John A. Daly

A conceptual framework is offered for consideration of the impacts of the Internet in Africa. It is based on the penetration of the Internet, its utilization, and the impacts that result. Alternative frameworks in use are discussed in the Appendix. The proposed framework is diagrammed in Figure I.

Figure I

This framework is in part a response to the question, "what will the Internet mean for development?" "Development" in this context refers to broad developmental issues such as economic growth, development of participatory governance systems, improvement of health and welfare, improved standards of living, reduction in poverty, and improved knowledge systems. It seems likely that the Internet will be very widely used, and its effects will be felt broadly in many sectors and in many social groups. On the other hand, the Internet will be used far less in Africa than in the United States and Europe, its effects therefore more subtle and less evident; therefore, approaches used for the study of the major impacts of the Internet in the U.S. and Europe may not work in Africa.

Yet, even in Sub-Saharan Africa with more than one million people connected to the Internet already, measurement of the developmental impacts of the Internet will be a large and complex task, far beyond the scope of any one study. The following conceptual framework is offered as a way of interrelating many studies of impacts to form an overall understanding of the effects of the Internet on development in Africa. It is a conceptual framework in support of a jig-saw puzzle approach - piecing together a large scale picture of development impacts from many small studies, each giving a portion of the picture.

Definition: The term "Internet" is used in different ways. The core definition deals with the interconnection of computer networks using a standard packet switching protocol for communications. More generally, people refer to the global network of computers which communicate via the Internet protocols as the Internet. Note, however, that these computers are used for many purposes, and not just for Internet applications; the telephone system over which Internet messages pass also has applications beyond the Internet. Indeed, considering an African organization which buys some computers and gets connected to the telephone line to use the Internet, there may be no practical way to distinguish the impacts of "the Internet" from the impacts of "the telephone" and those of "computer technology". The following framework is perhaps easily modifiable for application to the study of the impacts of "information and communications technology" as of "the Internet". It is strongly suggested that those seeking to apply the framework be specific as to the system whose impacts they seek to understand.

Penetration: "Penetration" refers to how widely the Internet is distributed in countries. When the Leland Initiative started in 1995, many countries in Africa were not connected at all to the Internet. Now capital cities are connected, but few secondary cities. The term "capillarity" is used in some countries to discuss the connectivity to citizens in areas which have Internet services (metaphorically comparing the "last mile" network of communications to Internet to the system by which capillaries carry blood from arteries to tissue and back to the veins in the body.)

The penetration of the Internet may differ for different applications. Thus more people may have e-mail service than have the possibility of surfing the world wide web. Indeed in schools in Africa e-mail mailboxes are provided to faculty and students who have no other access to the Internet. Few people in Africa apparently have access yet to Internet telephone or Internet radio or other more recent Internet applications.

Bandwidth availability is also considered as an aspect of penetration. Thus it is quite a different thing to have access to the Internet over a poor quality telephone line than over a high bandwidth link. International bandwidth, considered in terms of the available kilo bytes per second per Internet account in international satellite and cable connections is also a useful measure.

We will also consider the concept of "penetration" to include aspects of content. Content once the exclusive domain of print media (e.g., newspapers, journals, magazines, brochures) is now available via the Internet (e.g., the world wide web). Books are available in electronic form. Person-to-person communications occur increasingly via the Internet (e-mail, Internet-telephone). One-to-many communications, once occurring via radio and television, are now beginning to occur via e-mail, Internet radio, and Internet video. Thus the portion of information that is now available or communicated via the Internet is an indicator of penetration into the content of the information and knowledge systems of a country. As one considers content, one can focus on quality as well as quantity of information.

Economic theory suggests that the penetration of the Internet can be analyzed in terms of supply and demand for services and content. Indeed, considerable effort has gone into encouraging policy changes to permit competition among Internet service providers with the intent of making such market forces work. Where competition exists, one can look at the equilibrium point between supply and demand.

However, the supply of Internet services in Africa is limited not only by market forces, but by the infrastructure supporting the Internet. Those without access to telephones and electric power supply generally can not get access to the Internet. The relevant infrastructure is, however, more complex. Thus, the Internet depends on the availability of personal computers, and this availability in turn depends on an infrastructure for the sales and maintenance of computers as well as systems for the distribution of software, computer training, etc.

Similarly, demand for Internet services is affected by a number of social and economic factors, not least of which are per capita income and its distribution. The demand is also limited by general level of education, levels of competence in computer skills, etc.

The policy environment is also emphasized in the proposed framework, including privatization of Internet Service Providers, the numbers of such ISPs allowed to exist in the country, the number of satellite and cable connections from national to global providers, regulation of content on and transmitted through the Internet, pricing policy, taxation of Internet services and tariff policies on computers and telecommunications equipment.

Utilization(1): Having a computer on one’s desk with connection to the Internet does not mean that one uses the computer nor the Internet, much less that one uses them intensively or well. The utilization of Internet services depends on the capacity to use available services. Such capacity might be measured in terms of the number of years experience one has using computers, the number of applications packages over which one has mastery, as well as more general characteristics such as general levels of education and intelligence.

Direct measures of use of the Internet include numbers of hours per day that users spend at their terminals, numbers of emails they send and receive, and web sites that they visit. In some cases data is available such as data flow through international Internet gateways. There are also measures of the intensity of use such as "flow", the state of intense concentration and participation observed in some users. Other measures could be developed of the quality of use, based on understanding of web browsers and search engines, and efficiency and success in carrying out specified tasks requiring the Internet.

Utilization, whatever the level of penetration of the Internet, is conceived as dependent on environmental and policy factors. Thus there has been considerable discussion of factors within African scientific and technological culture which limit the propensity of African scientists to seek information via the Internet, even when it is available. Similarly, it has been suggested that traditional and hierarchical organizations, access to information resources and access to communications channels are restricted as a measure of control; faced with such policies, subordinates may not utilize available Internet connections, while superiors may also not utilize them due to heavy demands on their time, or cultural perceptions that they not do hands-on work.

Impacts: The framework takes a reductionist approach. Large systems are seen as composed of subsystems. The impact of the Internet is considered for each system to be a composite of the impacts on the subsystems, the impacts on the linkages among subsystems, and the impacts of the learning or self-organizing that occurs as the system adapts to the Internet. Moreover, each system has the potential to change the response of its subsystems to the Internet.

Our model differs from most systems models in that elements may not be partitionable, so that each belongs to one and only one system. Thus a person who works at home via Internet linkage with an enterprise, may use the Internet also to a link to a professional association, and may also use the Internet as a consumer (via E-commerce), as a voter (and participant in political institutions). For analytic purposes it may be useful to divide these roles, but in practice it may be impossible to say which role is dominant in any given session on the net.

The most fundamental elements that the framework considers are impacts of the Internet on individuals. At this point, the focus of the previous discussion of utilization comes to fore. A dose-response curve is assumed, where the more and more effectively the individual uses the Internet, the greater the impact that the Internet will have on that person.

Building from the individual, one might look for impacts on increasingly complex groups: work groups, then organizations such as private voluntary organizations, businesses, schools, and health centers. These are all formal organizations, and there are established approaches to observing the impacts of information technology on formal organizations. Similarly, in focusing on a work group within an organization, one might look at the way changes in organizational policies in response to the introduction of the Internet affect the responses of the work group. It is noted, however, that the very idea of the formal organization as an institution is changing, perhaps in part as a result of the changes in formal organizations occurring in conjunction with the development of the Internet(2).

It is suggested, moreover, that impacts of the Internet on groups of people defined by other institutions might be equally or more interesting than those on formal organizations. For example, one might look at the impact of the Internet on the family or the community; on a religious community, or on a research network.

Discussion of the impact of the Internet on the family may seem rather stretched. However, in the United States, the Internet is allowing many to work at home, E-commerce is changing the buying habits of families, and local-area networks within the home are on the horizon all of which will probably be used by families as they change their behavior. Few homes in Africa are connected, but even in Africa there appears to be a significant market for Internet services among expatriates who used the technology to communicate with their families in other countries. The Internet provides an equally cost-effective means for Africans living abroad to communicate with their relatives at home. Thus, for the wired, the geographic distances between family members are bridged by the Internet, people may be more willing to move to another city or country leaving their extended family behind, and the institutional processes within the extended family may be changed.

More complicated systems might include markets, in which the subsystems would be businesses linked through the market. The impact of the Internet on a market might be in part the result of the Internet being used to provide market information and support market transactions, and in part resulting from the impacts of the internal use of the Internet in firms that buy and/or sell in the market. Indeed, firms exposed to new market forces created by the Internet may behave differently, and may use Internet technology internally differently than they otherwise would. One could focus on the evolutionary changes in the market as firms that were more efficient (in part due to better use of the Internet) grew, and those less efficient shrank; as firms learned to participate in Internet mediated transactions, etc. Further, as enterprises chose to buy in sell in one versus another market (as markets change in size and efficiency due to their use of the technology), there may be an evolutionary growth or substitution of markets.

In theory, the approach we took would allow further aggregation of impacts in still larger social and economic systems. If we looked at education, the approach would seek to look at the impacts of the Internet on(3):

• students and teachers,
• schools (classes, administrative offices, etc.),
• the market-like institutions through which students pick schools to attend,
• markets for the labor of teachers, principals, etc.
• markets for books, educational supplies, teaching aids, etc.,
• communities as they institutionalize to support students and schools,
• Ministries of Education,
• etc.

One would seek to understand the overall impact in terms of the aggregate of impacts on these subsystems, on the linkages among them, and on the way in which the educational system evolves in the Internet era.

Note that as one studies systems, one can begin to understand the impact of non-use of the Internet as well as of use of the Internet. Thus in the example mentioned above, the enterprises competing in a market that do not use the Internet may be seen to be at a comparative disadvantage with those which do. Indeed the disadvantaged firms may see their market share deteriorate and their production costs rise as eventual impacts of their non-use of the Internet.

The impacts of the Internet, even given a specific pattern of penetration and use, are also seen to depend on environmental and policy factors. For example, organizations are more able to invest in the social capital needed to take advantage of new ICTs in times of economic expansion than during recessions. Political uncertainty also interferes with achieving good results from technological innovation. Policies also count. Thus government policies which provide industrial extension services or promote industry-academia cooperation may help enterprises obtain know-how needed to maximize benefits from their use of the Internet. Policies promoting primary health care may help health agencies maximize benefits from telemedicine.

Limitations of the Framework: The proposed reductionist model has drawbacks. It is certainly more manageable to measuring the impacts of the Internet in smaller rather than larger systems. Even in Africa, with only a million people on line, it is hard to see how one would use the approach to quantify the impacts of the Internet on national economies or on national educational systems. What would be the sampling strategy? How would one aggregate information?

Thus at the level of national or regional systems, the framework is more useful as a system for qualitative analysis and the extraction of qualitative lessons than for quantitative analysis.

Note also that complexity theory has demonstrated that in complex adaptive systems, small [sometimes random or adventitious] changes in the functioning of large numbers of elements results in emergent systems properties and behaviors that are very difficult to foresee. Thus, it is very difficult to predict the equity impact of the Internet in Africa: it seems clear that the affluent and powerful in Africa will have greater access to the technology, but it may be that the cumulative beneficial impacts in public health, nutrition, and education will produce overall gains in equity.

Leland Objectives versus the Framework Categories: The conceptual framework is intended specifically to provide an context for discussion of the Leland Initiative which focuses on three objectives: providing a friendly policy environment for the Internet, helping to provide pipes between African countries and the GII and expanding the NIIs, and promoting use of the Internet by people in developmentally useful ways. The following matrix suggests how Leland activities are concentrated in the categories defined by the framework.

Studies under this conceptual framework will tend to concentrate in the occupied boxes in the matrix. It should be noted, however, that the frameworks are simplifications. Thus, the ability to offer financial and technical assistance to construct a VSAT gateway can be a helpful inducement to encourage policy changes, as can be the offer of appropriate training in Internet use.

Studies done by others may be crucial in developing a comprehensive understanding of the effects of the Internet in Africa, and they may not be limited to the annotated areas in this table. Thus another agency might easily focus studies on policies to promote use of existing NII, or to encourage organizations to improve the impact they do make of the Internet. Indeed, as mentioned above, studies complementary to those carried out by the Leland Initiative will be required to gain general knowledge and understanding of the process by which the GII develops and contribute to large socio-economic development.

Appendix 1

There are a number of sources that deal with the impacts of information and communications technology (ICT) in developed countries.(4) The body of work done by the Center for Research on Information Technology and Organizations is especially noteworthy.(5) Similarly, there are studies that focus on the impacts of ICT in developing countries.(6) Robin Mansell’s overview of knowledge societies is useful, and Chapter 2 which deals with indicators of participation gives useful insights into the penetration of the Internet.(7)

William Wresch provides an implicit framework.(8) It uses a transmission model to deal with information deficits in Africa. Source problems are discussed, including those relating to information sources in the media, personal contacts (in the heads of people with whom one might converse), organizations, professional associations, and commerce. Transmission problems are discussed in terms of the disconnected (poverty, lack of infrastructure), political control, and crime. Reception problems are discussed in terms of the educational deficit in Africa, the psychological problems the people have in accepting and accommodating to new information, and noise—the problem of extracting useful information from the masses of data increasingly available.

Internet Counts Framework: The U.S. Agency for International Development supported the National Academy of Sciences to develop a framework for evaluating the impact of the Internet in Africa.(9) That study, referred to hereafter as "Internet Counts" has been adapted in the discussion above.

The Internet Counts framework seeks to account for both direct and indirect impacts of the Internet. It notes that impacts may be negative as well as positive, unintended as well as intended. If focuses heavily on indicators that can be used, and many quantitative indicators are identified. It is noted however that qualitative indicators are possible, and indeed may be quite important for understanding the impacts of the Internet in Africa at this time.

Internet counts notes the attribution problem, which is the difficulty in attributing causality of changes in the functioning of institutions to the influence of the Internet. It suggests the importance of the impacts of "Nonuse" of the Internet. It gives particular importance to the need for qualitative studies to clarify the impacts of the Internet in African institutions which may be quite different than those in countries where the Internet is more developed and impact studies more extensive.

The Internet Counts framework starts with a consideration of indicators of Supply and Demand of Internet services. The penetration of the Internet is related to the environment for Internet use; environmental indicators include those related to the economy and infrastructure, as well as to the policy and regulatory environment. There is a discussion of the quantity quality of Internet service, and of its sustainability. Indicators of Internet use, cost and content are discussed.

The Framework then moves to indicators of Internet impacts. The approach is reductionist, moving from impacts involving small numbers of people to impacts on larger institutions involving larger numbers of people (and smaller institutions as components). Thus Internet Counts begins with discussion of the impacts on formal organizations, how they are perceived, and especially on organizational decision making.

The framework then moves to other institutions, such as the family, the community, the market, and the association. Indicators at the sectoral level are discussed, such as sectoral use and diffusion of Internet, and Internet impacts on sectors and their related developmental goals. The discussion focuses on three specific sectors: Education, Private Sector, and Government and Civil Society.

Technology Transfer Model(10): An alternative framework approaches the impacts of information and communications technology from a technology transfer perspective. It is illustrated in the following diagram.

Technology is seen as embodied in goods, techniques, organization and as also available in unembodied forms. Thus the Internet involves technology embodied in:

• computer and communications equipment including software (goods),
• people such as users, network managers, and ISP staff (technique)
• organization, such as in the changes in structure and processes within formal organizations or markets to adjust to the new media (organization), or
• in books, web pages, emails, manuals, etc. (unembodied).

The technological system includes sources of technology, systems for the diffusion, dissemination and transfer of the technology, and users of the technology.

In keeping with science and technology studies terminology, factors influencing the technology system are divided into two classes: internal, relating to the internal logic of science and technology, and external, relating to the effects of the larger socio-economic system in which the technology system is embedded.

Technological factors relating to the Internet would include, for example:

• Moore’s law, describing the phenomenon of increasing density of devices on microchips and the resulting reduction in cost of hardware, and Gilder’s Law describing the rate of change of bandwidth in international communications.
• the development of software factories reducing the costs of developing software, and the fact that the development costs of software tend to be independent of the number of users so that per computer software costs diminish as the number of computers increases.

Scientific factors relate to the fact that the application of technology is limited by scientific understanding. Thus the information and communications technology have been adequate for several decades to predict the effects of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on African climate, but the scientific understanding of these processes were inadequate to identify what data should be collected by remote sensing nor how that data should be analyzed.

Institutional factors relate to the ways formal organizations and markets function. Thus organization theory suggests that there is a predictable process by which new information technologies are introduced into and diffused through formal organizations. Similarly, it is known that market imperfections can affect the way in which technologies are disseminated through markets.

Economic determinants include the ratio of costs of a new technology to the benefits derived from that technology as an underlying force driving technology diffusion. Appropriability theory suggests that either each participant in the chain of technology diffusion must be able to appropriate a portion of the benefits from the use of the technology justifying participation in the diffusion, or that subsidies will be required. Network economics suggests that increasing returns to expansion of Internet networks, as the benefits are dependent on the number of people using the network (Metcalfe’s Law). Efficiency theory suggests that if markets are efficient, individuals will adopt new technologies as soon as information exists demonstrating it is profitable to do so.

Social construction of technology provides another analytic approach. It is recognized that the use of a technology depends on what people construe to be the use of the technology (as the wheel was construed as useful for toys by pre-Columbian Americans or the steam engine by ancient Romans, but neither the Romans construed the steam engine nor the native Americans the wheel as useful for transportation). The ways an individual’s construes the Internet depends on social processes, and thus are affected by the social groups with which the individual is affiliated. Doctors will tend to construe the Internet in terms of health service delivery, but do so differently than nurses or patients; merchants will tend to construe it the technology in terms of commerce but to do so differently than their customers; higher management will tend to construe it differently than middle management, shop floor workers, or clerical workers; men will construe it differently than women; one ethnic group may differ from another.

Political analysis can include factors such as political ideology, the distribution of power within a political system, or issues such as post-colonialism or neo-imperialism.

The framework sees the dissemination and ultimate impact of new information and communications technologies as the result of the interplay of these internal and external determinants. Qualitative analysis can be used within this framework to predict outcomes such as the equity impact of new technologies.

Acacia Telecenter Evaluation Framework: The IDRC’s Acacia Project is undertaking an evaluation of telecenters as the first step in an effort to understand the effects of information and communications technology in Africa. An initial version of a framework for that evaluation has been prepared.(11). The framework proposed seeks to create comparable data across Acacia projects, while leaving flexibility to the research teams to adapt to the needs of specific situations. The main research approaches proposed to be applied are:

The present Acacia telecenter projects is to provide community level data on some 50-60 communities with telecenters (40 in South Africa, 14 in Senegal, 2 in Mozambique and 3 in Uganda) and approximately 50 communities (almost all in South Africa) without telecenters.

Discussions are also underway about support for university students to undertake community case studies in the pilot telecenter communities. The funding mechanism proposed is a small grants project funded by IDRC as part of Acacia.

IDRC Framework: A two phase effort has been conducted by the IDRC to study methods for the analysis of the impact of information. The first phase resulted in the publication of Measuring the Impact of Information on Development(12). Its approach focuses on the information service provider and user, and thus is limited to the first Much like the Logical Framework approach, this book suggests the following:

Inputs

• amount of resources
• cost of resources
• attributes

Outputs (Information Service Provider)

• amount of output
• attributes of output
• quality
• timeliness
• availability
• accessibility

• amount of use and non-use
• factors affecting use and non-use
• purpose of use
• importance
• satisfaction with attributes of output
• awareness
• ease and cost of use

• time saved
• improved productivity
• improved quality of work
• improved timeliness of work
• value derived

Domain (environmental characteristics; Donor)

• target population
• user and non-user population
• user and non-user information needs
• number and attributes of sites

A second book(13), the proceedings of a conference sponsored by the program, noted the impact assessment methodology consisted of first seven prerequisite steps:

1. Define the user community.

2. Define the development issue and program to which the information activity or project is contributing.

3. Identify the main patterns of operation of the information life cycle and the factors that influence its effectiveness for the defined user community and development issue.

4. Describe the target audience to whom the findings will be directed.

5. Describe the information use environments of the user community and the target audience.

6. Set up standard guidelines for collecting, analyzing, interpreting, and presenting anecdotes and other data.

7. Assemble baseline data.

Next, working collaboratively with representatives of the various groups of including end-users and target audiences:

8. Determine which primary objectives are being served and their outcomes.

9. Develop a hierarchy of the objectives or outcomes.

10. Define corresponding outputs and the required inputs.

11. At each level of the hierarchy, identify critical factors that are either "informational" in nature or are information-dependent.

12. Define the indicators in the framework that would show that the appropriate information input is secured and improved.

The key features of this preliminary framework have been summarized as follows:(14)

• A thorough knowledge of the community observed and understanding of its key development problems, in its own definition, as a starting point;
• The involvement of representatives of all categories of stakeholders in a bottom-up participatory approach for the design and conduct of the study and the appraisal of its results;
• The inclusion of all forms and channels of information in the investigation;
• The inclusion of all the factors at play in the development issues and not only the information related ones;
• A focus on the changes in the development issues and not on the use of information;
• A longitudinal approach enabling at least the validation of the initial observations.

This framework was used in four studies.(15) The principal investigator reports(16) :

The experience is further described as follows(17):

This comment is made in the context of efforts to evaluate impacts that were added later to existing projects, and may be as much a comment on the need for prospective impact studies as a critique of the feasibility of the approach.

Press Framework: Larry Press and his colleagues have developed a framework in their program to study the diffusion of the Internet.(18) It focuses on the nation as a unit of analysis, and characterize the state of the Internet along six dimensions (each dimension has five ordinal values from zero [non-existent] to four [highly developed]):

• pervasiveness: a measure based on users per capita and the degree to which non-technicians are using the Internet;
• geographic dispersion: a measure of the concentration of the Internet within a nation, from none or a single city to nationwide availability;
• sectoral absorption: a measure of the degree of utilization of the Internet in the education, commercial, health care and public sectors;
• connectivity infrastructure: a measure based on international and intranational backbone bandwidth, exchange points, and last-mile access methods;
• organizational infrastructure: a measure based on the state of the ISP industry and market conditions; and
• sophistication of use: a measure characterizing usage from conventional to highly sophisticated and driving innovation.

The utilization of these scales presented in the form of national "footprints" can be seen in the following figure(19):

The model also includes a set of determinants:

• Internet Success Determinants
• Telecommunication infrastructure
• Personal computing and software
• Financial resources
• Human capital
• Sectorial demand and awareness
• The Competitive environment
• Government Policies
• Markets and choice
• Investment policy
• National security
• Cultural concerns
• Social equity

The framework has been applied in studies in 13 countries, none in Africa. Questionnaires are available implementing the framework(20).

Pimienta Model: In a brief paper(21), Daniel Pimienta gives the following dimensions for his model of the impacts of the Internet. He assigns values from zero to five through a subjective scale, and providing data for three regions of the Dominican Republic and comments on connectivity for Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

The meta-framework, is to be applied at the:

• component level, to evaluate the impact (positive or negative) of ICT through the components of an entity or project, measured in terms of the efficiency and effectiveness of organizational structures and work processes within and between those components.
• entity level, to evaluate the contribution (positive or negative) of ICT to the mission and objectives of an entity, project, program or process.
• at the stakeholder level, to evaluate the role of ICT, entities and processes as stakeholders in larger structures and social processes.

The meta-framework treats ICT as operating within and between four quadrants of a representation of the virtual workspace, representing: administration, research and learning, products/services, and communications

(Figure 2).

Within an entity's electronic workspace, ICT operates across three virtual domains:

• Email, which facilitates the transmission of digital information (numerical, textual, audio, and video objects). This domain is the command center of the entity's electronic presence. It is linked to the component parts of the entity, and beyond to the rest of the world, by an ICT-based communications corridor.
• GroupWork space, which facilitates (asynchronous) collaboration across time and space. This occurs both within the entity (via 'intranet-like' facilities) and beyond the entity (via 'internet-like’ facilities).
• Digital Objects - supports the creation, use, and distribution of, as well as access to stored digital information.

ICT is seen to provide the entity with three important (potential) capacities:

• The virtual workspace within the entity.
• The communications corridor for local access to remote sites to (a) exchange of email, (b) participate in remote workgroups, and (c) access remote (digital) resources.
• The communications corridor for local access from remote sites to give other entities remote access to virtual workgroups and electronic resources located within the local the entity.

The meta-framework includes another level of complexity, termed "zoning". Each quadrant (administration, research/learning, product/services, and communications) is seen as linked with itself and each other quadrant via each of the three domains. This leads to a complex matrix of possible interactions.

The meta-framework suggests a standard set of questions for each component of the entity, questions with regard to ICT and the entity's mission, ICT and organizational structure, and ICT and work process. These questions can be asked with respect to the component’s relations with each of the other components in the entity, and its uses of the communications corridor. The meta-framework is seen as an aid to linking project outputs, results and impacts to the role played by ICT. Consequently it results in checklists such as the following:

How is the Email domain used for:

• pursuit of the project's objectives and mission funding, accountability, sustainability and transparency
• communications with closely linked stakeholders
• communications with local (non-entity/non-project) peer groups
• communications with remote (non-stakeholder) peer groups

How is the Group Work domain used for:

• pursuit of the project's objectives and mission funding, accountability, sustainability and transparency
• working with closely linked stakeholders
• working with local (non-entity/non-project) peer groups
• working with remote (non-stakeholder) peer groups

How is the Digital Object domain used in:

• the pursuit of the project's objectives and mission funding, accountability, sustainability and transparency
• working with closely linked stakeholders
• working with local (non-entity/non-project) peer groups
• working with remote (non-stakeholder) peer groups

The Graham Study(23): A brief study, based on desk review of files and interviews of project officers, was recently conducted by Michael Graham for the Acacia program. This study sought to answer eight questions about 13 projects. It is described as being based on the framework proposed by Sam Lanfranco, described above. The questions were:

1.Have IDRC program activities: influenced how ICTs fit into the development plans and strategies of other agencies; fostered the wider use of ICTs and a pro-ICT attitude among all stakeholders — peoples, institutions, or governments; or stimulated relevant ICT policy development?

2.Have ICTs encouraged new types of organizations or new forms of social interaction?

3.Have IDRC projects that involve ICTs been able to develop the human and institutional resources necessary to support the adoption of ICTs?

4.Have ICTs helped overcome barriers to development such as language, culture, and distance?

5.Have ICTs promoted new and innovative solutions to development problems?

6.Have ICTs helped to empower individuals through access to information and affordable and timely communication capabilities?

7.Have IDRC projects that involve ICTs been able to encourage community involvement in the creation and use of these new technologies?

8.Have ICTs played a role in creating jobs or other forms of economic activity?

Framework for the Study of Civil Society Organizations: Fundación Acceso(24) has proposed a methodology for measuring the impact of the Internet on civil society organizations, which is highly informed by the Lanfranco approach and that of Internet Counts. It consists of three sections

1. Understanding the experiences of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in adopting the Internet focuses on the following themes:

• "Internet services the organization uses and the quantity of use of each service
• "Internet services the organization does not use, and the reasons why not
• "How Internet services are used, including investigation of the content of the information transmitted and received
• "The organization's original goals in adopting the Internet and the extent to which these have been met
• "Benefits which the organization perceives deriving from its Internet services
• "The process by which the organization adopted its Internet services
• "Usage policies, if any, within the organization
• "Identification of the people within the organization who use the Internet, and examination of differences in use according to position, responsibilities, gender, and other factors
• "Cultural and technological barriers the organization found and still finds to adoption and use of the Internet
• "Financing of Internet projects, whether funds come from specific grants, as a component of other projects, or are part of regular operating overhead
• "Changes which have occurred in the organization's structure, processes, or capacities as a result of its adoption of the Internet."

In addition, general background information about each organization are to be collected in order to classify organizations and their experiences according to organizational size, type, mandate, functions, activities, location, and other basic characteristics.

2. Assessing the impact of the Internet on an organization's

mission performance by considering the following five major classifications of Internet activity:

• "Internal interpersonal communication (one-to-one communication within the organization)
• "External interpersonal communication (one-to-one communication between organizations)
• "Gathering of information (one-to-many or broadcast communication, as a consumer)
• "Dissemination of information (one-to-many or broadcast communication, as a producer)
• "Groupwork (many-to-many communication among individuals collaborating in a group)"

Specific indicators of organizational performance are to be developed within the following general areas:

• Quantity of products or services delivered
• Quality of products or services delivered
• Ways in which pre-existing products or services are delivered
• Changes in the products or services themselves
• New products or services
• Impacts on the organization's target population
• Characteristics (e.g. gender, socioeconomic status, organizational affiliation, location, etc.) of the people using the products or services
• Entirely new areas of activity made possible
• Marketing of products or services.

The research team was to analyze patterns in the impacts of the Internet on the organizations studied, and aggregate these observations to the sectoral level and societal levels. The latter level of analysis will be strengthened as each new sector is studied.

2. Assessing the impact of the Internet on internal organizational capacities in the following general areas:

Adaptive capacity

• Strategic planning and vision
• Learning and knowledge management
• Innovativeness in program development
• Flexibility and responsiveness to the target population's needs
• Flexibility and responsiveness to changes in the environment
• Institutional capacity to use and develop new technologies

Human resources: staff and board of directors

• Empowerment and participation
• Leadership development
• Training and skill development
• Management of volunteer resources

Management

• Organizational structure and decision-making processes
• Policies regarding Internet use in the organization

External co-ordination

• Organizational partnerships within a sector of activity
• Cross-sectoral organizational partnerships
• Promotion of the organization's image

Financial sustainability

• Financial resource management
• Financial accountability
• Marketing of products and services

The research team was to analyze sectoral patterns in the ways that the Internet develops organizational capacities, in order to establish the overall impacts of the Internet on

organizational capacity and structure for the CSO sector being studied.

The Lefebvres’ Framework: The IDRC has also supported work which developed a framework for evaluation of the impact of information technologies on small and medium enterprises in developing countries.(25) That work included consideration of the characteristics of the technology, factors which affect the adoption of the technology by the enterprise, with special attention to characteristics of the decision making relevant to the adoption, and the impacts of the adoption. The framework is outlined below:

A. Internal Factors Relevant to the Firms Adoption of ICTs

• Time since first acquisition
• Number of technologies or applications adopted
• Types of technologies or applications adopted
• Current level of assimilation and integration of technologies
• Percentage by class of personnel familiar with the technologies

• Availability of financial resources
• Centralization
• Formalization
• Technocratization
• Size

• Strategic orientation:
• Aggressive
• Analytic
• Defensive
• Futuristic
• Proactive
• Risky
• Technological policy
• Technological awareness
• Technological scanning

B. External Factors Relevant to the Firms Adoption of ICTs

• Overall competition
• Type of competitors
• Number of competitor
• Proximity of competitors
• Characteristics of demand
• Type of customers
• Number of customers
• Location of customers
• Sophistication of demand
• Requirements imposed by major customers
• Degree of diffusion of technologies
• By technology
• By type of competitor
• Availability of external know-how from
• Government agencies
• Institutes
• Technology suppliers–vendors
• Trade associations

• Availability of capital
• Availability of qualified human resources
• Quality of industrial relations
• Inflation
• Business cycle

• Trade policies (free trade)
• Industry regulation
• Government buying practices
• Defense procurement practices
• Technology-adoption tax credits
• Corporate taxation
• Human-resource training policies and programs

II. Characteristics of the Decision-making Process

A. Influence of internal proponents

B. Influence of external proponents

C. Availability of technical information

D. Perceived characteristics of an IT application

E. Justification process for the adoption of an IT application

F. Operational measures for characteristics of the decision-making process as a prime adoption factor

III. Impacts of Adoption

A. Relationship between IT and productivity

B. Impact of IT on key competitive dimensions

C. Impact of IT on performance

D. Impact of IT on work and employment

E. Operational measures for the impacts of IT

One of the elements in the Lefebvres’ framework included a consideration of the effects of information technology on the functions of the enterprise. Production and operations, Marketing, Finance, Accounting, Human-resource management. A small study has utilized this framework (with five level ordinal indicators) to estimate the impacts of e-mail and the world wide web on manufacturing and financial service firms in 15 countries.(26) This framework, within a larger framework somewhat comparable to the Lefebvres’ has been used to study ICTs in businesses in India.(27)

The CTA Model: The Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) has developed a framework for assessing the impact of information and communication management on the performance of organizations forming national agricultural systems (NAS) (28). It is informed by, but a simplification of the Menou’s approach described above, focusing on organizational rather then more general developmental impacts. The following figure shows the entity in which the impacts are to be analyzed in its context.

The framework focuses on the impact of information on organizations in the following categories:

• Program definition and priority setting:
• higher quality decision making
• timely recognition of opportunities and weaknesses
• definition of consortia and partnerships;
• Program Effectiveness (effectiveness of output) via:
• greater use of existing knowledge and improved implementation of tasks
• shorter learning curves
• improved adaptability to change(socio-economic, institutional, and technical.

Program definition and effectiveness are assessed in relation to the relevance of the outputs to the different users in the NAS.

Methodologically, the effectiveness of the information services is followed by surveys of user response:

• number of users in the target population;
• extent/frequency of use and number of referrals;
• awareness of the outputs by the target populations;
• user needs met or not met by the services provided (quality, volume and frequency of the service outputs);
• user views on timeliness and cost.

It is stated that "relevance and effectiveness objectives need to be delivered by the organization’s internal management and information procedures. Here the principal concern is efficiency of operations (more output per unit inputs), better use of staff resources, greater use of information technology, faster times of services, and reduced unit costs."

Evaluation of the impact of information and communications is to be done within the structure of an overall evaluation framework for the NASs being developed by ISNAR.

Life Cycle Model: Baark and Heeks (29)put forward a conceptual framework in a study analyzing four projects in China in which donors had supported ICT initiatives. This is a model which is emphasizes the technology per se, and is suited for consideration of the appropriateness of technology transferred and diffused. Their cycle includes the following phases:

• Choice of technology.

• Purchase and installation (includes the procurement of the

hardware and software technology, and often some training and technical assistance for installation).

• Assimilation and use (to ensure that the users fully understand how the technology works, and how they are to use and maintain it).

• Adaptation; (the recipient alters the technology to improve existing performance; to add new functions; or to match local conditions, inputs or needs).

• Diffusion and/or innovation; (the original recipient disseminates the technology to other organizations, perhaps introducing innovations in the process).

Use of the Internet is measured both for email and for surfing the World Wide Web. The authors consider the use of the Internet in international commerce, focusing on its use in promoting exports. They also consider the Internet as a tool for promoting travel to Africa. Brief mention is made of the use of the Internet in agricultural and environmental, health, education, NGOs, and journalism and the media.

Constraints to the growth of the Internet are discussed, including:

• costs (telephone, Internet access, trained Internet personnel, etc.),
• lack of PC penetration,
• low computer literacy,
• lack of infrastructure (lack of telephone lines, poor line quality, poor speed of connectivity, poor reliability of electric power, poor maintenance - and transportation to get to locations in which maintenance services are available.)

Alternatives identified for improving Internet services and access to them include:

• privatization,
• free use of email without government interference,
• skills upgrading for users and operators,
• affordable costs,
• effective management, and
• aggressive marketing of systems.

Schware et al go on to develop a model of potential demand for Internet services, based on income levels (in their Appendix 5). Finally (their Appendix 6) they estimate savings per page sent by Email versus by fax and other means, as well as the revenues received by the PTT for such Emails. The model then looks at revenues gained and lost by telecommunications companies at assumed levels of use.

The Barton-Bear Framework: Cliff Barton and Marshall Bear have presented a framework(31) for a study of clients of selected ISPs (for a proposed study in the Philippines) which begins to deal with the impacts at the enterprise level. It is summarized in the following table quoted from their paper:

They also provide a table for studying those ISPs, which begins to deal with issues of impacts on service providers and their clients:

• Stage I, Initiation: in which generally a new technology is introduced into low-level operational business processes;
• Stage II, Contagion: the learning curve moves upward sharply as the organization experiments widely with the new technology;
• Stage III, Control: the transition occurs as budget increases exceed revenue growth, and become a control issue for senior management which intercedes to reduce growth of the use of the IT application, and squeeze out slack;
• Stage IV, Integration: management strives for a proper balance between slack and control, and the new technology is integrated into the firms business practices.

The model also takes note of the applications portfolio for the technology, the resources (money, technology, people) needed to apply the ICTs in business, management, and user awareness.

Nolan, Croson and Seger (32)have pointed out that in the United States the "S" shaped learning curve implied by this model has been difficult to perceive because there have actually been three overlapping curves, one starting its growth stage as the previous one reached maturity. Thus the Data Processing era, characterized by large, stand-alone computers, started in the 1960’s, and reached stage IV in about 1980; the micro-computer era started about 1980, and reached maturity about 1995; the network era, which started in 1995, is just reaching stage II.

Indeed, one might note that in each case the learning curve was the composite of learning curves for a number of applications that were introduced, as for example the learning curve for microcomputers was a composite of the learning curves for word processing, spreadsheets, desk top publishing, and other applications software as applied to a portfolio of functions in the enterprise.

1. Use" means the actual use of the Internet", while "utilization" considers the actual use as compared of the available resources.
2. King, John Leslie and Kenneth L. Kraemer, "Computer and Communication Technologies: Impacts on the Organization of Enterprise and the Establishment and Maintenance of Civil Society", in National Academy of Sciences, Fostering Research on the Economic and Social Impacts of Information Technology: Report of a Workshop, 1998
3. http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/esi/index.html
4. C.f. Fostering Research on the Economic and Social Impacts of Information Technology: Report Of A Workshop, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC, 1998. http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/esi/index.html
5. http://www.crito.uci.edu/
6. Conference on Information Technologies and Social Development, United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), Geneva, 22-23 June 1998. http://www.unrisd.org/infotech/conferen/papers.htm
7. Mansell, Robin and U. Wehn, Knowledge Societies: Information Technology for Sustainable Development, Oxford University Press, 1998. http://nt1.ids.ac.uk/cgi-bin/dbtcgi.exe?RNO=DOC6667&$TEXTBASE_PATH=d:%5CInetPub%5Cwwwroot%5Cdata%5C&$TEXTBASE_NAME=high&$MAXRECS=10&$NOREPORT=0&$NODISPLAY=0&$REPORT_FORM=Full+display
8. Wresch, William, Disconnected: Haves and Have-nots in the Information Age, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1996.
9. National Academy of Sciences, Internet Counts: Measuring the Impacts of the Internet, Washington, DC, 1998 http://www.cidcm.umd.eduwilson/xnasrep2.htm Collins, Eileen, Charting the Impacts of Information Technology, National Science Foundation, Washington, DC, 1997. http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/infotech/charting/start.htm
10. This is drawn, with minor modifications from Daly, John A., "Third World Impact of Microcomputers in Health", Chapter 22 in ational Academy of Sciences, Policy Issues in Microcomputer Applications for Developing Countries, Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado, 1992 (pp. 227-256). (Also available on the Humanity Development Library: http://payson.tulane.edu:8888/cgi-bin/gw?e=b1c10home-hdl-1-C.8.1-11-100-20-00&q=&d=C.8.4.B.318&a=b), and Daly, John, "Diffusion of Computer Technology in Primary Health Care in the Third World", in Mann, Charles K. and Stephen R. Ruth (eds.), Expert Systems in Developing Countries: Practice and Promise, Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado, 1992 (pp. 147-191).
11. Whyte, Anne, "Telecentre Research Framework for Acacia", IDRC, Ottawa, 1998. http://www.idrc.ca/acacia/stcat.htm
12. Menou, Michel (editor), Measuring the Impact of Information on Development, IDRC, Ottawa, 1993
13. McConnell, Paul, Making a Difference Measuring the Impact of Information on Development: Proceedings of a Workshop, IDRC, Ottawa, 1995. http://www.idrc.ca/books/focus/783/index.html
14. Michel Menou, personal communication.
15. The AISI study is perhaps of special interest in that it focused on four African countries: Ethiopia, Senegal, Uganda and Zambia http://www.bellanet.org/partners/aisi/
16. Michel Menou, personal communication.
17. Michel Menou, personal communication.
18. Press, Larry, Grey Burkhart, Will Foster, Sy Goodman, Alex Tan, and Jon Woodard, An Internet Diffusion Study, http://som.csudh.edu/cis/lpress/gdiff/otifwk/otifwk.htm
19. Burkhart, Grey, Development of the Internet in the Persian Gulf Region, 1998. http://www.agsd.com/gdi97/gdi97-7.html
20. http://som.csudh.edu/cis/lpress/gdiff/
21. Pimienta, Daniel, "Diagnóstico Internet en ALC", 31/3/99 in Reunion de Samana, Dominican Republic, 1999. http://www.funredes.org/mistica/comunidad/samana/diagnostico.htmlhttp://www.funredes.org/mistica/comunidad/samana/diagnostico.html
22. Lanfranco, Sam, "A Meta-Level Conceptual Framework for Evaluating Projects involving Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Bellanet, http://www.bellanet.org/partners/ldia/lessons/evalfram.htm
23. Graham, Michael, "Use of Information and Communication Technologies in IDRC Projects: Lessons Learned", IDRC, Ottawa, 1997. http://www.idrc.ca/acacia/outputs/op-eval.htm
24. "Measuring the Impact of the Internet on Civil Society Organizations in Central America: Research Proposal - Project Concept," Fundación Acceso, San José, Costa Rica, March 1, 1999. http://www.funredes.org/mistica/comunidad/contenido/docuparti/doc3.html
25. Lefebvre, Élisabeth and Louis A. Lefebvre, Information and Telecommunication Technologies: The Impact of Their Adoption on Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, IDRC, 1996. http://www.idrc.ca/books/focus/807/
26. Daly, John, Robert R. Miller, "Corporations' Use of the Internet in Developing Countries", International Finance Corporation Working Paper Number 35, Washington DC, 1998. http://www.ifc.org/DEPTS/OPS/ECON/PUBS/DP35/Dp35.htm
27. Kanungo, Sivraj and Madan Chouthoy, "IT Planning in India: Implications for IT Effectiveness," in Information Technology for Development, Vol. 8, No. 2, 1998, pages 71-87.
28. Assessing the Impact of Information and Communication Management on Institutional Performance: Proceedings of a CTA Workshop, CTA, 1998, Wangeningen, the Netherlands.
29. Baark, Erik and Richard Heeks, "Evaluation of Donor-Funded Information Technology Transfer Projects in China: A Life-Cycle Approach", 1998. http://www.man.ac.uk/idpm/diwpf1.htm
30. Schware, Robert, et al, Economic Internet Toolkit for African Policy Makers, 1998, Chapter 3. http://www.worldbank.org/infodev/projects/afprelim.pdf
31. Barton, Clifton and Marshall Bear, "Information and Communications Technologies: Are they the Key to Viable Business Development Services for Micro and Small Enterprises?", Microenterprise Best Practices Project, March, 1999, Appendix II http://www.mip.org/pubs/MBP/ict.htm
32. a href="http://www.worldbank.org/infodev/projects/afprelim.pdf">http://www.worldbank.org/infodev/projects/afprelim.pdf
33. Barton, Clifton and Marshall Bear, "Information and Communications Technologies: Are they the Key to Viable Business Development Services for Micro and Small Enterprises?", Microenterprise Best Practices Project, March, 1999, Appendix II http://www.mip.org/pubs/MBP/ict.htm
34. Nolan, Richard L., David C. Crason, and Katherine N. Seger, "The Stages Theory: A Framework for IT Adoption and Organizational Learning," Harvard Business School 9-193-141, March 1993