This paper was written for Plan International's Annual Report, entitled 'Because I am a Girl'. For girls and young women, especially in the global south, ICT access and its effective use provide new avenues in their journeys towards economic empowerment. This paper unpacks some typical myths about ICTs, gender and empowerment in order to…
Advocacy
2009
This document was an input into the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) High-Level Intergovernmental Meeting on the Review of Implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action.
It aims to use the powerful lens of the 'information society' to define the emerging priorities for analysis…
2008
2008 - National Policy on ICT in School Education - first draft
In January 2008, the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) released a draft National policy on ICTs in school education. This policy, drafted by a committee that included big businesses interested in the 'ICT in education' space was hugely problematic. The draft…
2008
This case study is part of a research project that sought to analyse how different telecentre models approach development on the ground, proceeding to elaborate a typology based on the cornerstones of participation and equity. To conduct this assessment, four telecentre projects were examined: the Gujarat government’s e-Gram…
2008
The authors discuss the process of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) process and its positive outcomes in terms of Internet governance, and negative outcomes regarding the failure to establish a financing mechanism for Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICTD).
They also…
2008
IT for Change was at the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) Ministerial Meeting on 'The Future of the Internet Economy', an event held in June 2008 in Seoul (Korea). Parminder Jeet Singh was a panelist on the Civil Society - Organised Labour Forum on a policy round-table titled 'The future of the Internet: The human and…
2007
This publication is the first in a series of reports covering the state of the information society on an annual basis, and focuses on the theme of participation. The report has three interrelated goals: surveying the state of the field of ICT policy at the local and global levels; encouraging critical debate; and…
2007
The information society phenomenon presents a paradigmatic shift in redefining political, social and institutional systems. However, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) which constitute a vital component of this phenomenon are mostly guided by neo-liberal principles and are nested in technical domains, resulting in the absence of…
2007
This paper was written for the second IGF – Access Plenary Panel (Rio de Janeiro, 2007). It posits that ICTD models for poor people cannot be driven by financial considerations, and neither can they be demand-driven. Access to ICTs for the information poor has a very direct impact on their development status; consequently, ICTs cannot be…
2007
In this piece written for the South Centre Bulletin (issue 5, December 2007), Parminder Jeet Singh and Gurumurthy Kasinathan highlight Internet governance issues that are important from a development perspective. The World Summit on Information Society was the first step towards debating issues of Internet governance and its…