REPORT
Workshop on Policy Tools to support ICT Use
for Poverty Reduction & the Achievement of the MDGs
UNDP Dakar SURF
2-3 November 2004

Background
There is a growing interest in using ICT to support poverty reduction efforts and strategies to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). However, at the country level ICT is yet to be effectively integrated into national development strategies. Development initiatives increasingly incorporate an "ICT component" but mostly as mere projects without a focus on policy variables that could enhance impact and sustainability. Analogously, national ICTD strategies incorporate a development focus but do not necessarily link their implementation with relevant development strategies (e.g. e-government and public sector reform and service) such that benefits from ICT use can be effectively reaped.



As a first step towards addressing this development-policy divide together with developing policy tools and approaches that can further the integration of ICT into poverty reduction and other related development strategies, UNDP is supporting selected country reviews. These reviews will focus on the content of and linkages between ICT-development strategies and policies in selected countries. The reviews are meant to take stock of the national ICT and development policies and strategies with a view to identifying opportunities, constraints and priority areas of focus. Priority areas of focus identified in the country studies will be then explored further through case studies, stakeholder inputs, and analysis in a second phase of the project. The analysis will finally be incorporated into a policy toolkit.
The initiative is supported by UNDP's global programme on "Policy Tools to support ICT Use for Poverty Reduction and Achievement of the MDGs" and by contributions from UNDP country programmes. This initiative is in line with UNDP's corporate MYFF focus on making ICT work for the poor and facilitating a deployment of ICT in achieving the MDGs. Other development agencies are also expected in join in.
Objectives of the Launch Workshop
The focus of the launch workshop was to bring together team-leaders/focal points for the six countries that will be participating in this study (Cameroon, Ghana, Mozambique, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania) with ICTD and poverty reduction experts/policy advisors (macroeconomic/PRS, …..) so as to build a common understanding of the issues and to develop an integrated approach to inform this work.
Major Outcome and Outputs
· Understanding of ICTD specialists about poverty reduction strategies and potential entry points in the PRS/PRSP and MDG exercises strengthened. Similarly UNDP poverty reduction experts' understanding of ICTD issues was enhanced. The latter also requested a guideline note on the issues to support work at the country level.
· Development of an outline for the country reviews and a timeline for the project

Agenda and Areas of Discussion
The sessions of the workshop covered the following themes (see attached agenda):
1. Progress on achieving the MDGs
2. The role of ICT in addressing poverty reduction, MDG Priorities, and issues of equity and empowerment
3. ICT in the context of development programme frameworks such as poverty reduction strategies and PRSPs
4. ICTD strategies development entry points and priorities
5. Monitoring and Evaluation of ICT for Poverty Reduction initiatives

1. Role of ICT in poverty reduction and achievement of the MDGs
The workshop commenced with a presentation on the status of progress in MDG efforts. It was noted that for the majority of Africa countries, progress was not on target and that the ICT4D process was not linked to assessing how ICT might contribute to strengthening the achievement of the MDGs .
It was agreed that poverty reduction should be considered the entry point and not ICT per se. In discussing how ICT could contribute towards poverty reduction and the MDGs, participants began by considering the following: (i) employment and support to entrepreneurship; (ii) public service delivery and sector reform/effectiveness; (iii) processes involved in poverty reduction efforts. These were not seen as exhaustive. It was pointed out that each of the country studies would help to identify priority areas based on country conditions and development priorities.
In considering employment and job creation, the discussion touched upon jobs that could be generated directly in the ICT sector as well as indirectly through the use of ICT in other sectors. Conventionally, the focus has been on ICT sector jobs, but as the participants pointed out this alone may not contribute strongly to poverty reduction efforts. A key question is how to strengthen the pro-poor dimensions of ICT-enabled job creation.
It was acknowledged that the household should be the unit of analysis for assessing impact but the difficulty and the complexity of measuring the direct and indirect impact of the use of ICTs on poverty reduction efforts more generally were pointed to. Participants agreed that a better understanding of the transmission mechanism for the impact on households is needed and that the country studies could try to identify ways to assess this.
In the discussion of ICT-enabled service delivery, it was pointed out that public sector reform efforts advocated for in the context of the PRSP and/or directly in the context of sector reform were not typically linked to ICT- supported service delivery enhancement, therefore missing out on an opportunity to use ICT to enhance reach and access to services by the poor.
The limitations of an approach that focuses on "computerisation" alone were pointed to. It was argued that once a process is ongoing, an adhoc ICT addition could not necessarily fix a bad process (see recent news item on high-rate of e-governance projects on account of poor planning and conceptualization ). Important potential areas of focus included public expenditure tracking and monitoring efforts to identify blockages and strengthen planning/strategic development efforts. It was viewed as important to link integration of ICT to sector reform and implementation efforts at the onset.
In assessing the role of ICT in enhancing equity, participants acknowledged that there was a need to consider the gender, disability dimensions amongst other things to ensure that access and use did not simply reproduce existing social hierarchies and discriminations. However, there was less clarity about the empowerment potential of the technologies per se, particularly as regards gender equity, and country reviews could help in that regard.
Recommendations
In the country reviews:
· Focus on identifying role of ICT in generating jobs that have more of a pro-poor focus.
· Identify ways to link e-government, public sector and institutions reform and enhanced public service delivery.
· Identify opportunities to involve a variety of partners, including local business and telecom operators by linking the development of ICT infrastructure and access with the development uses and strategies.
2. Policy/Strategy Frameworks
In discussing the poverty reduction strategies and PRSPs as entry points, there was greater comfort level in working with poverty reduction strategies. The limitations of focusing on PRSPs alone were pointed to in so far as these are perceived as linked to lending instruments, and do not necessarily enjoy broad in country ownership and/or MDG-compliant as yet. The need to focus on poverty reduction strategies in sync with goals and targets identified by the MDGs was emphasized.
The presentation on PRS/PRSP entry points for ICTD was framed within the context of the key dimensions or elements of the PRSP: (i) Institutional arrangements (ii) Poverty Diagnostics, monitoring and evaluation; (iii) Governance; (iv) Key public actions/sectoral programmes; and key challenges/gaps.
As regards the use of ICT to strengthen the governance dimensions identified in the context of the PRS/PRSP exercise, strategies for using ICT to support integrated approaches to improve public expenditure management, public information systems, decentralized planning and monitoring systems were emphasized as was the use of ICT to enhance the participatory and institutional collaboration arrangements. Especially for second-generation PRSPs, public sector reform is a major priority and there are many areas where ICT can be effectively used to both pro-poor service and sector efficiency.
Chief challenges and gaps related to limitations in ICT access and capacities to support use of ICTD as well as the need to go beyond the current ad hoc attempts at mainstreaming ICT. At the same time, good practices from other regions, particularly as regards one-stop shops (e.g. Brazil) were shared. In terms of the development sectors, agriculture, private sector development, tourism and the social sectors (health and education) were mentioned.
The shift over time from a focus on IT/telecom strategies to broader and more comprehensive e-strategies and now PRSPs as programme/policy entry points was highlighted. While a number of ICTD strategies were seen to have linked to development strategies, particularly PRS, this was viewed as being at a very embryonic stage.
In the context of the discussion of issues relating to national ICTD strategies and mechanisms to establish linkages with other development strategies, the importance of thematically organized clusters that integrated ICTD were emphasized as was a focus on bringing telecom operators and ICT specialists into the development debate.
While mobile telephony and sector reforms were seen to have contributed to enhancing access to ICT, key challenges particularly as relating to investment in infrastructure was emphasized. This was also seen as limiting affordable access to ICT.
Recommendations:

· Provide guidelines on mainstreaming ICT4D into the PRS/Ps.
· Highlight the need for and support to continuous policy dialogue between ICT4D, PRS/P, economic development and governance advisory and implementation groups at the national, sub-regional and regional levels as well as within UNDP so as to foster exchange and learning, streamline and bring synergy into the ICT4D and the PSRP process in a number of areas. Assess the potential to support ICT integration into thematic clusters at the national level.
· In country reviews, identify policy initiatives and tools targeted at using ICT to support poverty alleviation and also public sector actions, delivery and effectiveness of planning and coordination efforts.
· In country reviews, identify indicators that could be used to measure the impact of ICT on poverty reduction efforts.
3. Indicators and Monitoring
On-going work on indicators focused on access and ICT use was shared. It was agreed that the country reviews would simply draw on this work where feasible.
4. Operational Issues and Concerns
In particular the short time frame and budget were emphasized. It was decided that country work would be conducted in two phases so as to make strategic use of the opportunity provided by the upcoming WSIS regional preparatory meeting in Accra in February. In the course of the first phase, the country reviews would focus on providing a snapshot of ICTD and integration of ICT in the context of PRS/MDG/other development strategies and identification of priority areas of focus.
The workshop participants were welcomed by the UNDP Resident Representative in Senegal and the Coordinator a.i. of the Sub regional Resource facility (SURF) in West Africa. Both insisted on the pertinence of the initiative and the necessity for adopting a harmonized and synergized approach to work on PRS/PRSPs so as to increase the effectiveness of poverty reduction interventions. Participants also acknowledged the contributions of the SURF's policy advisors, which ultimately demonstrate the importance of the cross- practices interaction that UNDP is in a position to contribute.
Next Steps
· Review and finalize outline developed by the participants at the workshop.
· Develop and share guidelines for ICT in the context of PRS/PRSP to facilitate ICT integration and inform country review.
· Highlight the importance of process/thematic entry points along with institutional ones (e.g. e-parliament)
· Finalize country teams and organize the process so as to foster cross-disciplinary and thematic dialogue to strengthen synergies and build a common understanding.
· Share information with other interested partners, with a view to strengthening collaboration post-Accra.