologies for Integration and Development in Southern Africa and the Southern Cone

Abstract

Various factors compel different countries and regions to engage in bilateral or multilateral relations and cooperation. These interactions often require a forfeiture of both sovereignty and national autonomy in varying degrees. For some countries, such relationships have not been equal or bilateral in any real sense of the word. Historically, countries in the developing world were structurally connected with Western countries in a colonial or neo/post-colonial relationship of exploitation and dependence. However, in recent decades, there has been considerable push by contiguous countries to interact more systematically with each other through formal and informal structures of cooperation and horizontal integration. A significant motivation for interactions among many regions in the developing world is the need to reduce their dependency on primary commodity exports to global markets. There is an additional imperative for such regions to reduce their technological dependency on former colonial powers. Thus, information and communication technologies (ICTs) for integration and internal development should, logically, be mutually reinforcing. However, do policies in these areas share the same goals? Development can have multiple meanings, and it is possible that policy goals are not always the same. For instance, the adoption of ICTs to enhance national competitiveness in the global market might assume economic growth rates as the prime indicator of development.