ICTs for development
Ownership and partnership: keys to sustaining ICT-enabled development activities
Ownership and partnership in ICT-enabled development cooperation
Authors:
P. Ballantyne
Publisher:
International Institute for Communication and Development , 2003
This short report examines issues of ownership and partnership in ICT-enabled development cooperation. Ir looks at the different types of ownership that need to be developed, and at how programmes can promote and foster high levels of local ownership.
For investments in communication, information and knowledge to help reduce poverty, they need to be used in ways that help to empower poor people: so they can shape decisions that affect them, so they can grasp economic and social opportunities, so they can deal with misfortunes and disasters. For this empowerment to take place, however, the local stakeholders must be committed to an activity and have a sense of ownership of it, as evidenced by their taking on responsibilities for the activity and its outcomes.
To foster a sense of ownership, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) projects, programmes, etc. should be designed to be ‘ownership-friendly’. This means listening to the demands of all stakeholders from the start. It means carefully managing different stakeholder roles and relationships in and around an activity, adapting cooperation and partnership instruments to give greater value to reciprocity and shared commitments, building ‘spaces’ where ownership can be negotiated and developed, and fostering local capacities to create and drive such activities. In essence, programmes need to make sure that local stakeholders take on appropriate levels and types of responsibility, and that control is ultimately in their hands.
