Information and Communications Technology Integration and Developmental Intervention: Enabling Knowledge Creation and Capacity Building in Developing Countries’ Organizations

Abstract

□ Some five years ago, the government of Mauritius decided on a national policy to convert the country's economy, then mainly based on sugar cane, textile manufacturing, and tourism, into one of information-and-communications-technology- (ICT-) enabled services and business process outsourcing. The promotion of ICT, embodied in the creation of a "cybercity," lies within the framework of an economic and social reengineering at the level of the whole country, to make Mauritius a cyber-island. In this context, I present the Lifelong Learning Cluster (LLC) of the University of Mauritius as a succesful initiative of ICT-based sustainable development. The LLC combines three resource centers of the university into an internal flexible organization, counting today 60 programmers, Web and multimedia developers, instructional designers, and distance and open learning lecturers. Without questioning the autonomy of the centers, or adding a layer of bureaucracy, the cluster provides the centers with the capacity to act as a whole, to do research, and to deliver graduate programs, but also to act as a developmental intervention unit, helping other units or institutions build capacity in all dimensions of technology-enhanced education (TEE): infrastructure, human resources, content development, content management, and content integration. In this article, I attempt to spell out strategies that can benefit efforts in building capacity in developing countries through comprehensive ICT integration and developmental intervention, placing special emphasis on the work at the University of Mauritius.