ICT4D Can Help Reduce Poverty - UNESCO Research Report - September 2004

Findings of a comparative research of local initiatives in the use of ICTs for poverty reduction spread across a range of communities in South Asia, including Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, and India are now available in a UNESCO publication entitled "Research on ICT Innovations for Poverty Reduction".

"ICT centres are not schools but they are widely understood in relation to and in contrast to school. They are different in approach and learning style, the technologies involve quite different activities and learning processes, and the range of activities and social connections frame ideas of knowledge and information very differently from school contexts. It is precisely this tension which allows them to reconfigure participants' experiences of learning and education." This is one of the many significant findings made in a the study. The publication is an outcome of about two years of rigorous innovation and research.

"When we began this work, we asked ourselves "If technology is the answer, what was the question?" Our investigation has been framed around assessing whether and in what ways and under what circumstances ICTs are a useful tool for poor. As we complete two years of this initiative, the learnings from the research have been many."- says W. Jayaweera, Director of UNESCO’s Communication Development Division, in the preface
to the book.

The UNITeS initiative both supports volunteers applying information and communications technologies for development (ICT4D) and promotes volunteerism as a fundamental element of successful ICT4D initiatives. UNITeS was announced by the United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, in his Millennium Report "We the Peoples: the Role of the United Nations in the Twenty-First Century" (April 2000). Read more about UNITeS.