Refurbishing the women's empowerment strategy - The new ICT opportunity, Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2007

IT for Change made a presentation at the Access Plenary Panel during the second Internet Governance Forum (Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, 12-15 November 2007). The presentation posits that ICTD models for poor people cannot be driven by financial considerations, and neither can they be demand-driven. Progressive ICTD models must be embedded in social institutions and sectoral agencies - like health, education, governance.  Access to ICTs for the information poor has a very direct impact on their development status; consequently ICTs cannot be conceptualised merely as business infrastructure, rather they need to be seen as development infrastructure. This calls for state intervention for creating an ecosystem which makes access to ICTs by marginalised communities a real possibility. Governance of technologies that has roots in development imperatives with a public access approach to will ensure that development values guide engagement with ICTs.