Assignment on ICT for sustainable Development
Assignment on ICT for sustainable Development
Executive summary
The past twenty years or so have seen ICT become ever more central to the world’s economy and culture. This technological revolution is of great significance for several reasons such as the speed with which ICT has penetrated society is unprecedented by any other technology. ICT has an enormous range of applications and can be profoundly enabling. The creation of ICT requires less resource than the creation of many other enabling technologies, such as the internal combustion engine, and has very low marginal costs. In some cases ICT is of direct benefit to the goals of sustainable development; in others ICT is directly or indirectly detrimental to social and environmental concerns. In most cases, however, the effects will only become clear in the medium-to-long term. The goals of sustainable development are to enable all people to realize their potential and improve their quality of life in ways that simultaneously protect and enhance the Earth’s life support systems. As these goals become increasingly accepted, more and more facets of human activity will be analyzed in terms of their effects on sustainable development. In the case of ICT, examples of this process taking place have already been observed. However, this section has shown that despite all the potential, there is no overwhelming dynamic in the penetration of ICT that automatically propels the globe towards a sustainable state. Rather, ICT presents an array of opportunities to be taken: ICT is a tool that can be used to steer society in a beneficial direction. The possibilities of ICT should perhaps be seen as a challenge for those who wish to improve the quality of life for all. The response of policy makers in government, business and in civil society is therefore crucial. In weighing up the costs and benefits, it is clear that the direct impacts of ICT are smaller and easier to control. The indirect impacts – on how we live our lives – are much greater and more difficult to manage.
What is information and communication technology (ICT)?
ICT Stands for "Information and Communication Technologies". ICT refers to technologies that provide access to information through telecommunications. It is similar to Information Technology (IT), but focuses primarily on communication technologies. This includes the Internet, wireless networks, cell phones, and other communication mediums. In the past few decades, information and communication technologies have provided society with a vast array of new communication capabilities. For example, people can communicate in real-time with others in different countries using technologies such as instant messaging, voice over IP (VoIP), and video-conferencing. Social networking websites like Face book allow users from all over the world to remain in contact and communicate on a regular basis.
Information and communication technologies for sustainable development : refers to the application of information and communication technologies (ICT) toward social, economic, and political development, with a particular emphasis on helping poor and marginalized people and communities. It aims to help in international development by bridging the digital divide and providing equitable access to technologies. ICT4D is grounded in the notions of "development", "growth", "progress" and "globalization" and is often interpreted as the use of technology to deliver a greater good.
What is Sustainable Development?
Although there are many definitions of sustainable development, the most commonly quoted comes from the Brundtland Commission’s 1987 report, “Our Common Future”. Here, sustainable development is defined as “Development which meets the need of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. This chapter defines sustainable development as: A dynamic process which enables all people to realize their potential and improve their quality of life in ways that simultaneously protect and enhance the Earth’s life-support systems.
Implicit here is that economic, social and environmental dimensions are equally vital and
Inter-connected:
Economic sustainability means economic growth without making undue demands on social or natural resources.
Environmental sustainability means not only minimizing impacts on the environment, but building natural resources and safeguarding them for the future.
Social sustainability means building, and not undermining, social equity.
Sustainability needs to be a priority in all countries—post-industrial and industrial as well as developing countries—and in the international system that links them. In 2000, at the United Nations' Millennium Summit a set of development goals were created with an aim to improve some of the most critical social, economic, and environmental issues in the developing world by 2015. The eight goals are:
Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.
Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education.
Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women.
Goal 4: Reduce child mortality rate.
Goal 5: Improve maternal health.
Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases.
Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability.
Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development.
Technological innovations and opportunity
ICTs include a heterogeneous series of products and services. The ICT sector itself includes semiconductors, voice telephony technologies, and technologies supporting high-speed data and audio-visual systems as well as computers and packaged and customised software. There is no single technological pathway that must be followed by countries that are seeking to enhance and extend their national infrastructures or to connect them to global information networks. Their choices are influenced by past investment levels, existing hardware and software production capabilities, experience with the customisation of the new products and services, and the capital available to promote new ICT applications. Rapid innovations in ICT applications and the availability of high-speed networks are creating opportunities for generating and managing increasing amounts of information that can be tailored to users’ needs and which can contribute to development goals. In order to benefit from these developments, however, a wide range of technological and related capabilities need to be strengthened.
ICT in business systems
ICT has had a positive effect on business efficiency, for example through:
Consolidating supply chains through the use of B2B E-commerce portals.
Use of E-procurement in larger organizations, bringing economy of scale savings.
Use of computer-driven management systems and the implementation of databases.
Use of telematics in manufacturing processes.
Use of ICT to monitor office systems such as air-conditioning.
Conceptual Frameworks for ICT and Sustainable Development
A conceptual framework for an analytical approach to the relationship between ICT and sustainable development first has to decompose the normative concept of sustainable development. A very common idea is the so-called three-pillar or three-dimensional approach to sustainable development, decomposing the concept into an ecological, a social and an economic dimension. The role of ICT can then be analyzed along the following questions:
I. Ecological dimension: What is the role of ICT in ecological (environmental) issues? How can we use ICT to increase our understanding of ecosystems and to reduce environmental burden (Environmental Informatics)? How can the environmental impact of production, use and disposal of ICT be reduced (Green ICT)?
II. Social dimension: What is the role of ICT in social development? How can we use ICT to support (virtual) communities working towards the aim of sustainable development? How can social justice on a global scale be supported by ICT? How can we increase the contribution of ICT to long-term thinking and avoid short-sighted, technologically determined developments?
III. Economic dimension: What is the role of ICT in the structural change of the economy from an industrial to a post-industrial mode? How can ICT contribute to a decoupling of economic growth from growth in resource consumption, to substitute virtual forms of production and consumption for energy-intensive processes, To dematerialize relevant parts of the economic system? And how can ICT help emerging economies to leapfrog into this mode without copying the unsustainable patterns of the industrial mode first?
Although this three-dimensional approach may serve as a starting point for brainstorming, it does not provide a sound basis for analysis.
Firstly, we also need to decompose the role of ICT in this context, since digital ICT is an almost universal technology and application categories are more relevant than the technology as such.
Secondly, multidimensional concepts of sustainable development have been criticized for being inconsistent (the “dimensions” are not at the same conceptual level, i.e. they wrongly suggest orthogonality) and for watering down the concept of sustainable development by suggesting that a depletion of ecological or social capital may be accepted in exchange for economic capital.
Conceptual frameworks for “ICT and sustainable development” that go beyond this approach are briefly discussed in the following sub-sections. None of these frameworks claims to provide a comprehensive solution. Rather, they may be viewed as ingredients in a more comprehensive approach that still has to be formulated.
The impact of ICT on sustainable development:
The impact of ICTs on the ways in which economies and societies work is profound and visible at all levels, from global trade and culture to relationships within the family. For example:
• Information technology has enabled and increasingly enables major changes in the production of goods and services, including the globalization of product development, manufacturing and labor markets; the displacement of labor by technology; and the expansion of service sectors.
• It increasingly enables the digitalization and virtualization of some traditional goods (such as books and music) and the individualization of some traditional services (such as banking, travel and insurance).
• It has enabled the creation of a new range of business opportunities within the ICT sector itself, from software design to street corner resale of telephone airtime.
• It disrupts traditional governance arrangements among state, business and consumer, including those relating to taxation and intellectual property. It also provides opportunities for new forms of administration, marketing and service delivery through which governments and businesses can interact with citizens, and through which citizens engage with them when they wish to do so.
• It greatly increases the extent to which individuals can access information, entertainment and other resources, including those which have been restricted by law—but also enables new forms of tracking of individual behavior by the state, businesses and non-governmental actors.
• It enables individuals to publish material of all kinds—from personal information to political comment, “citizen journalism” to rumor-mongering and defamation, music making to pornography—without the economic, political and social constraints that have hitherto prevailed.
• It facilitates networking between individuals and organizations, within and beyond national boundaries, enabling more extensive and diverse forms of organizational partnerships—from new forms of marketing to new forms of solidarity amongst the marginalized, from social networking forums such as Facebook to criminal organizations.
Advantage of ICT in sustainable development:
The successful use of ICT applications requires improved awareness in the public and business sectors, better education and improved literacy rates, user involvement in designing and implementing new services and applications, policies for improved public access to networks, and a readiness on the part of governments and other stakeholders to assume responsibility for selecting and giving priority to a wide range of policy and practical initiatives.
The speed of communication and electronic transactions is leading to faster decision-making. Decision support systems can facilitate decision-making and access to
The nature of work and the working environment may be transformed by the introduction of ICT systems with accompanying reductions in the size of the workforce.
The boundary between ICT users and producers is often blurred when new applications are introduced. Software users play major roles in sectors such as banking and petroleum and in most manufacturing sectors. This accentuates the need to build capabilities for engaging in the design, development and maintenance of these applications.
Network services can bring distant or local communities into closer contact, as well as establish cross cultural electronic partnerships in business.
The successful implementation of ICTs generally requires substantial organizational change.
Challenges of ICT for promoting sustainable development:
ICT is one of the tools that used in promoting sustainability development in both developed and developing countries. Nevertheless, there are some challenges facing the integration of ICT effectively. The significant challenges are outline below:
Lack of Maintenance Culture: ICT facilitate needs regular maintenance in other to sustain it maximum life span: But unfortunately, most of the developing countries neglect maintenance culture and this seriously affects ICT equipments.
Lack of Time and Resources: Staff lacking the time to deal with the challenges of sustaining ICT facilities, which is time-consuming. IT departments already face increasing demands from their institutions, without a commensurate increase in staff. Many of the programming changes required to implement sustainable ICT require considerable technical skill to implement. This constraint will become less pressing as staff becomes more familiar with the issues.
Lack Information and Guidance: Because the issue of sustainable ICT is relative new, many people, particularly teaching and research staff, do not know where they can find relevant information and guidance about. Especially confusing is the fact that a number of vendors claim that their products are “green”. A common problem is that much of the ICT equipment used in the institution is not owned by the IT department, so it is hard to carry out an audit of what is owned by whom, and how energy-efficient it is. The situation is exacerbated by the lack of standardized metrics to assess the energy efficiency of ICT equipment.
A good understanding of the energy consumption association with specific computer tasks is a prerequisite for better management, but without this kind of information it is difficult to set targets for, and therefore to measure the success of sustainable ICT projects.
Recommendation
ICT is seen as a vehicle to empower the poor and enable development in underdeveloped regions of the world. The overuse of natural resources is implicitly expected to be reduced, rather than, increased by economic growth in poor countries.
ICT can successfully be applied in educating the poor; ICT would then indeed contribute to sustainable development.
ICT might play a crucial role there – it can only be instrumental as part of a more comprehensive approach, being embedded in organizational or institutional frameworks or in structures of governance.
ICT can support sustainability practice within a manufacturing organization; the study findings enhance the current understanding and complement the limited literature in this area. The understanding obtained in this study will contribute to future theoretical development regarding effective application of ICT to support sustainability practices.
Increased access to and use of ICTs by citizens, and ICTs’ increased predominance in government and business communications, inevitably have detrimental environmental impacts, particularly in terms of waste and greenhouse gas emissions. Mitigation of these impacts would have a significant positive impact on sustainability.
Conclusion
It can be seen that ICT play an important role in sustainable development for both developed and developing countries. Consequently, recommendations were made for minimizing some of the challenges attributed to the implementation of ICT facilities. However, ICT provide its greatest hope. This paradox, although cannot be ignored must be assessed in the context of modernity and the role that ICT enjoy in the contemporary context. ICT advances “economic, social, cultural, and political” initiatives in ways that affect all stakeholders positively when done correctly. ICT situate countries and enterprises to achieve sustainability in efficient ways. ICT is therefore, an appropriate tool for advancing sustainable initiatives.
Without ICT, many of the contemporary benefits occurring globally would not have likely materialized. To this extent, emerging economies can use ICT to their advantages. ICT can create cost competitiveness by neutralizing extenuating circumstances. ICT accrue benefits to regions by bringing technology to remote areas where traditional technology would have been too costly. Sustainable development through ICT initiatives is therefore a reality need only to be embraced by those who realistically demand societies. ICT-based interventions must take into account current institutional practices and arrangements. Specifically, drivers and barriers to ICT use need to be identified, including those related to curriculum and pedagogy, infrastructure, capacity-building, language and content, and financing. The specification of existing sources of financing and the development of strategies for generating financial resources to support ICT use over the long term.
Reference:
1. http://homepage.cs.latrobe.edu.au/sloke/greenIT/eito_forum_2002.pdf.
2. GeSI (Global e-Sustainability Initiative and The Climate Group). (2008). SMART 2020: Enabling the low carbon economy in the information age. Retrieved August 2010 from: http://www.smart2020.org/publications.
3. www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/69/L.85&Lang=E
4. Ericsson (2015), “Ericsson Mobility Report—On the Pulse of the Network Society”, June.
5. Jorgenson, Dale W., Ho, Mun S., and Stiroh, Kevin J. (2008). “A Retrospective Look at the U.S. Productivity Growth Resurgence.” Journal of Economic Perspectives: vol. 22, pp. 3–24.
6. Computer Industry Almanac Inc. ‘Worldwide internet users top 1.2 billion in 2006. February 2007.
Executive summary
The past twenty years or so have seen ICT become ever more central to the world’s economy and culture. This technological revolution is of great significance for several reasons such as the speed with which ICT has penetrated society is unprecedented by any other technology. ICT has an enormous range of applications and can be profoundly enabling. The creation of ICT requires less resource than the creation of many other enabling technologies, such as the internal combustion engine, and has very low marginal costs. In some cases ICT is of direct benefit to the goals of sustainable development; in others ICT is directly or indirectly detrimental to social and environmental concerns. In most cases, however, the effects will only become clear in the medium-to-long term. The goals of sustainable development are to enable all people to realize their potential and improve their quality of life in ways that simultaneously protect and enhance the Earth’s life support systems. As these goals become increasingly accepted, more and more facets of human activity will be analyzed in terms of their effects on sustainable development. In the case of ICT, examples of this process taking place have already been observed. However, this section has shown that despite all the potential, there is no overwhelming dynamic in the penetration of ICT that automatically propels the globe towards a sustainable state. Rather, ICT presents an array of opportunities to be taken: ICT is a tool that can be used to steer society in a beneficial direction. The possibilities of ICT should perhaps be seen as a challenge for those who wish to improve the quality of life for all. The response of policy makers in government, business and in civil society is therefore crucial. In weighing up the costs and benefits, it is clear that the direct impacts of ICT are smaller and easier to control. The indirect impacts – on how we live our lives – are much greater and more difficult to manage.
What is information and communication technology (ICT)?
ICT Stands for "Information and Communication Technologies". ICT refers to technologies that provide access to information through telecommunications. It is similar to Information Technology (IT), but focuses primarily on communication technologies. This includes the Internet, wireless networks, cell phones, and other communication mediums. In the past few decades, information and communication technologies have provided society with a vast array of new communication capabilities. For example, people can communicate in real-time with others in different countries using technologies such as instant messaging, voice over IP (VoIP), and video-conferencing. Social networking websites like Face book allow users from all over the world to remain in contact and communicate on a regular basis.
Information and communication technologies for sustainable development : refers to the application of information and communication technologies (ICT) toward social, economic, and political development, with a particular emphasis on helping poor and marginalized people and communities. It aims to help in international development by bridging the digital divide and providing equitable access to technologies. ICT4D is grounded in the notions of "development", "growth", "progress" and "globalization" and is often interpreted as the use of technology to deliver a greater good.
What is Sustainable Development?
Although there are many definitions of sustainable development, the most commonly quoted comes from the Brundtland Commission’s 1987 report, “Our Common Future”. Here, sustainable development is defined as “Development which meets the need of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. This chapter defines sustainable development as: A dynamic process which enables all people to realize their potential and improve their quality of life in ways that simultaneously protect and enhance the Earth’s life-support systems.
Implicit here is that economic, social and environmental dimensions are equally vital and
Inter-connected:
Economic sustainability means economic growth without making undue demands on social or natural resources.
Environmental sustainability means not only minimizing impacts on the environment, but building natural resources and safeguarding them for the future.
Social sustainability means building, and not undermining, social equity.
Sustainability needs to be a priority in all countries—post-industrial and industrial as well as developing countries—and in the international system that links them. In 2000, at the United Nations' Millennium Summit a set of development goals were created with an aim to improve some of the most critical social, economic, and environmental issues in the developing world by 2015. The eight goals are:
Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.
Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education.
Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women.
Goal 4: Reduce child mortality rate.
Goal 5: Improve maternal health.
Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases.
Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability.
Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development.
Technological innovations and opportunity
ICTs include a heterogeneous series of products and services. The ICT sector itself includes semiconductors, voice telephony technologies, and technologies supporting high-speed data and audio-visual systems as well as computers and packaged and customised software. There is no single technological pathway that must be followed by countries that are seeking to enhance and extend their national infrastructures or to connect them to global information networks. Their choices are influenced by past investment levels, existing hardware and software production capabilities, experience with the customisation of the new products and services, and the capital available to promote new ICT applications. Rapid innovations in ICT applications and the availability of high-speed networks are creating opportunities for generating and managing increasing amounts of information that can be tailored to users’ needs and which can contribute to development goals. In order to benefit from these developments, however, a wide range of technological and related capabilities need to be strengthened.
ICT in business systems
ICT has had a positive effect on business efficiency, for example through:
Consolidating supply chains through the use of B2B E-commerce portals.
Use of E-procurement in larger organizations, bringing economy of scale savings.
Use of computer-driven management systems and the implementation of databases.
Use of telematics in manufacturing processes.
Use of ICT to monitor office systems such as air-conditioning.
Conceptual Frameworks for ICT and Sustainable Development
A conceptual framework for an analytical approach to the relationship between ICT and sustainable development first has to decompose the normative concept of sustainable development. A very common idea is the so-called three-pillar or three-dimensional approach to sustainable development, decomposing the concept into an ecological, a social and an economic dimension. The role of ICT can then be analyzed along the following questions:
I. Ecological dimension: What is the role of ICT in ecological (environmental) issues? How can we use ICT to increase our understanding of ecosystems and to reduce environmental burden (Environmental Informatics)? How can the environmental impact of production, use and disposal of ICT be reduced (Green ICT)?
II. Social dimension: What is the role of ICT in social development? How can we use ICT to support (virtual) communities working towards the aim of sustainable development? How can social justice on a global scale be supported by ICT? How can we increase the contribution of ICT to long-term thinking and avoid short-sighted, technologically determined developments?
III. Economic dimension: What is the role of ICT in the structural change of the economy from an industrial to a post-industrial mode? How can ICT contribute to a decoupling of economic growth from growth in resource consumption, to substitute virtual forms of production and consumption for energy-intensive processes, To dematerialize relevant parts of the economic system? And how can ICT help emerging economies to leapfrog into this mode without copying the unsustainable patterns of the industrial mode first?
Although this three-dimensional approach may serve as a starting point for brainstorming, it does not provide a sound basis for analysis.
Firstly, we also need to decompose the role of ICT in this context, since digital ICT is an almost universal technology and application categories are more relevant than the technology as such.
Secondly, multidimensional concepts of sustainable development have been criticized for being inconsistent (the “dimensions” are not at the same conceptual level, i.e. they wrongly suggest orthogonality) and for watering down the concept of sustainable development by suggesting that a depletion of ecological or social capital may be accepted in exchange for economic capital.
Conceptual frameworks for “ICT and sustainable development” that go beyond this approach are briefly discussed in the following sub-sections. None of these frameworks claims to provide a comprehensive solution. Rather, they may be viewed as ingredients in a more comprehensive approach that still has to be formulated.
The impact of ICT on sustainable development:
The impact of ICTs on the ways in which economies and societies work is profound and visible at all levels, from global trade and culture to relationships within the family. For example:
• Information technology has enabled and increasingly enables major changes in the production of goods and services, including the globalization of product development, manufacturing and labor markets; the displacement of labor by technology; and the expansion of service sectors.
• It increasingly enables the digitalization and virtualization of some traditional goods (such as books and music) and the individualization of some traditional services (such as banking, travel and insurance).
• It has enabled the creation of a new range of business opportunities within the ICT sector itself, from software design to street corner resale of telephone airtime.
• It disrupts traditional governance arrangements among state, business and consumer, including those relating to taxation and intellectual property. It also provides opportunities for new forms of administration, marketing and service delivery through which governments and businesses can interact with citizens, and through which citizens engage with them when they wish to do so.
• It greatly increases the extent to which individuals can access information, entertainment and other resources, including those which have been restricted by law—but also enables new forms of tracking of individual behavior by the state, businesses and non-governmental actors.
• It enables individuals to publish material of all kinds—from personal information to political comment, “citizen journalism” to rumor-mongering and defamation, music making to pornography—without the economic, political and social constraints that have hitherto prevailed.
• It facilitates networking between individuals and organizations, within and beyond national boundaries, enabling more extensive and diverse forms of organizational partnerships—from new forms of marketing to new forms of solidarity amongst the marginalized, from social networking forums such as Facebook to criminal organizations.
Advantage of ICT in sustainable development:
The successful use of ICT applications requires improved awareness in the public and business sectors, better education and improved literacy rates, user involvement in designing and implementing new services and applications, policies for improved public access to networks, and a readiness on the part of governments and other stakeholders to assume responsibility for selecting and giving priority to a wide range of policy and practical initiatives.
The speed of communication and electronic transactions is leading to faster decision-making. Decision support systems can facilitate decision-making and access to
The nature of work and the working environment may be transformed by the introduction of ICT systems with accompanying reductions in the size of the workforce.
The boundary between ICT users and producers is often blurred when new applications are introduced. Software users play major roles in sectors such as banking and petroleum and in most manufacturing sectors. This accentuates the need to build capabilities for engaging in the design, development and maintenance of these applications.
Network services can bring distant or local communities into closer contact, as well as establish cross cultural electronic partnerships in business.
The successful implementation of ICTs generally requires substantial organizational change.
Challenges of ICT for promoting sustainable development:
ICT is one of the tools that used in promoting sustainability development in both developed and developing countries. Nevertheless, there are some challenges facing the integration of ICT effectively. The significant challenges are outline below:
Lack of Maintenance Culture: ICT facilitate needs regular maintenance in other to sustain it maximum life span: But unfortunately, most of the developing countries neglect maintenance culture and this seriously affects ICT equipments.
Lack of Time and Resources: Staff lacking the time to deal with the challenges of sustaining ICT facilities, which is time-consuming. IT departments already face increasing demands from their institutions, without a commensurate increase in staff. Many of the programming changes required to implement sustainable ICT require considerable technical skill to implement. This constraint will become less pressing as staff becomes more familiar with the issues.
Lack Information and Guidance: Because the issue of sustainable ICT is relative new, many people, particularly teaching and research staff, do not know where they can find relevant information and guidance about. Especially confusing is the fact that a number of vendors claim that their products are “green”. A common problem is that much of the ICT equipment used in the institution is not owned by the IT department, so it is hard to carry out an audit of what is owned by whom, and how energy-efficient it is. The situation is exacerbated by the lack of standardized metrics to assess the energy efficiency of ICT equipment.
A good understanding of the energy consumption association with specific computer tasks is a prerequisite for better management, but without this kind of information it is difficult to set targets for, and therefore to measure the success of sustainable ICT projects.
Recommendation
ICT is seen as a vehicle to empower the poor and enable development in underdeveloped regions of the world. The overuse of natural resources is implicitly expected to be reduced, rather than, increased by economic growth in poor countries.
ICT can successfully be applied in educating the poor; ICT would then indeed contribute to sustainable development.
ICT might play a crucial role there – it can only be instrumental as part of a more comprehensive approach, being embedded in organizational or institutional frameworks or in structures of governance.
ICT can support sustainability practice within a manufacturing organization; the study findings enhance the current understanding and complement the limited literature in this area. The understanding obtained in this study will contribute to future theoretical development regarding effective application of ICT to support sustainability practices.
Increased access to and use of ICTs by citizens, and ICTs’ increased predominance in government and business communications, inevitably have detrimental environmental impacts, particularly in terms of waste and greenhouse gas emissions. Mitigation of these impacts would have a significant positive impact on sustainability.
Conclusion
It can be seen that ICT play an important role in sustainable development for both developed and developing countries. Consequently, recommendations were made for minimizing some of the challenges attributed to the implementation of ICT facilities. However, ICT provide its greatest hope. This paradox, although cannot be ignored must be assessed in the context of modernity and the role that ICT enjoy in the contemporary context. ICT advances “economic, social, cultural, and political” initiatives in ways that affect all stakeholders positively when done correctly. ICT situate countries and enterprises to achieve sustainability in efficient ways. ICT is therefore, an appropriate tool for advancing sustainable initiatives.
Without ICT, many of the contemporary benefits occurring globally would not have likely materialized. To this extent, emerging economies can use ICT to their advantages. ICT can create cost competitiveness by neutralizing extenuating circumstances. ICT accrue benefits to regions by bringing technology to remote areas where traditional technology would have been too costly. Sustainable development through ICT initiatives is therefore a reality need only to be embraced by those who realistically demand societies. ICT-based interventions must take into account current institutional practices and arrangements. Specifically, drivers and barriers to ICT use need to be identified, including those related to curriculum and pedagogy, infrastructure, capacity-building, language and content, and financing. The specification of existing sources of financing and the development of strategies for generating financial resources to support ICT use over the long term.
Reference:
1. http://homepage.cs.latrobe.edu.au/sloke/greenIT/eito_forum_2002.pdf.
2. GeSI (Global e-Sustainability Initiative and The Climate Group). (2008). SMART 2020: Enabling the low carbon economy in the information age. Retrieved August 2010 from: http://www.smart2020.org/publications.
3. www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/69/L.85&Lang=E
4. Ericsson (2015), “Ericsson Mobility Report—On the Pulse of the Network Society”, June.
5. Jorgenson, Dale W., Ho, Mun S., and Stiroh, Kevin J. (2008). “A Retrospective Look at the U.S. Productivity Growth Resurgence.” Journal of Economic Perspectives: vol. 22, pp. 3–24.
6. Computer Industry Almanac Inc. ‘Worldwide internet users top 1.2 billion in 2006. February 2007.
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