Research papers

In April 2017, IT for Change with support from the International Development Research Centre, Canada is initiating a multi-country research study to map the key issues/concerns for the rights and inclusion agenda, stemming from pervasive platformisation, in three key domains – economy, knowledge and governance. Through a detailed analysis of digital platforms in these three domains across 8 country-contexts, the project seeks to garner insights about key policy implications for critical areas of governance, such as :
- access to knowledge,
- access to data,

The Internet has now become an enabler of rights and an essential precondition for full participation in the information society. However, issues of corporate and state surveillance, and the enormous influence that corporate policies have on the way our fundamental rights are exercised, exhorts us to embark on an urgent recasting of the Internet and human rights debate, through the lens of the right to development.

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IT for Change carried out a 5-country research study on gender and e-government in the Asia-Pacific, in partnership with UNESCAP and UNPOG. This study examined how e-government norms, rules and practices impact institutional shifts towards gender equality and women’s empowerment by focusing on its key components – service delivery, citizen uptake and connectivity architecture.

The ubiquity and pervasiveness of data based decision making in a neo-liberal society has converted even acts of love and care into a site of capitalist expropriation. How can we recover the power of big data for transformative feminist politics? – this is the question that the article addresses.

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In 2015, WWW Foundation and Sida launched the Women's Rights Online research study to map the opportunities for women's empowerment through web-enabled ICTs, across the capital cities/economic hubs of 10 countries in the global South: Cairo, Egypt; Bogota, Colombia; Jakarta, Indonesia; Kampala, Uganda; Lagos, Nigeria; Manila, Philippines; Maputo, Mozambique; Nairobi, Kenya; New Delhi, India; and Yaounde, Cameroon.

Gurumurthy Kasinathan, representing IT for Change, presented a paper titled 'Domination and emancipation: A framework for assessing ICT and Education programs' at the CESI Conference, on 14th December, 2015. The theme of the conference was 'Education: Domination, Emancipation and Dignity'. The presentation attempted to consolidate insights on the transformatory potential of digital technologies in school education, into a cohesive assessment framework in the Indian public school context.

We are at an important juncture in Global Internet Governance and it is time to decide how this space needs to grow and be governed. The decisions taken now will have an impact long into the future. This second volume of the CyFy Journal, the third issue in the GP-ORF series, tracks the debates surrounding cyber-security, global internet governance and challenges in overcoming the digital divide.

The UN Secretary General has issued a very important report on the SDGs process titled "The Road to Dignity for All: Ending Poverty, Transforming All Lives and Protectin