Creating a Development Dynamic: Final Report of the Digital Opportunity Initiative

The Digital Opportunity Initiative (DOI) is a partnership between Accenture, the Markle Foundation, and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) (click here for a Programme Description). In this report, the DOI examines the use of information and communication technology (ICT) to meet specific development imperatives at the national level in developing countries worldwide. While stressing that there is no 'one size fits all' approach, the report finds that the successful experience of some developing countries points to the need to avoid overly ambitious, top-down approaches and to secure multi-stakeholder involvement (especially at the local, community level). DOI suggests that forming strategic compacts and partnerships is a powerful strategy for creating consensus, enabling cooperative action, and tackling challenges. Multi-dimensional and multi-sectoral approaches, DOI claims, also support the movement of discussions about policy and institutional change out of particular sectors to the public realm.

The following excerpted material from the Executive Summary elaborates how and why ICT initiatives that have pursued these strategies have supported development goals:

"...The identification of, and continued focus on, both economic and social development goals is a key determinant of success. Solutions should also be realistic, flexible and sensitive to local conditions, and should be backed by strong public and private institutional support. Above all, there should be a strong commitment to local participation and the fulfillment of local needs, as well as political will at the highest level. Additional analysis of the approach to ICT policy taken by developing countries shows that ICT can play a significant role as part of an overall national strategy for development. In this respect, countries have pursued diverse strategies...

These varied experiences have revealed some important lessons about the role of ICT in development:

• An export focus can produce significant economic benefits, such as growth and foreign investment, but these gains do not automatically translate into progress on broader development goals.
• Building domestic ICT production capacity may address local needs and help strengthen domestic economic linkages, but it can significantly restrict countries' ability to adopt new technologies and to gain competitive advantage in the global economy.
• It is imperative to use ICT to improve the competitive position of a developing country in the global economy, but this may fail to meet some development goals if it diverts attention from fostering local markets and businesses.
• An explicit focus on using ICT in pursuit of development goals allows countries to achieve a wide diffusion of benefits from ICT and contributes to both broad-based economic growth and specific development goals.
• A number of interrelated factors should be addressed to maximize the benefits of ICT for development. These include building human capacity, creating incentives for enterprise, developing appropriate content and increasing competition, especially among telecommunications and Internet-related businesses.
• Finally, the success of national ICT strategies is dependent upon the coordination and alignment of efforts undertaken by all actors involved, at global, local and national levels.

Based on these lessons, the DOI has developed a strategic framework to help guide stakeholders in investing in and implementing strategies which take advantage of the potential of ICT to accelerate social and economic development. The framework consists of five critically interrelated areas for strategic intervention:

Infrastructure - deploying a core ICT network infrastructure, achieving relative ubiquity of access, and investing in strategically-focused capacity to support high development priorities.

Human Capacity - building a critical mass of knowledge workers, increasing technical skills among users and strengthening local entrepreneurial and managerial capabilities.

Policy - supporting a transparent and inclusive policy process, promoting fair and open competition, and strengthening institutional capacity to implement and enforce policies.

Enterprise - improving access to financial capital, facilitating access to global and local markets, enforcing appropriate tax and property rights regimes, enabling efficient business processes and stimulating domestic demand for ICT.

Content and Applications - providing demand-driven information which is relevant to the needs and conditions experienced by local people.

...Providing such strategic interventions are properly conceived and implemented, interaction between them has the potential to create significant multiplier and network effects. These can ignite a virtuous circle of sustainable social and economic development - 'a development dynamic'..."

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