Broadband Penetration Over Time: Data Visualisation with Google Motion Chart, Gapminder and Excel

I’ve entered the ITU data on broadband penetration for all countries from 1998-2008 into a Google Docs spreadsheet, and then added the Motion Chart visualiser.

To access the spreadsheet data and Google Motion chart, go to: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tuY4rmkYVhRxKCXiltg_obg&output=html

The screenshot below gives an example. Also given below are two screenshot summary graphs derived from overview data about diffusion rates for broadband, which can be found at: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tCyqBGWg0E8qg6qG77ltZ2g&output=html.

The most useful statistics are absolute growth rates (weighted by population), which show growth having peaked in 2005 for the richest fifth of nations, but generally still rising for the others. The percentage growth rates have been steadily declining, but mainly because those growth figures are insanely high in the first few years of broadband diffusion given the very low base they start from.

You can find similar visualisations that you can cross-match with a host of other data categories (demographics, economic/social development, and ICT diffusion) using World Bank data (http://devdata.worldbank.org/DataVisualizer/) or a graph I’ve created at Gapminder: http://bit.ly/78IWkN. But these don’t go up to 2008, and you can’t see or access the underlying data.

Note the dynamic visualisation charts will not show up on slower PCs or Internet connections.

For similar data visualisation of mobile phone penetration, see my earlier blog entry at: http://ict4dblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/30/mobile-phone-penetration-google-motion-chart-data-visualisation/

Mobile Phone Penetration: Google Motion Chart Data Visualisation

I’ve entered the ITU data on mobile phone penetration for all countries from 1998-2008 into a Google Docs spreadsheet, and then added the Motion Chart visualiser (the same engine made famous by Hans Rosling and TED, though they use the Gapminder Trendalyzer version).

Unfortunately, WordPress scripting rules mean I can’t post the active chart here. To access the spreadsheet data and Google Motion chart, you need to go to:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tUzZsw5SoG_jXRDl6p8tRCg&single=true&gid=0&output=html

Screenshots below give an indicator of how you can visualise the data. The chart offers three main means to visualise (bubble, bar chart, and line graph) via tabs at the top right. You can change the axes and element colouring/size, and highlight individual countries. For bubble and bar, the main point of the chart is that you can click play (bottom left) and show how things change over time. (Note playback speed variation control, and also the ability to drag over and zoom in on parts of the chart.)

Not sure it adds a lot of analytic value but it’s engaging, helps give a sense of some overall trends, and identifies some interesting outliers. (Some older PCs and low-bandwidth connections will struggle to display.) I’ll repeat for other ITU data in later posts. You can find similar visualisation for mobile, Internet and a host of other development data at: http://devdata.worldbank.org/DataVisualizer (though currently up to 2007 only, no obvious access to underlying data, and the mobile data display doesn’t seem to work properly).

Good Practice in ICT4D Research

What makes for good ICTs-for-development research?

The following represents a subjective answer – feel free to add your own ideas – based on reading and reviewing ICT4D research.  I draw out three good practices and three good ideas, which can be epitomised by Rob Jensen’s paper on mobile phone use by Keralan fishermen.

The Good Practices

a) Audience Focus and Dissemination: good ICT4D research identifies, focuses on and targets its particular audience.  Jensen is an academic economist.  He did this research and he wrote up this research for other academic economists.  He chose an appropriate channel – a leading economics journal – to reach that audience.  (And then reached much further through having the work summarised in The Economist.)

b) Conceptual Foundation: good ICT4D research is founded on and structured around some conceptual framework or model.  Without that, research struggles for coherence and consistency.  With that, it is more likely to make a longer-term contribution.  Jensen’s work is rooted in welfare economics theory, to which it also makes a contribution.

c) Rigorous Methods: good ICT4D research has a methodology, and rigorously applies appropriate research methods.  It also explains the methodology, methods and their application to its readers.  Good narratives about ICT4D wins hearts.  Good quantitative statistics win minds.  But too much ICT4D “research” falls down in between: methodology-less, wishy-washy qualitative data that wins nothing.  Jensen’s research avoids this: it has a rigorous quantitative foundation built on shed-loads of longitudinal field data.

The Good Ideas

d) Speaking to Development: one of the seductions of the ICT4D field’s growth is to publish in ICT4D journals for an ICT4D audience.  But one’s impact (and career trajectory!) can be greater if ICT4D’s parent disciplines are targetted.  Most who do this have chosen one of the fractions of informatics (information systems, human-computer interaction, computer science).  But longer-term impact of both research and ICT may be better-served by targetting development studies; the reference discipline for many of those working in development agencies.  Jensen speaks to development: by drawing in particular on the ideas of Joe Stiglitz, his research can be seen as part of development economics; and as work that can make a connection with economists in international agencies.  That’s why Jensen’s research is one of very, very few ICT4D studies that colleagues in development studies have heard of.

e) Researching Technology-In-Use: in his book, The Shock of the Old, David Edgerton argues we should not be so obsessed by novelty and by inventing new technology; instead we should look at the actual technologies already in use.  Much ICT4D research fails this test, reporting some new prototype or pilot; oftentimes in which the authors have themselves had a hand.  Jensen eschews this route.  He did not try to create any new technology.  He did not invent.  He did not seek to innovate.  Instead, he researched technology-in-use: the application of mobiles within a poor community to meet their particular needs (arguably an example of grassroots innnovation).

f) Researching Income-Generating Uses of ICTs: a fair chunk of ICT4D research looks at social development: health, education, governance, community empowerment, gender equality.  But the number one need of the world’s poor (there’s a clue in the name) is money.  Jensen focuses on this, studying the use of ICTs in productive micro-enterprise; investigating how mobiles increase income generation in poor communities.  It therefore tells us how ICTs can directly contribute to economic growth and poverty alleviation.

Can Mobile Phones Bring Financial Services to Africa’s Poorest?

Since MTN’s Mobile Money service was introduced in Uganda in March 2009, other network service providers – Uganda Telecom and Zain – have entered the market with similar money transfer products.  In the opinion of Richard Mwami, MTN’s Mobile Money head, “mobile phones have created a new battleground for banking”.  There is a strong belief that new services can transform the way in which the ordinary citizens of Uganda conduct their monetary transfers and payments.

MTN had 40,000 service subscribers by June 2009, with a relatively low average value for each transfer of US$35. A large proportion of these have been conducted ‘up-country’ outside of the capital city – Kampala; evidence that the service is attracting less well-off clients.  The true impact has yet to be empirically demonstrated.  However, a recent Working Paper from the University of Manchester’s Centre for Development Informatics provides some pointers to areas of potential and also possible constraints.  Given Uganda’s reflection of broader patterns in both financial services and mobile usage, this should also tell us something about the situation in other African nations.

The paper shows participation in financial services in Uganda falls into four categories:

• Those who access and make use of the formal banking sector and who may hold deposit or savings accounts (18% of the adult population).
• Those who access semi-formal micro-finance institutions or savings and credit co-ops (3% of the adult population).
• Those who participate in informal sector financial services – ROSCAs (Rotating Savings and Credit Associations), ASCAs (Accumulating Savings and Credit Associations) and other community-based savings clubs and funds (17% of the adult population).
• A fourth group includes all those who are financially un-served and they constitute approximately 62% of the adult population (aged 15 and over).

Interestingly, the proportions estimated for financial service access seem to strongly mirror that for mobile phones.  It is estimated that 20% of the adult population own a mobile phone, whilst 42% have access.  Thus, 58% remain without meaningful access (based on 2007 data).  This correlation between mobile phone ownership and formal sector financial service participation is also demonstrated in research conducted by Johnson & Nino-Zarazua (2007) who found that those who own a mobile phone are more likely to have a formal sector bank account by a factor of three than those who do not.  MTN’s Mobile Money subscribers account for approximately 1.4% of the 2.9 million adults that bank in the formal or semi-formal sector.  The make-up of the subscriber base is not known, but it might be assumed that all are mobile phone owners and a large proportion will already be banked.

The potential to expand the subscriber base for m-payments (and subsequently broader m-banking services such as accounts and credit) is large even among current mobile phone owners.  As the working paper suggests, though, the constraints may also be significant – particularly amongst the financially un-served.  These include:

• Lack of financial literacy – access to post-primary education is a key factor in building financial literacy (data from 2006 suggests that only 18.1% of the population attended secondary school).  Lack of literacy skills has been mentioned as a reason for lack of use of text-based services in Uganda where only 10% of the poorest wealth quintile use SMS compared with 82% of the richest.
• Affordability – service costs are relatively low: MTN’s Mobile Money charges as little as US40 cents per transaction; comparing favourably with services such as M-PESA in Kenya.  However, and despite strong declines, mobile usage and ownership costs remain high in Uganda.  To illustrate, consider the cost of 100 minutes of network use as a percentage of GNI (Gross National Income) per capita.  In Uganda this figure stood at 96% in 2007, compared with only 7% for South Africa.  Handsets are also far from affordable by the majority.  The extent to which the currently unbanked may be drawn into mobile phone ownership for the purpose of accessing m-payments services is likely to be highly price sensitive.  For poor households, it may depend upon whether expenditure on mobile phone services is prioritised ahead of other essential expenditure.
• Organisational factors – for access to cash-in and cash-out facilities the services of local agents become essential.  A key issue is not just the proximity of agents to communities that wish to use the service, but also trust in the individual agent concerned, as well as trust in the technology and the financial security of the service provider.  New entrants such as mobile phone operators may be an an advantage here.  In comparison, studies reviewed in the paper report a particularly low level of trust of existing financial service providers.

Reaching the unbanked will likely require ingenuity and innovation on the behalf of service providers.  In the first instance, there is a need to more accurately define the extent of mobile phone ownership and use among this group; given that these are ever-rising.  There is also a need to understand more fully how mobile phones are used by the poor.  Evidence suggests that mobile is more likely to be used as a tool to communicate and coordinate cash transactions, rather than to deliver funds electronically.  The extent and impact of use of airtime as a currency is also unknown.

If mobile networks are to facilitate cash transfers for the poor it will be necessary to enable access to services for those who do not own phones, and to those who do not have access within their immediate vicinity.  This will require an intermediated solution and effective participation and inclusion of appropriate community-based groups in m-payments initiatives.

ICT4D 2.0: Where Next for ICTs and Development?

Are we seeing a phase change in use of ICTs for international development?

The “ICT4D 2.0 Manifesto” (http://bit.ly/W6y4a) argues that we are; moving from phase 1 (late-1990s to late-2000s) to phase 2 (late-2000s on).

The paper outlines some of the emerging characteristics of ICT4D 2.0, based on research from the University of Manchester’s Centre for Development Informatics, and other sources.  Feel welcome to comment and add your own observations to this list:

a)    New Hardware Priorities: a need for innovation around low-cost, broad-reach terminals, telecommunications, and power.  A need to bring the hardware success story of the last decade – mobiles – even more centre stage.  The paper also discusses implications of broadband, cloud computing, and individualisation of hardware devices.

b)    New Application Priorities: the growth of participatory content creation, and the use of ICTs to create new income and employment for the world’s poor.  The paper also discusses implications of FOSS, and the growth of applications to address urban poverty, security, economic growth, and climate change.

c)     New Innovation Models: the growing need for – and potential of – innovation that moves beyond top-down, laboratory-type models.  This includes collaborative (para-poor) models that work alongside poor communities.  It also means greater attention to the grassroots (per-poor) innovation that is arising from within those communities.  The paper also discusses the new innovation intermediaries that are emerging in private and NGO sectors.

d)    New Implementation Models: based on the limitations of ICT4D 1.0 projects, there will be greater emphasis on sustainability, scalability and ICT4D project evaluation.  This will necessitate more process than blueprint approaches to implementation, and better techniques for closing design—reality gaps.  The paper also discusses new funding mechanisms and new organisation forms that are increasingly seen.

e)    New Worldviews: effective ICT4D 2.0 policies, strategies and projects will require “tribrid” champions.  They must understand enough about the three domains of computer science, information systems, and development studies to draw key lessons and to interact with and manage domain professionals.  Training programmes and working group formation must reflect this need.

The paper also discusses the need to move beyond ICT4D mainstreaming, to plan ICT4D policy structure and process as much as content, to engage with the growing “Development 2.0″ agenda, and to shape ICT4D research priorities accordingly.

Above all, it argues, ICT4D 2.0 will require a new worldview of the poor; no longer characterising them as passive consumers but, instead, seeing them relate to ICT as active producers and active innovators.

Attitudes to Science and Technology: Global South vs. Global North

Here’s an interesting piece of research on attitudes to science and technology in different countries from the Relevance of Science Education project that surveyed 14-16 year olds in 25 countries.  Countries covered were (roughly) low-income African (e.g. Uganda); low/mid-income Asian (e.g. India); high-income European (e.g. England).

There are three main findings:

- There is a significant inverse relationship between level of development (human development index score) and the rated importance and benefits of science and technology to society; though the decline from global South to global North is relatively small.

- There is a significant inverse relationship between level of development and desire to work with technology.  The differences are quite large: African and Asian youth are on average positively inclined; European youth negatively so.

- The gender gap in attitudes to science and technology is greater in industrialised countries than in developing countries; very significantly so in relation to getting a technology-related job.

There’s a generic conclusion.  Given the importance of S&T to economic growth, the global North is in big trouble unless it can keep importing science and technology graduates from the global South.

There’s specific conclusion no.1.  If you’re working on ICTs, focusing on ICT4D is a good bet: you’ll find a more receptive and faster-growing audience for research in developing countries; a more receptive and faster-growing training audience; and those might (er, ignoring the odd structural factor!) be more gender-balanced audiences.

There’s specific conclusion no.2.  Developing country audiences may be more techno-centric and less receptive to information systems-type approaches to ICT4D, which place less emphasis on the technology and which tend to be less optimistic about technology.

And there’s a question.  Why?  Why should it be that the poorer your country, the more positive you feel about and the more you want to work with technology?

Because you’ve been less exposed to technology?  Because you can see that technology makes a real, positive difference to your country’s problems?  Because . . . [fill in your answer here]

(My thanks to Roger Boyle for pointing out this survey.)

China Bans Gold Farming!! … Er … But In Fact It Hasn’t

The blogosphere has been awash with reports of the demise of gold farming (production and real-money sale of virtual currencies, items and accounts in online games), which is big business in China; worth US$1bn per year and perhaps more.  (Click here for the full analytical report on the history, size and trends in gold farming.)

A deep breath and a read of what was actually announced suggests otherwise.

This is a government restriction on the use of the quasi-Paypal-like currencies (mainly QQ coins) that are used extensively in China to pay for virtual game stuff.  As announced they can now only be used to pay for virtual stuff, and you can’t buy real things with them as game companies were allowing to happen, nor can you gamble.  This therefore is not about what gold farming clients do: use real money to buy these virtual currencies; it’s the mirror image.  And it’s not about the major trade in gold farming such as World of Warcraft, which relates to other types of virtual currency.  And it’s not about buying/selling in-game items.  And it’s not about the power-levelling of avatars.  Bottom line: it’s not about gold farming.

Two other things to say.  The Chinese government appears to be this very odd mixture of fantastically effective (think Olympic Games) and fantastically ineffective (think rules on piracy and intellectual property) when it comes to implementation.

Second, this mirrors quite closely something that happened in Korea around 2006 based around a game called “Sea Story”.  A huge amount of gambling and then illicit political payoffs arose around use of the Sea Story currency.  Government then banned trade in virtual currencies.  I’m not aware of any reports about damage to gold farming that resulted and – as might be the case in China – the legislation in Korea may have been as much about political posturing and being seen to be doing something (i.e spin) rather than an implemented reality.

Both these points remind us that announcement is not implementation.  If this regulation does come to fruition, it will relate to finance and defence of the RNB yuan.  Yes, it may affect some types of games in China but, no, it as yet appears unlikely to have much of an impact on gold farming.

Grassroots ICT4D Innovation

Innovation – especially that associated with ICTs – has often held to a rather traditional R&D model, with the innovation being undertaken in laboratories and research centres based in rich, urban locations.  Viewed from the perspective of those based in the world’s poor communities this is a top-down, outside-in approach.  ICT4D developed this way can often fail because of large “design—reality gaps“: design requirements and assumptions are inscribed into the technology which mismatch on-the-ground community realities.

A common solution to the problems of “laboratory innovation” has been “collaborative innovation”: research outsiders and community insiders working together in some way to develop a new ICT4D application.  Many donor-funded ICT4D innovations work in this way.  A key issue will be the nature of the collaboration and participation of community members: something that does not always run smoothly.

But the steady diffusion of ICTs and ICT-related skills into poor communities has enabled emergence of a third model.  This is “grassroots innovation”: innovation from within the community itself; akin in some ways to the patterns of user-led innovation identified by Eric von Hippel.

The design—reality theory of grassroots innovation is a positive one.  By creating innovation by and within poor communities, their design features will match community realities.  These innovations are therefore more likely to be successful.

That’s the theory, but what about the reality?  Where are the grassroots innovations in ICT4D?

These are questions that I’d invite you to comment on with pointers.

Some anecdotal ideas I already identified in writing about ICT4D 2.0 were:

• New processes e.g. beeping (or flashing) that allows a message to be communicated without the call being completed.  Street vendors use this to receive free “I want to buy now” messages from known customers.
• New business models e.g. use of airtime as currency has allowed mobile phones to metamorphose into mobile wallets.  Those who own phones in poor communities have therefore been able to use them for payments or for receipt of remittances from distant relatives.
• New products e.g. back-street rechipping of phones.  Informal-sector enterprises are emerging that strip and resell the circuitry from high-end phones, replacing it with basic calls-and-SMS-only functionality.  They then sell the resulting high-end-body-with-low-end-organs as a unique hybrid for those who want the latest look but lack the budget to match.

The 2009 IDRC PAN-ALL conference in Penang threw up another new product: the “wokbolic” which can dramatically increase the range of local wi-fi hotspots using a wok, a PVC tube, and some tin foil; doing the job of a parabolic antenna for around one-twentieth of the price.  See: http://bit.ly/CuTdU (Google Translate will make its usual “close but no cigar” job of changing the page from Bahasa Indonesia into English.)

These examples raise a couple of questions:

• How scalable are these innovations?  Beeping and airtime-currency have spread like wildfire; but others may be more limited.
• How grassroots are these innovations?  Some uses of mobiles that one sees are clearly developed by the individual users; but others like beeping are viral and came from who knows where originally; others still – such as the story of Pak Gun and wokbolic – are developed by those working with or within poor communities, but who themselves are not (or are no longer) members of those communities.

Nonetheless, as innovation goes hand-in-hand with diffusion, we can look forward to ever-more examples of grassroots ICT4D innovation.

Bill Gates and ICT4D

I thought I’d report on meeting, talking and listening to Bill Gates today at the ICTD2009 conference in Qatar (pitiful name-dropper though this may make me).

 

First, why does he matter to the ICT4D world?  Because he is financially influential via the Gates Foundation agenda, and the various relevant bits of Microsoft: Unlimited Potential, Community Affairs, MS Research Technology for Emerging Markets, etc.  And because he is strategically influential: when he talks, people listen.  His views on ICT4D therefore make a difference.

 

His views seem to have softened since the earlier notion that he had an “anything-but-ICTs” view towards development and the Gates Foundation agenda.  In fact, his underlying worldview probably hasn’t changed: he is very much metrics-focused, and thus will believe in, argue for, and invest in what he perceives to deliver the best quantitatively-impactful bang for his development buck.  That’s why health is a prime interest – not from any subjective or complex rationale – but simply because that’s where his money can have most measurable impact (in terms of quality of life indicators).

 

Back in the 1990s, when he started to become really engaged with development issues, ICTs had little to offer because the infrastructure was not in place.  Now they’ve become a more important part of delivering measurable outcomes in health, education and governance; they figure more in Gates’ agenda for development.

 

He, nonetheless, remains very un-hyped about ICT4D, recognising the failures, the pilots that will go nowhere, the applications that are not delivering.  And his strongly metrics-based view of development is challenging but also refreshing; particularly for those of us in an academic environment that can sometimes get itself wrapped up in a lot of qualitative and/or post-modern crap.

 

If I was to critique his position, that could potentially come from three directions:

 

i.             A metrics-based view of development can lead to various lacunae; for example, it could struggle to deal with issues like capabilities, rights, politics, and the like.  However, Gates at least has a decent grasp of governance issues.

 

ii.            He is focused on social and (to the extent of transparency) political development, but seems to have much less to say on economic development; despite the centrality of financial poverty to the development agenda.  We discussed this a bit and I was surprised by how antithetical he is to micro-finance, and hard to convince about ICT-enabled micro-enterprise.  It seemed to me the underlying issue here is – perhaps in line with the Jeff Sachs’ view of development – that Bill Gates is only interested in massive-scale solutions.  Again, it’s down to metrics.  Vaccines that can eradicate a disease for the entire world – good; ideas on micro-enterprise that might produce a few tens of thousands of jobs – less of a priority for his money and attention.

 

iii.          This is therefore a top-down, “big development” model.  It is looking for laboratory-developed, massively-scalable innovations.  There is little or no room for more bottom-up, flexible models of the William Easterly-type approach to development.  There is little room for the idea of grassroots-innovations; e.g. looking at the ICT-based adaptations that poor communities are themselves making, and finding ways to harvest, evaluate and scale such innovations.

 

As per my IEEE Computer article on “ICT4D 2.0″, then, the Gates’ view on ICT4D seems rather stuck in a social development/poor-as-consumers mindset; it does not yet encompass a mindset of seeing the poor as active producers and innovators with ICT.

 

But finally, sitting across the table, I found those 1980s photos of him as uber-techno-geek kept crossing my mind; thinking what a long, long way he’s come.  Indeed, he has really metamorphosed since stepping down from full-time work at Microsoft; from a technology guy to a development guy.  But a development guy who, at least in part, will be going round the world inspiring geeks and others to find ways to address technology to the problems of development.  Which can’t be all bad for us ICT4Ders.

 

A video of Bill’s keynote address to the ICTD2009 conference can be found at: http://www.ictd2009.org/outcomes.html

Worldwide Expenditure on ICT4D

How much money is spent every year on ICT4D?

 

We can calculate this two ways: top-down and bottom-up.

 

Top-Down Calculation: World Development Indicators

 

The World Bank’s World Development Indicators provide an entry for ICT expenditure as a % of GDP.  For 2007 – the latest year available – this expenditure was 5.93% for low- and middle-income countries (covering pretty well all those we tend to call developing and transitional economies; those with GNI per capita of less than US$11,455).  Given the GDP of those countries was US$14,155bn, that means spending on ICTs in all developing/transitional economies is estimated at US$840billion in 2007.

 

Of course this encompasses a very broad notion of ICT4D: as a random example, what Russian giant Gazprom spends on its information systems.  If we exclude upper middle income countries, and set the GNI bar at US$3,705 per capita (around the level of Indonesia, Philippines); then the figure drops to US$500bn.

 

Including just low-income countries (GNI <US$935 per capita; akin to Paul Collier’s “bottom billion”), we have to extrapolate, and get a figure of US$57bn: about US$44 spent on ICT per head.

  

WITSA data (see comments) seems to confirm these calculations.

 

[Note: "Information and communications technology expenditures include computer hardware (computers, storage devices, printers, and other peripherals); computer software (operating systems, programming tools, utilities, applications, and internal software development); computer services (information technology consulting, computer and network systems integration, Web hosting, data processing services, and other services); and communications services (voice and data communications services) and wired and wireless communications equipment."]

 

Bottom-Up Calculation: Individual Organisations/Groups

 

A bottom-up approach would look at the ICT4D expenditure of individual organisations or groups.  We can identify four main spenders: development agencies; developing country governments; the private sector; and consumers.  Unfortunately, data here is a threadbare patchwork.

 

I will present the data I have available: if you have other/new data, please comment in order to update.

 

Donor/Development Agencies

 

Data from the World Bank Group shows it invests around US$800m per year in specific loans and guarantees on ICTs and development, and US$1-1.5bn per year on projects with ICT components (at present, it cites a total of nearly US$8bn invested in such projects).

 

Some very rough estimates from personal contacts with USAID suggest perhaps something like US$800m being spent on all ICT components of development work per year.  Even rougher estimates from JICA’s annual reports suggest it is spending at least US$200m per year, and probably significantly more.

 

Data from various bits of the International Telecommunication Union Web site suggests an expenditure of around US$60m per year on its development activities (c.20% of total expenditure).  The EU’s 9th European Development Fund (2000-2007; focused on Africa, Caribbean, Pacific development) included about US$20m per year (c.US$150m in total) for ICTs.  There is also expenditure on ICT4D as research collaboration under the EU’s Framework Programmes.

 

Canada’s IDRC spends 15.8% of its budget on ICT4D; that budget spending was C$190m in 2008, meaning a total spend of around US$25m per year on ICT4D.  Korea’s International Cooperation Agency seems also to spend around US$25m per year on ICT4D; about 13% of budget.

 

SIDA appears to be spending around US$3m per year on ICT4D.

 

Delivery agencies with a specific focus on ICT4D have similarly small budgets, and will not make a significant dent on the overall figures.  Examples would include IICD which spends around US$6m per year, and the Global Knowledge Partnership which may spend about half that.  Quite a bit of this money would come from donor agency funds.

 

Developing Country Governments

 

Few if any developing country governments appear to compile comprehensive figures on their ICT investments.  Instead, they quote expenditure that is specifically identified as “ICT”; for example, the budget of the Ministry of ICT.  This will probably exclude the majority of what the government spends on ICT.  For example, Ghana seems to budget ICT spending on health and education under health and education respectively, not under ICT.

 

Quoted annual government expenditures on ICTs via this narrow definition for some “typical” medium-/large-sized developing countries are in the few hundreds of millions of dollars.  E.g. Indonesia (US$340m); Thailand (US$300m); South Africa (US$130m).  These are about 0.5% of total government budget; and just under 0.1% of total GDP.

 

Extrapolating that latter figure, for low and lower-middle income countries, that would suggest investments of about US$7.5bn per year, but the actual figure must be significantly higher than this.  As one example, the Indian government in the mid-2000s was already in the process of increasing its total spending on ICTs (i.e. not just that specifically allocated to the ICT heading) from 2% to 3% of budget: a figure of around US$3bn.  By comparison, its direct spending on ICT (mostly allocated to e-government) was around one-tenth of this.

 

Private Sector

 

Private sector investment levels in mobile telephony are, according to the GSMA, around US$10bn per year in Africa; very roughly US$10 per capita.  If at least that amount is also spent in the other developing country markets, that suggests a total investment per year of at least US$50bn.

 

Other ICT investments in computers, software, non-mobile-based Internet connectivity, and so forth, would be in addition to this figure.

 

The private sector also has specific development-oriented activities.  Examples would be Microsoft Research India, and parts of Microsoft’s Unlimited Potential programme, or Intel’s World Ahead.

 

Consumer Expenditure

 

Individual consumers spend money on ICTs that are part of ICT4D; for example, the amount they spend on mobile telephony, and on use of telecentres.

 

Extrapolating figures from Nigeria, which suggest an average per capita spend on all telecommunications of US$55 per year, would indicate spending of around US$55bn per year on telecoms in Africa.  Much of that, of course, would be spent by business rather than individuals, and that money then recirculates for further private sector investment.  If those same figures could be extrapolated across all developing countries, they would suggest a spend of around US$300bn per year, but that is likely a significant underestimate since Nigerian expenditure will be below developing country averages.  That US$55 per year is actually MORE than the US$44 figure indicated from the World Development Indicator figures, and yet it only covers telecommunications.

 

Alternatively, Mpogole’s work in Tanzania found rural mobile phone owners spending around US$22 per month (US$270 per year) on their mobiles.  Using ITU’s 2007 figures (21% subscription rate) and the corrector discussed in a previous blog, we arrive at a spend just on mobiles of US$43 per person per year.  At least, then, all these figures are not wildly dissimilar, given that spending on mobiles will be by far the major expenditure on ICT4D in developing countries.

 

Conclusion

 

The figures here cover some very different things.  Some cover a lot of what many would regard as outside the boundaries of ICT4D.  Nonetheless, it seems reasonable to conclude that hundreds of millions of US dollars per year are invested in ICT4D projects; and that tens of billions of US dollars per year are invested in ICT4D infrastructure, with consumers in developing countries spending even more on the use of ICTs, amounting on average to a few tens of US dollars per person per year.

 

As noted above, additions and updates are welcome.

 

Note: the SIDA source cited above contains, in its Chapter 4, a quick review of some of the main actors investing in ICT4D.