Informational Capabilities: The Missing Link for Understanding the Impact of ICT on Development
partnerships with the community-based and civil society organizations working in their project area. The fourth step of the impact chain analyzes the conditions that have to be met so that a person’s meaningful ICT use enhances her or his informational capabilities. This step is essential because the extent to which ICT programs succeed in enhancing people’s informational capabilities is the most critical factor determining the impact of ICTs on poor people’s well-being. The concept of ICT capabilities encapsulates a person’s ability to make efficient use of computer hardware, software, and ICT tools; the concept of informational capabilities is an information-centric approach, deemphasizing the role of technology and people’s ability to use these tools. It includes four components: ICT capability, information literacy, communication capabilities, and content capabilities. The impact chain emphasizes that the conditions under which people’s meaningful uses can be transformed into enhanced informational capabilities depend on the extent to which they can (a) enhance their capabilities in all four dimensions of informational capabilities, (b) strengthen their existing informational capital, and (c) enhance their individual and collective agency in the use of information. A critical factor in reaching this step is the local appropriation of ICTs by communities, as facilitated by an effective and local intermediary. In fact, the intermediary organization (ICT program) is the variable that has the strongest influence on people’s informational capabilities. Grassroots-level programs, in particular, are significantly more successful in enhancing people’s informational capabilities than are programs led by government. NGOs have often been relatively unsuccessful in reaching this objective. To succeed, ICT programs need to stress the role that information plays for development in general and thus focus on enhancing people’s informational capabilities. A critical aspect of informational capabilities is the concept of information literacy, which emphasizes a person’s ability to collect, process, evaluate, use, and share information with o thers within her or his own sociocultural context. One of the key lessons from many ICT programs is that most of the difficulties poor people have encountered in using the Internet are related to the analysis and interpretation of information rather than the use of technology itself. Grassroots ICT programs have demonstrated that it is possible for people with relatively limited formal education to enhance their information literacy skills if intermediary organizations provide hands-on support, guidance, and specific capacity-building activities on issues related to the interpretation of information instead of focusing solely on training participants in the use of technological applications. Government programs frequently overemphasize technology itself and provide little guidance on issues related to the use, processing, and evaluation of information. These programs frequently fail to place the use of ICTs into the local sociocultural, economic, and political context and thus fail to improve people’s information literacy skills (Gigler 2009). A good example of the critical differences between ICT capabilities, meaningful use, and enhanced informational capabilities is the use of ICTs (Internet and community radio) to improve small-scale farmers’ access to market prices. Closing the Feedback Loop • http://dx.doi.org/10.1596/978-1-4648-0191-4
33