A Thought About e-Development

The World Bank maintains a website on e-Development. The term was promoted within the Bank by Nagy Hanna, who championed information and communications technology for decades. Nagy has described the process by which the Bank's first e-Development project was developed in some detail in two books. Now there are another ten or so e-development projects under consideration by the Bank, in part because Bank clients are calling for those projects and in part because the experience with the first has overcome resistance within the Bank.

e-development has two possible connotations -- the development of the ICT related aspects of society (e.g. bundling e-government, e-civil society, e-business and ICT infrastrcture development) and using ICT as a tool within a holistic approach to social and economic development. How are the two related in practice in Sri Lanka?

It seems to me that both aspects take place. The experience in both Sri Lanka and India shows that the integrated approach to developing ICT infrastructure, human resources, and applications does lead to social and economic development. Certainly the Sri Lanka project by bundling these approaches achieved synergies that contribute to each of the sectoral objective.

It seems to me that e-Development is also an important strategy for more general development. Governments have become more transparent and oriented toward service to the people, and thus governance has improved. In India, the ICT-based private sector has become a motor for development, producing foreign exchange, employment and profits. Civil society organizations have been strengthened. All made possible in part by the increased penetration and quality of the ICT infrastructure.

Indeed, I think riding the wave of the Information Revolution has some significant advantages as an approach to social and economic development. Certainly programs to improve governance, to strengthen innovative sectors of industry, and to strengthen civil society are likely (in our modern world) to increase demand in each sector for ICT infrastructure and applications. But all to often tackling these problems head-on has proven ineffective. Sneaking up on the development objective through overt efforts at technological innovation may work better.

It seems to me that it is important that the Bank staff recognize e-development as an important approach to improving governance, building civil society and strengthening the economy -- the things the people on that staff are really interested in.