Community-based Networks and Innovative Technologies: New Models to Serve and Empower the Poor

From the preface..."Development and technology landscapes are being rapidly transformed, providing a good opportunity to take stock of what is working and also to explore emerging technology and organisational options that could enable information and communication technology (ICT) to serve poor and under-served communities more effectively. In the context of this report, current developments raise an interesting question: In many developed countries, community networks and cooperatives played a key role in bringing telephony to rural and under-served communities; has their time come and gone in light of the increasing role of the private sector? Or does the low cost access offered by mobile telephony and wireless technologies allow for new community-based configurations to emerge, to be responsive to the broader development needs of the communities concerned and to operate sustainably, whether as community-based networks or small and medium scale enterprises?"

This report and its accompanying case studies consider how the combination of community-driven enterprises and the new wave of wireless and related technologies may have the potential to extend networks and offer new services to economically poor communities and to empower them to develop solutions that are more focused on their own development needs. The report concludes that new community-driven options could make a significant difference to network access, delivery of services and economic and social opportunities for poorer rural communities.

This report is part of a series of knowledge products initiated by the Poverty Group, Bureau of Development Policy, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) New York to facilitate evidence-based discussion of innovative and emerging policy options and implementation modalities in the context of its programme of support to 'Make ICT work for the Poor'.