Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) and Development

ICTs contribute to positive economic, social and cultural development. However, it is also possible that ICTs have a negative contribution to a society's development objectives. For example, if the restructuring, and especially privatisation of state assets (such as Telkom, South Africa's telecommunications parastatal, and Eskom which is South Africa's electricity parastatal), result in loss of jobs, this is a negative contribution to a country's development because people need jobs for economic security, crime-prevention and poverty-alleviation. However, if the restructuring of state assets does not necessarily lead to job losses and creates new jobs in the sectors being restructured, then this results in positive development of a country as more jobs contribute positively to a country's economy and reduce poverty.

According to Nandi & Ahn (2002), recent growth theory states that the efficient transfer of information is the key driving force for high economic growth. ICTs play a significant role in this respect. In today's information age, the access to ICTs is not only a major factor to socio-economic development, but absence of it could become an even greater constraint on national development than in the past. An example of countries that use ICTs for their social and economic development is that of the Asian Pacific economies, particularly the case of Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and South Korea.

Malaysians, for example, use the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) to develop the social lives of people and also for the economic development of their country through telemedicine, electronic government, technological research and other kinds of development and also for borderless marketing of Malaysia. The MSC, according to Jackson and Mosco (1999) has Smart Schools and Multi-User Cards (MPC) that are used for data processing and storage, file management, performing of national functions such as those of identity document, driver's licence, immigration, health and electronic cash functions and later versions of MPCs are expected to include credit card, pension fund, student card, bill payment and voter registration functions for electronic government. South Africa is also introducing a Home Affairs Information System (HANIS), which is aimed at putting all the individual's information on a chip in a smart card. Inside the chip will be all the individual's information including tax details, driver's licence information, home and work particulars. One of HANIS's purposes is to deal with crime and reduce repetition of services by the Department of Home Affairs.