Title: Is a non-Western path to Modernity via the Deployment of Information Communications Technology Possible in Africa?
Author: Peter A. Kwaku Kyem
Pages: 15 pp. 
Date (published): 11/03/2010
Date (accessed): 06/04/2010
Type of information: conference paper
Language: English
On-line access: yes (pdf)
Abstract:
Growing optimism in the development capabilities of ICT has led to calls for the deployment of the technology for development in Africa. However, past failures in technological intervention on the continent reveal that technology is insufficient when simply deployed under the status quo mix of development policies without engaging important sets of complementary structures and behaviors to support the adoption. A successful deployment of ICT in Africa will therefore require a rejection of the rationality which dominates development policy and reliance instead on creative strategies that are derived from local African beliefs and value systems. Also important is the nurturing of attitudes that intrinsically motivate Africans to engage ICT and permanently incorporate its applications into local practices. Accordingly, this paper examines the difficult question about why technological innovation has failed to thrive in Africa and then explore ways that Africans may configure viable competencies within local cultures to guide ICT deployment which can lead to lasting ICT benefits.

ICT and Development - Research Voices from Africa. International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP), Technical Commission 9 – Relationship Between Computers and Society. Workshop at Makerere University, Uganda. 22-23 March 2010