Geographic Diversification of ICTD Research

Based on a survey of 525 papers published in three ICTD-related conferences during the ten-year period between 2006 and 2015, we find that there has been a general trend toward increasing geographical diversification of ICTD research sites. This manifests as an overall decline in both absolute number and proportion of papers reporting on studies in India -- which retained the top spot throughout the interval of this analysis -- as well as gains in other countries such as Kenya and Ghana. In addition, we find that the total number of countries represented in the literature has also increased, leading to what appears to be a geographically broadening range of ICTD research activity. We offer several hypotheses to explain this trend's underlying causes.