Evaluaci�n sobre TIC, desarrollo y reducci�n de la pobreza

ICT, Development, and Poverty Reduction in Latin America and the Caribbean[1]

Susana Finquelievich

Do information and communication technologies (ICT) have any incidence on local development and poverty reduction? Do ICT improve local development trough their application to social programs, or do they require a comprehensive e-economy policy to become development factors? Which are the conditions under which ICT can effectively contribute to social development?

This paper shows the results of a research on the effects of ICT in poverty reduction in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), from 1995 onwards. The work identifies the national-wide strategies and policies used by LAC governments �particularly in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela - to implement ICT applications for economic and social development purposes, mainly in the areas of connectivity, e-government, education, and science and technology. Finally, the paper proposes strategies in order to use ICT for social and economic development in developing countries.

Employment generation

Employment - addressed plans and projects implemented in most LAC countries do not consider ICT use to train low-income social groups for the labor market�s new demands. Often, the only existing link among these programs and ICT is the Programs websites. In Argentina, the Family Heads Plan (Plan Jefas y Jefes de Hogar) only implies the distribution of a $150 pesos ($50 US Dollars) among poor families. This sum does not engage family heads to any kind of training; even if it could be uses to train the unemployed in the use of IS tools. However, ICTs have helped considerably to the Plan�s organization and relative transparency: the names of the beneficiary families are listed in the Program�s website. Brazil offers help to the unemployed, based mostly in help to organize cooperatives, but these plans scarcely use training on ICT. In Chile, the Ministry of Work and Social Welfare has implemented the Pro-Employment Program[2], among others, but they still do not provide training on ICT tools. The same can be said of the other analyzed countries.

These findings suggest that LAC countries have not implemented public policies using ICT to empower communities nor to prepare them for the digital economy needs. ICT are neither used to simulate the population�s association capabilities, nor to encourage micro enterprises using new technologies.

LAC countries are more productive in relation to SMES development, linked to employment generation. But only a few experiences articulate SMES and ICT use, even if many plans and programs boast about it. In Argentina, the Federal Investment Council[3], CFI, has implemented Internet access Centers in all the provinces, providing seminars, video conferences, and training courses. CFI�s goals are contributing to build cooperation links among entrepreneurs, and providing economic and financial information to SMES, using the Access Centers portals.

The Companies Website, in Chile�s Ministry of Economy and Government[4] has launched in May 2000 the Enterprise Window (Ventanilla �nica para la Empresa[5]), coordinating the services of different State institutions in order to provide companies all the information they need about taxes systems, exports, administrative tasks, etc., through the Internet. The Enterprise Window provides information about micro enterprises, as well as tools to strengthen SMES, with the intention of turning them into job-generating places, increasing exports.

Colombia also privileges SMES development. The Prymeros Project for SMES in the e-commerce network[6] is a top item in the Connectivity Agenda. The Project encourages massive Internet use for entrepreneurs. It supports SMES directly through training, diagnosis, and consulting services, in order to ensure the implementation of E-commerce solutions for SMES. The Incentives to Technological Innovation for SMES Project[7] is linked to the Ministry of Economic Development through the Columbian Fund for Modernization and Technologic Development of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (FOMIPYME). In Uruguay, the SMES Department of the Montevideo�s City Hall� has created the Course on Costs and Prices for SMES entrepreneurs, through the Internet. The SMES Department[8], assisted by Dednet (Distance Educational Network), IATE (Argentine Institute of Entrepreneurial Techniques), and IEVI (Ibero-American Institute of Virtual Studies) has implemented the course�s first edition in 2002.

Community Development, and Food Plans

Community Development, and food plans and programs are numerous in LAC countries, since� poverty and unemployment have risen dramatically. However, these plans only use ICT to manage social assistance. In Brazil, The Extraordinary Ministry for Food Security and Fight to Hunger has implemented the Zero Hungry Program[9] (Hambre Cero): a policy for food security created by more than 100 specialists, academics y representatives of civil society. The Ministry of Education has implemented el School grant Program (Programa Beca Escuela[10]) in order to stop school desertion in basic education, providing funds to incentive families to send their children to school. The Program� provides subsidies to poor families with young children, through a magnetic card, also used by the Zero Hungry Program. This card is the only electronic device ever known by the Program�s beneficiaries. ICT are not used otherwise that for administrative purposes.

However, Brazil has implemented an outstanding initiative: The Ministry of Social Welfare has created the Articulated Network for Social Assistance Information[11], an Internet-supported tool oriented to strengthen a new social decentralized and participative assistance system. For the first time ever it is possible to gather in the same place all the data about social assistance in the country. All the social and demographic indicators in Brazil�s status, cities and regions can be consulted there. Besides providing information about the social actions funded by the National Social Assistance Fund, the Portal features the initiatives implemented by other governmental institutions, and civil society organizations. This Portal is meant to become the central spine of the fight against Brazil�s poverty and social exclusion. All the organizations and individuals who are interested in participating of the Articulated Network for Social Assistance Information can participate, in order to facilitate access to data, and to encourage support tools for social assistance. At present, the Portal is accessible only for the Ministry�s internal users, trough an Intranet.

In Chile, the Fund for Solidarity and Social Investment (FOSIS)[12], is a public decentralized service, which funds plans, programs, projects and special activities related to social development. These initiatives must solve income problems, and/or help individuals to develop actions and abilities allowing them to overcome their poverty. The community has access to this information though FOSIS portal, which also displays examples of� best practices.

In M�xico, the programs oriented to fight poverty and encourage social development depend from the Social Development Secretariat (SEDESOL)[13], though it�s National Development Plan. The Plan�s mission is to conceive and coordinate national solidarity policies. SEDESOL coordinates ten Programs. Neither of them is directly ICT-based, with the exception of the Institutional Training and Strengthening Program[14]. It uses ICTs for training and distance education; it also provides economic support for initiatives on training and social organization coming from civil society organizations. SEDESOL provides information, consulting, and management of productive and social projects, free access to the Documentary Center, and to the INDESOL information System for Social Organizations.

Health� and ICT

The health sector has produced interesting albeit not quite developed initiatives. In Brazil, the Ministry of Health has created the National Health Card [15], which links the procedures that have taken place in the frame of the Health System (SUS). User, health professionals, and medicine unit�s registries and data banks have been built. SUS users and professionals receive a National Identification Number. The National Health Card system includes a telecommunications and informatics infrastructure, which captures, stocks and distributes the data about the provided services. Specific softwares allow collecting the necessary information about the provided health services, allowing the system to enlarge and improve the user�s access to them. The Project Intend. To build data bases with clinic histories; immediate identification of the user, to make services faster; enlargement and improvement of the populations access to medication; control over medication purchases; integration of information systems; revision of costs financing and rationalization criteria; monitoring and control of health services systems; and human resources management.

In Cuba, most social services using UICT are concentrated in the health area. Infomed[16] is an integrated telematic network off access and management of information. It is ICT supported, and it is oriented to improve medical attention, training, research, and health management. It was created in� 1992 to develop ICT supported academia networks to have access to all the information related to medical sciences. Infomed receives strong support from the Cuban Government, PNUD, and the Pan American Health Organization. The Cuban National Health System� has an information and communication infrastructure which links all the health institutions, professionals, and technicians, among themselves, and with the community. In its pilot phase, the Programa introduced the use of� WebTV to facilitate access� to the network to family physicians, using televisions to connect to the network trough Websites services.

ICT sub utilization

The identified national policies oriented to sustainable development and poverty decrease are� far from encouraging the communities� empowerment. On the contrary, they work only on conjuncture problems: famines, floods, and natural disasters. These policies are piecemeal, disperse, and fragmented. Most of the initiatives are still far from evolving towards structural, permanent, and efficient policies. Community development policies-marked by an assistance viewpoint- , as well as, employment policies- which do not train labor force on IS tools- contribute to deepen the fragmentation of policies and programs addressed to poverty decrease. Even if most LAC countries have or obtain financial resources for their social assistance plans, as well as infrastructure networks to facilitate the populations access to the Internet (e.g. Community Technological Centers in Argentina), these resources are generally not used to train the population in ICT use and appropriation.

This tendency is also to be observed in the lack of articulation, both in employment policies, and in community development policies, with policies and strategies regarding SMES development, as basic sources of employment, technological modernization, and production reorganization. In LAC countries there is an acute disarticulation between job generation, community development and food programs, and SMES development and promotion.

�In order to implement this articulation, the use of ICT and IS tools becomes necessary. However, in general, only a few of the identified strategies, policies, plans, and programs considers the ICT potentials to reach these goal. Thy use ICT for administrative tasks, but they have not planned to use technologies to articulate the instances mentioned above. The design of policies which incorporate IS tools as effective weapons to fight poverty are evidently the next phase to be reached. This is more visible in the health sector. Promising initiatives regarding the use of UICT I public health are found in LAC, mainly in Brazil and Cuba, but in general, national policies do not consider ICT as valuable tools to improve public health.

Most of the initiatives using IS tools for community development in LAC countries come, not from National State programs, but from civil society� organizations.

[1] This paper is based on the research Project �ICT and poverty reduction in Latin America and the Caribbean, sponsored by IDRC.� It was coordinated by Susana Finquelievich. The researchers Silvia Lago Mart�nez and N�stor Correa, and the assistants Alejandra Jara and Ariel Vercelli have participated in it.