International Plans and Experiences in Strengthening the Role of Information and Communication Technologies on Rural Development with an Emphasis on Iran

Abstract

One of most important issue of information and communication development all over the world is serving information and communication technologies to rural and out of the way areas. Therefore, any solution that could reduce information accessibility distance between city and rural areas is considered valuable and in consistent with information society development. Thus, communication and information technology ministry contemplate special plans for rural information technology development. In Iran, It had been planned to provide minimum necessitous access to communication and information technologies for 10000 villages till the mid of 2005. For this purpose, required funding had been assessed and its administrative and managerial structure has been designed. In addition, it was expected that till the end of forth Development Plan, 20000 villages should be benefit from communication and information technology services. Nowadays, the issue is not using or not using these technologies, but the issue is how to use them and their implementation in different social and economic areas so that maximum profit obtains from these technologies. Nowadays domination on digital gap is one of most important issues of developing countries including Iran. Rural areas are exposed to digital gap more than other areas. These areas deprived from most of the development indicators (such as education, welfare and communicational facilities and occupation) and this deprivation maybe get severe with the emergence of newer information technologies in comparison with urban areas. This maybe led to peasants' migration to urban areas for acquiring better social and economic positions and thereby survival of villages faces with more challenges than before. In addition to the mentioned threat, information and communication technologies provide a unique opportunity for bridging the existing gap between undeveloped and developed areas. If villagers could catch this opportunity and use the information and communication capabilities and potencies, not only their survival are not faced with mentioned threats but also villages become dynamic and productive areas that warrant food security of society. Therefore, in present study the role of deploying ICT services centers in Iran investigated. Operational definition of words 1-2-1- Information and communication technology (Curtain R., 2002) Information and communication technology is defined as a series of methods and technologies that are used for facilitating and implementation of production, collecting, organizing, storing, retrieving and broadcasting process of information, providing that two