ICT4Dand Poverty Reduction

Abstract

Reducing poverty is a key feature of the rhetoric of institutional actors in the international development community and serves as the main driver of aid. Reflections on what poverty means and how reductions can be measured have evolved as the amount of aid increased yet failed to deliver expected results. At the heart of this debate is the issue of what we are trying to achieve when engaging in international development. This entry considers narrowly focused definitions of poverty measured in economic terms, for example, those living on less than US$2 per day, and broader conceptions of increasing a person's choice to live the life he or she has reason to value. This entry discusses dimensions of poverty in the context of the potential roles of information, knowledge, and technology in poverty reduction with detailed consideration of the relationship between information and communication technologies (ICTs) and economic growth and livelihood improvements.