Information communication technologies and the millennium development goals

This special issue of the Journal of Information Technology for Development focuses on specific cases of how information and communication technologies (ICTs) can facilitate the attainment of the millennium development goals (MDGs). As a result, perhaps we are subject to the criticism of jumping on the MDG bandwagon – “the juggernaut of all bandwagons” (Saith, 2006). However, consideration of how ICT can serve developmental objectives and goals opens crucial debates. For instance, there is realistic skepticism on whether scarce resources should be used on ICT expenditure when there are so many competing priorities and the infrastructure for the effective and efficient utilization of ICT is often substandard (Thompson & Walsham, 2010). So why a special issue on the MDGs? We are nearly two-thirds of the way to the 2015 deadline of achieving the MDGs and the attainment of these goals remains elusive or “off-track.” ICTs have potential to contribute to meeting the MDGs as part of the MDGs themselves (Goal 8, Target 18) and/or impacting the achievement of other MDGs. ICTs can be used to more effectively tackle the MDGs through improved monitoring and surveillance systems on progress toward the MDGs, improving economic growth and reducing poverty, and more efficient and effective provision of basic social services (UNDP, 2008). However, the first full articulation of the MDGs (UN, 2000) was criticized for portraying a very narrow agenda for development. For example, MDG 1 can be critiqued for reducing poverty to those below the US$1 a day income poverty line rather than inability to meet basic needs (Saith, 2006). Relative poverty positions and structural inequalities are not addressed. Additionally, it can be argued that like the precedents to the MDGs, they are subject to the same criticism – the MDGs remain hegemonic (“one-size-fit-all”). They were imposed by the north and are “denying developing countries the very paths to development that industrialised countries used” (Heeks, 2005, p. 9). Additionally, the measurement of progress, or lack thereof, toward the targets imposes huge data requirements on developing countries, in addition to requiring some form of baseline to start with. But, commitments to improving and assessing progress on human development are to be welcomed. The critiques above largely pertain to the reduction of the MDGs to these targets when assessing progress in development. To obtain a more accurate picture of the global developmental landscape necessitates an awareness of embedded structures, the influence of global and national economic, social and political powers and recognition that development is a global, not a developing country, issue. The papers in this issue illustrate that a contextualized, multi-disciplinary and multi-leveled approach to MDG attainment is required. Achieving the MDGs is not just a matter of measurement of the targets, but recognizing and integrating the social and cultural dimensions of development into an assessment of progress and embracing the opportunities ICTs can offer. The socio-technical focus of all the papers interrogates the goal-oriented vision of the MDGs and the complexity of assessing development through the measurement of the targets for each of these goals. Deeper understanding of the institutional logics embedded in ICT and information