A background paper prepared for the DAC Network on Poverty Reduction. It provides a useful overview of definitions of ICT, pro-poor growth thinking and impacts on poverty
This paper brings together some presentations, key issues and recommendations emerged during the discussion in a side event organised by IFAD at the WSIS. The paper calls for greater emphasis on communication rather than on technology, and on the process and content rather than on access and machines. Effective ICT deployment must satisfy the need for ownership, local content, language, culture and appropriateness of technology used. Crucially, communication initiatives should aim at strengthening the capacities of rural people to participate in policy processes