Information and Communications Technologies in Developing Countries

Abstract

It has long been recognized that radical technological change based on microelectronics technology is having and will continue to have far-reaching consequences for developing countries. Information technologies have provided the means for economic, institutional and technological changes that are altering world-wide patterns of production and distribution. Developing countries’ insertion into the global economy is deeply bound up with the new technologies, and the efficient use of information technologies by these countries is on the policy agenda of all important international forums concerned with development. On the other hand, the 1980s and early 1990s — during which period information technologies have diffused rapidly in the developed world — have witnessed a dramatic increase in the gap between rich and poor countries. We live now in a more divided world, ‘a world where OECD nations, Triadic-grouping, Multinationals or whatever, constitute ‘a partially-integrated whole’ and a greater majority who are without, or excluded’.1