Is There A Relationship Between ICT, Health, Education And Development? An Empirical Analysis of five West African Countries from 1997–2003

Abstract

For more than a decade, key international organizations such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, the UN and International Telecommunications Union (ITU) have argued that investment in information communication and telecommunication (ICT) infrastructure is a prerequisite for the development of poor countries. However, dissenting voices of the international development community argue that African governments should focus their attention on building schools, delivering basic health care, electricity and clean water rather than on the building of costly ICT infrastructure with their limited financial resources. In this paper, we present an analysis of the relationships among investments in ICT, Health Care and Education and the human development index on five West African nations. We use a Stepwise regression analysis to help unravel the complex relationships among these variables. Our results provide evidence that complementary investments in ICT, health and education can significantly increase development. Given that developing nations are making considerable investments in healthcare, education and ICT and that there are concerns over the type of investments they should make, our findings are a significant contribution to the literature.

The Impact of ICT Investments on Human Development: A Regression Splines Analysis

“…This means countries have dissimilar JCT investment utilization (Samoilenko & Osei-Bryson, 2008). The findings also correspond with Ngwenyama et al, (2006), Kim et al, (2008) and Bankole et al, (2011), whose studies observed that complementary investments are prerequisites for the successful translation of investments in JCT. The analysis makes clear the complexity that is associated with such JCT investment, thereby providing insight into the challenges of JCT investment.…”

“…For the Standard of Living dimension, GDP per capita is used as an indicator, commensurate with other similar studies (e.g., Morawczynski & Ngwenyama, 2007). For the Health dimension, previous similar studies have tended to use Life Expectancy Rate (LER) as the indicator (e.g., Ngwenyama et al, 2006). A parallel measure of Infant Mortality Rate (!MR) may also be used.…”

“…It can be used to improve the management of government, public utilities (e.g., mass transit, water delivery), and enable and empower business organizations including small and medium enterprises. There have been protests from some quarters, however, that poor nations should be utilizing their limited resources on basic amenities like building schools and making provision for basic health, electricity and clean water, rather than ICT infrastructure (Ngwenyama et al, 2006;Morawczynski & Ngwenyama, 2007). In any case, investigations on the impact of ICT investments on human development have been receiving attention among policy makers, ICT practitioners and governments (UNDP, 2003).…”

“…Less research has investigated these impacts in developing and least developed countries (Mbarika et al, 2005). There are even fewer studies looking at the impact of ICT investments on other facets of human development, such as education and health (Ngwenyama et al, 2006). Few studies also disaggregate JCT investments into component parts (Kim et al, 2008).…”

Exploring the Link between ICT and Development in the Context of Developing Countries: A Literature Review

“…The Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries www.ejisdc.org ICT4D research focuses on different subjects such as the diffusion of ICT artifacts, infrastructure building and the implementation of ICT services (Braa & Hedberg, 2002;Meso et al, 2005;Walsham & Sahay, 1999), impact evaluation of ICT interventions (Kumar & Best, 2006), linking ICT and Development (Avgerou, 2003;Ngwenyama et al, 2006;Urquhart et al, 2008), and the digital divide (Warschauer, 2003). Research related to implementation issues analyzes the different social and technical factors as well as the actors who impede the implementation process.…”