ICT Pathways to Poverty Reduction: Empirical evidence from East and Southern Africa

Do ICTs result in poverty reduction? This book looks at the links between ICTs and poverty reduction. The links are considered at three main levels: 1) access to ICTs and the relationship of such access to poverty; 2) impact of ICTs on poverty reduction; and 3) use of ICTs as potential pathways to poverty reduction. Impact is assessed both in terms of the causal relationship between enhanced access to ICTs and poverty reduction, and in terms of benefits perceived by the ICT users in the various studies. In all three cases, poverty is assessed within the sustainable livelihoods (SL) framework.

Most of the chapters in the book use data from two waves of household data collection(2007/08 and 2010) in the Poverty and Information and Communications Technology in Urban and Rural Eastern Africa (PICTURE) Africa study.

The analysis using data obtained from both quantitative and qualitative methodologies shows that: that there is a direct association/link between access to ICTs and poverty; ICTs have a direct impact on poverty reduction; access to and use of ICTs can have many benefits that have a positive impact on improving livelihoods and thus reducing poverty; and the benefits are mediated through a range of uses which provide insights into the mechanisms of how ICTs contribute towards poverty reduction.

Key findings:

The relationship between access to ICT and the selected proxies of the indicators of poverty based on the SL framework, namely, financial (income, expenditure especially per capita expenditure and economic assets), human (at least one member of the household having secondary education), physical (aggregate score of housing and access to basic services), social exclusion (participating in groups or in local government decision-making bodies), and vulnerability (proxied by the number of shocks experienced in the two years prior to data collection) was assessed statistically. The four-country study (Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda) based on PICTURE Africa data showed that there was a strong link between ownership of ICTs and poverty levels overall, and by several of the selected proxies of poverty. First, households without ICT were found to be poorer in all dimensions than those with ICT. The assessment found positive and significant links between most of the dimensions of poverty and ICT access, except for social capital and vulnerability in 2007/08, the first data point for the panel study.

Analysis of data found that gaining access to ICTs by poor households was associated with a positive reduction in poverty between 2007/08 and 2010. Specifically, the ICT index statistically causes change in per capita expenditure (PCE). Based on data from surveys undertaken in 2008, before the targeted interventions, and 2010, after the interventions, the study found that those with enhanced access to ICTs due to the deliberate interventions (benefit group) were able to reduce financial poverty at a higher rate than those who had not received such interventions (the control group).

Summary