Information and Communication Technologies For Development - Impact Assessment On ICT4D

Impact Assessment On ICT4D

There are many initiatives and projects being done in line with information, communication and technology for development. Government, NGOs, public and private sectors have different projects lined up to promote development in different communities. But these projects, although have the objectives to help people in their everyday life, there are little study on whether the technology applied is effective or not. Impact assessment is one way to determine the effectiveness of one technology.

For ICT4D, impact assessment can be based on these questions:

• Why? - this can include both the externally stated rationale, and the internal purpose for the organisation(s) driving the impact assessment. In most cases, the external rationale will be one or more of: a) retrospective achievement – post-hoc assessment of what has been achieved from investments to date; b) prospective priorities – pre-hoc assessment of future development project investments; c) accountability – enabling agencies to be held to account for their ICT4D spending.
• For whom? - typical audiences are a) ICT4D investment decision-makers; b) ICT4D policy decision-makers; c) ICT4D project decision-makers; d) ICT4D project users/beneficiaries; e) other ICT4D stakeholders
• What? - a mixture of the indicators the key audience will best consume, the indicators it is most feasible to measure, and the indicators the assessment team is most familiar with. This may also include identifying the conceptual framework guiding the impact assessment;
• How 1? - alongside the specific measurement issues, a key element here will be the extent of participation of project users in measurement (and in more upstream processes such as selection of indicators).
• When? - the classic impact assessment failure has been to assess ICT4D pilots rather than fully scaled-up projects; and to assess too early in the project's history.
• How 2? - probably the most important and the most overlooked element in the whole process, with some impact assessments being conducted but having little impact. Includes questions on whether indicators are reported "as is", or communicated via causal models, case sketches, stories, etc.

Heeks and Molla described two different ways in categorizing impact assessment of ICT4D projects. One is based on the attainment of the ICT4D goals and the other is based on how to undertake such assessment.

Here is the classification of the impact of ICT4D based on the attainment of goals:

1. Total failure: the initiative was never implemented, was implemented but immediately abandoned, or was implemented but achieved none of its goals.
2. Largely unsuccessful: some goals were attained but most stakeholder groups did not attain their major goals and/or experienced significant undesirable outcomes.
3. Partial success/partial failure: some major goals for the initiative were attained but some were not and/or there were some significant undesirable outcomes
4. Largely successful: most stakeholder groups attained their major goals and did not experience significant undesirable outcomes.
5. Total success: all stakeholder groups attained their major goals and did not experience significant undesirable outcomes.

Another categorization of assessing the impacts of ICT4D projects based on "frameworks" (understanding ICT4D projects and organizing knowledge about them) are: Generic: general frameworks usable in assessment of any development project.

1. Discipline-Specific: assessment drawing from a particular academic discipline.
2. Issue-Specific: assessment focused on a particular development goal or issue.
3. Application-Specific: assessment focused on one particular ICT4D technology.
4. Method-Specific: assessment centred on a particular approach to data-gathering.
5. Sector-Specific: assessment centred on an individual development sector.