Information and Communication Technology Policy and Strategy
sml0om7
10wkict17.pptxInformation Societies
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Overview of lecture
Knowledge society rhetoric: policy as a response to change
Catching up and falling behind
Trends and Aspirations for Information Society Policy
Putting policies into practice
Developed country initiatives
Developing country policies
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The world is changing – and ICT is playing an important role in that change
Two important distinctions for thinking about change
Evolved or designed change
Emergent process – something that unfolds naturally without deliberate human intervention
Intentional action – a planned and deliberately implemented intervention
Continuous or discontinuous change
Continuous change involves incremental effects on the nature of existing relationships
Discontinuous change brings about entirely new relationships
Important to think about whether ICT-driven change is an emergent or intentional process. Answers have implications for policy – can change be guided, controlled, prevented?
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The rules of business are changing
Structure-based
Knowledge-based
Procedures-control-compliance
People-empowerment-participation
The Dangers and Values of the ‘Knowledge-Based Society’ Rhetoric
Every society is based upon knowledge – survival as a city dweller requires different knowledge than survival as a farmer or herd keeper
The use of this phrase suggests that some types of knowledge are particularly valuable or essential for the 21st century
The extent to which this is true depends upon the composition of economic activities which bring prosperity to a particular society
The use of the term is therefore useful when it refers to the following trends:
The growth of science based industries and the scientific and technical knowledge associated with these industries
The growth of the ‘creative’ industries encompassing media, design and the arts which involve knowledge that is specific to ‘content’
The use of scientific and technological knowledge to improve the productivity of both traditional and modern industries
The collection of knowledge referred to in these three trends can be called ‘modern’ knowledge
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Common Features of ‘Modern’ Knowledge
Modern knowledge in each of the three areas mentioned has a number of common characteristics
It is incrementally improved with occasional punctuations of ‘step change’ or major advance
It is cumulative, new knowledge tends to be based upon existing knowledge except in the unsettled period after a ‘step change’
In most cases, modern knowledge is increasingly complex in two senses
-- The depth of specialisation required is increasing
-- The range of specialisms needed for useful results is growing
Processes for exchange of knowledge involve a growth in the use of information while information is emphatically not the same as knowledge
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“There is a real risk of two civilizations emerging: one based on the capacity to generate and utilize knowledge; the other passively receiving knowledge from abroad and deprived of the ability to modify it….The world now faces the prospect of this Knowledge Divide becoming an unbridgeable abyss
Francisco Sagasti
Former Chief of Strategic Planning & Senior Adviser World Bank (21st Century Talks, UNESCO 1999)
Catching Up – Perils and Promise
A considerable amount of attention has been devoted in the past 30 years to the Asian miracle
For example, the Republic of Korea and Ghana had similar levels of economic performance in the mid 1950s and there was only a minor difference between the two countries 20 years later in the early 1970s
By 1990, however, there was a vast difference between the two countries, over half of which the World Bank attributes to ‘knowledge’
Today, Ghana’s GDP per capita is US$ 3,100 while Korea’s is US$ 31,200
2011 estimates PPP adjusted Source: CIA Factbook
Thus, in a single human lifetime, choosing an appropriate path can result in a 10 fold difference in national income per person
Most of the middle income countries in the world ask how it might be possible to duplicate this performance and what role ‘knowledge’ has played in the success of countries such as the Republic of Korea
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Each country has its own distinctive resources and stage of backwardness – which would strongly influence any potential growth path…..the higher degree of backwardness, the more discontinuous the development is likely to be..
Alexander Gerschenkron 1904-1978
(Russian-born, Austrian-trained Harvard economic historian)
ICTs continue to be a key priority area and helped the country to become a robust economy, and overcome the 2008 financial crisis.
All households have high-speed Internet access (2012).
One of the highest average advertised broadband speeds in the world.
Driven growth and innovation, increased transparency and made the country one of the key ICT exporters in the world.
1962: GNP = poorer African nations 1986: moved up 47 places; GDP growth 8% - 10% p.a. (company growth much faster)
Learning from Korea
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Common Aspirations
One way of dealing with the disparities between rich, middle income and lower income countries is to refer to common aspirations:
An interest in ‘catching up’ as defined by achieving similar levels of sustainable income to the OECD countries
A desire to create satisfying and remunerative employment opportunities for a generally young population (in middle income and lower income countries) and to remedy youth unemployment in the richer countries
For those countries with substantial natural resource wealth (e.g. petroleum), an interest in diversifying the sources of income generation
Assuming that these are common aspirations, it is possible to consider them from the viewpoint of the three trends identified at the beginning of this lecture.
To do so, we will consider how both the general and specific features of these trends can be applied
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The Three Trends
Science-based industries -- The growth of science based industries and the scientific and technical knowledge associated with these industries
Creative Industries -- The growth of the ‘creative’ industries encompassing media, design and the arts which involve knowledge that is specific to ‘content’
Knowledge Based Economic Growth (especially ICT as a general purpose technology) The use of scientific and technological knowledge and ICT capabilities to improve the productivity of both traditional and modern industries
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Science Based Industries
Science-based industries involve the cultivation of an elite and enabling this elite to take entrepreneurial actions – ones that involve investment and risk
It is easier to achieve world class science than to create an entrepreneurial elite and the two goals are, to a degree, conflicting
The complexity of modern technologies creates unusually high value at the intersections between disciplines. By contrast, world class science is often confined within disciplinary silos
It can also be difficult to build a business entrepreneurial culture within elite scientific groups – social norms of science are not generally consistent with business social norms
Techno-economic paradigms influence the rise of new science-based industries and are a step change (opens opportunities) – however, a major race is already underway for promising candidates – e.g. biotechnology and artificial life, robotics, nanotechnology, new materials
In constructing the entrepreneurial elite, many countries have benefitted from persuading their diaspora to return home and to encourage cultural diversity (as it is often minorities – e.g. Quakers in England that produce some of the most innovative scientists and technologists)
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Creative Industries
In this century, non-material goods (and services) are a major source of economic growth and employment.
All of the media industries as well as design, fashion, and style are examples of the ‘creative industries’ (again a somewhat problematic label – all industries have a creative element)
Many middle and lower income countries have relatively conservative societies and it is difficult to reconcile conservatism with many manifestations of the creative industries
Historically, many of these societies have traditions of urban enclaves which are tolerant, even bohemian, and very cosmopolitan (a high knowledge and value for other cultures as well as one’s own). Creative industries generally form and thrive within such enclaves.
An attractive feature of the creative industries is that they often require less initial investment and can be built incrementally within a human lifetime by a founder entrepreneur to substantial size (e.g. Zara)
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Productivity Improvement in Modern and Traditional Industries
Perhaps the most promising area for advancing knowledge based economic growth in lower and middle income countries is the agenda of ‘modernisation’
Sustained improvements in productivity require a very substantial social transformation – virtually all modern technologies require a high level of basic education and an empowerment of those actually doing the work to contribute improvements
Technology transfer is a very misleading concept – technologies can be acquired but their operation require adaptation and development
Research has demonstrated that ‘learning’ in a many different forms is the essence of productivity improvement – thus neither R&D nor technology transfer themselves offer a reliable path to making productivity improvement
Because of complexity and specialisation, the range of capabilities needed is often much broader than any single company – a systems approach to national technological capabilities is needed
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Some Authors Who Have Considered the Information Society Transition
Fritz Machlup: rise of ‘knowledge industries’ in US (media, R&D, education, IT)
Marc Porat: measures of the ‘information economy’ based on sector and job classifications
Daniel Bell: Post-industrial society based on services rather than goods
Manuel Castells: ‘network society’ in which technology drives a virtuous circle of knowledge-based productivity gains bringing about a new and more powerful form of global capitalism
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From process to policy
1990s saw massive adoption in both developed and developing countries of ‘information/ knowledge society’ policies aimed at trying to control and benefit from technological change
Not only the domain of national governments – other actors play a part in IS policy at all levels, eg:
Intergovernmental/multilateral organisations: ITU, UNESCO, EU, SADC
Multinational corporations
Private companies - telecommunications operators, ISPs
Private or state media, broadcasters
Civil society – community radio, civil liberties groups, APC, open source community, human rights
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The Global Information Infrastructure (GII)
1994 ITU Development Conference, Buenos Aires - Al Gore puts forward an idealistic (and for some, troubling) vision for a ‘planetary information network that transmits messages and images with the speed of light from the largest city to the smallest village on every continent’
GII was to be based on five principles
encourage private investment
promote competition
create a flexible regulatory framework that can keep pace with rapid technological and market changes
provide open access to the network for all information providers
ensure universal service
http://www.eff.org/Infrastructure/Govt_docs/gii_gore_buenos_aires.speech
1995 G7 Ministerial Conference on the Information Society, Brussels
reiterates the Gore vision of GII to deliver economic and social progress
need for ‘attention to less developed countries’ is recognised
focus remains liberalised markets, competition, open access
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Dominant logic of IS policy in developed countries
Traditional industries such as manufacturing and much of agriculture are no longer viable and will move to developing regions where labour and materials are cheaper (yes, but subject to transport costs so we may wish to grow corn (wheat and maize) and make plastic containers in England)
Developed economies will instead have to look to services and the ‘knowledge economy’ for productivity gains, wealth creation and jobs
The knowledge economy will require highly educated workers; those without advanced skills will be confined to areas of the economy producing ‘non-traded’ goods – e.g. catering (although often low-skilled, it is, nonetheless, a very important category)
The knowledge economy will be driven by technological innovation
A highly competitive process – requires private sector innovation and investment
Consumers will pay high prices for advanced services and content and this will finance new infrastructure
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Role of government: The Neoliberal Prescription
Create conditions for innovation and investment
Foster competition
Support private investment
Deregulate telecoms to take advantage of opportunities for competition (where they exist)
Ensure high-tech infrastructure and universal participation in networks (NII policies)
Provide education and training
Similar policies at regional and global levels, eg EU, World Bank, ITU
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The second wave: dealing with those left behind
Growing recognition that the benefits of ICT are not equally distributed but that they tend to benefit that already well-off disproportionately
As well as enabling the knowledge economy policy makers must find ways to include the excluded - corresponds to the doctrine of development as ‘amelioration of the disordered faults of progress’
As a result policies emerge aimed at social cohesion and ‘digital inclusion’ through
Access (disabled, poor, indigenous peoples)
Education, training (e-inclusion)
Local content policies – e.g. Canada (often referred to as ‘cultural policy’)
Limited attention to broader social goals, wellbeing, quality of life – although Martin (2005) argues some progress
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New ICT products and applications are frequently designed in ignorance of DCs' realities and fail to address the needs of the most disadvantaged sections of the community (UN, 1998).
Industrialized countries have been dominant in technology, and their interest in the DCs has often been more concerned with the profitability of their own business enterprises than with any broader goals concerning the development of the recipient countries.
Global markets, global technology, global ideas and global solidarity can enrich the lives of people everywhere. The challenge is to ensure that the benefits are shared equitably and that this increasing interdependence works for people – not just for profits (UNDP HDR 1999)
Developing Country Initiatives
Strong pressure to follow similar route to advanced countries, focusing on infrastructure and liberalisation
World Bank ITU, World Trade Organization and the ECA all promote
Opening of ICT markets
Liberalisation of the telecommunications and broadcasting
Privatisation of large operators
Some exceptions made for least developed countries
Basic argument is
Investment in telecommunication networks supports industry and brings economic benefits to all of society
Public operators tend to be inefficient and provide poor services at high prices
Liberalisation and privatisation have been successful in other countries
Issue of universal service remains problematic – lacking in many DCs
Some suggestions for different levels and models of access
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World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)
Multistakeholder
Multilevel
Inclusion of marginalised
E-strategies that include ICT in national development and poverty reduction plans
Regional cooperation and strategies
Knowledge sharing
Bridging the digital divide through poverty reduction, capacity building, technology development
ICT to be seen as a tool in service of development goals
Affordable and equitable access - mobilising resources (incl investment), build capacity and connectivity, training and education, content, assistive technology, entrepreneurship, environment, voluntary service...
YET .. Very little came out of this summit in concrete action – mostly it reinforced pressure to establish Information Society policy at a national level and using similar (perhaps inappropriate) models
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Critique of dominant neoliberal position (e.g. van Audenhove et al.)
No simple causal links between liberalisation, infrastructure development, economic growth, deregulation and equitable distribution – tradeoffs
Competition and free trade may not bring positive social effects
Focus on wealthy customers
Can result in cartels and higher prices
MNCs dominate global markets
The state will need to be more active in balancing economic, social and political goals.
ICT does not bring social progress unless coupled with human and institutional capabilities – these have to be actively promoted
Need for action in multiple areas – no simple IS policy
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Conclusion
At the most general level, the information society rhetoric is well-founded on expectations about what will be major sources of growth in the next decades
Aspirations for growth should not and cannot be translated into a universal blueprint for building stronger (modern) information societies – local conditions and historical experience matter – customised policies are needed
The three pillars of information society – science-based industry, creative industries and industrial modernisation cannot all be pursued with equal success in every country – for many developing or middle income countries industrial modernisation should receive priority
Building any of the pillars requires education and capabilities development which, again, have to be customised to the history and circumstance of individual countries
The current prevalence of a ‘one size fits all’ model for building information societies is neither effective nor fit for purpose – customised strategies have to be developed for each country
