Development 2.0: Principles and Warnings for Leveraging Advances in Information Communication Technologies for Improved Development Efforts

Advances in Information Communication Technologies (ICT) have demonstrated tremendous potential for solving development challenges and improving development processes, culminating in the new Development 2.0. Many development practitioners have embraced ICT (particularly on Web 2.0 and mobile phone technologies and applications), which have become hot topics in both the development community and the policy community as they engage in development practice and dialogue. Despite this excitement, there lacks among the policy community a robust understanding of the powers and pitfalls of ICT in development, executed actions to back the excited chatter, and dissemination of this understanding to practitioners and policymakers alike. We conducted a literature review, interviewed experts, and engaged in discussion with leaders in international development and science and technology policy to provide an operational framework base in which to view ICT in development. This framework regards ICT as tools that support more effective and efficient community development actions and appropriate consideration of general guidelines, which enable better engagement across and within sectors and individuals. Flexibility and accountability are critical requirements pervading throughout the various actions and guidelines, which promote transparent, partnership-based, and sustainable development. We highlight the strengths and weaknesses of ICT to focus on the cautions to keep ICT access and distribution in context, understand the various levels of technologies and services, and dig below the surface as excitement about ICT increases and threatens to become a short-term solution. We offer ideas for specific programs that policymakers can implement to contribute to a more efficient and effective development process to ultimately support global human development, but stress the endless possibilities that can be explored with creativity and flexibility beyond what is proposed here.