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It is widely believed that modern technologies such as Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for Development (ICT4D) provide important innovative intervention instruments to help achieve food security in Africa and elsewhere in the Global South. This idea is a key tenet of development policies promoted for several decades by Global North/West governments, but one also finds it widely reflected in policy circles in the Global South. In this Chapter, we take a critical look at the potential, promises and actual results of advanced technologies and their effects on agricultural value chains and rural development. We do so by examining failures and successes of a range of recent ICT4D projects in which the present author has been involved. We contrast failures and successes in ICT4D projects so as to identify the main differences that characterize those that succeed versus those that fail. While in some cases success seems coincidental or by chance, there are highly persistent underlying reasons that distinguish failure from success. Accordingly, based on long-term field experiences, I formulate what I call the ICT4D Plug-in Principle. Its two keypoints are: (i) collaborative: advanced technology needs and interests are to be formulated from the ground up by local rural communities, mediated properly by ICT designers by using appropriate participatory action research methodologies; (ii) contextual: the “innovative” interventions foreseen by advanced ICT technologies must fit (or “plug-in”) appropriately to existing human information and communication patterns and habits as exhibited by local communities, and it is an ICT designer job to secure this. I discuss both the more-than-established ICT technologies such as radio as well as consider the now fashionable Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies for their potential and usefulness in the Global South. Deliberately following our formulated ICT4D Plug-In Principle is a way to ensure that ICT projects, whether traditional or advanced, especially those that target improvements in food security and rural livelihoods, are truly for development (4D).

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Rural Development and the ICT4D Plug-In Principle for Information and Communication Technologies

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  • 发表日期：

    2025年

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  • Francis Saa-Dittoh

摘要

It is widely believed that modern technologies such as Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for Development (ICT4D) provide important innovative intervention instruments to help achieve food security in Africa and elsewhere in the Global South. This idea is a key tenet of development policies promoted for several decades by Global North/West governments, but one also finds it widely reflected in policy circles in the Global South. In this Chapter, we take a critical look at the potential, promises and actual results of advanced technologies and their effects on agricultural value chains and rural development. We do so by examining failures and successes of a range of recent ICT4D projects in which the present author has been involved. We contrast failures and successes in ICT4D projects so as to identify the main differences that characterize those that succeed versus those that fail. While in some cases success seems coincidental or by chance, there are highly persistent underlying reasons that distinguish failure from success. Accordingly, based on long-term field experiences, I formulate what I call the ICT4D Plug-in Principle. Its two keypoints are: (i) collaborative: advanced technology needs and interests are to be formulated from the ground up by local rural communities, mediated properly by ICT designers by using appropriate participatory action research methodologies; (ii) contextual: the “innovative” interventions foreseen by advanced ICT technologies must fit (or “plug-in”) appropriately to existing human information and communication patterns and habits as exhibited by local communities, and it is an ICT designer job to secure this. I discuss both the more-than-established ICT technologies such as radio as well as consider the now fashionable Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies for their potential and usefulness in the Global South. Deliberately following our formulated ICT4D Plug-In Principle is a way to ensure that ICT projects, whether traditional or advanced, especially those that target improvements in food security and rural livelihoods, are truly for development (4D).