Dear GKD List Members, By "business approach" do we mean an approach that relies on market mechanisms? Have we failed to see that the poor represent an important market?
For example, it's generally accepted that the private sector will only go so far in deploying IT infrastructure because some areas are simply not profitable (hard to reach areas, areas where the people's purchasing power is minimal). To address this problem various solutions have been developed, in particular involving government policies that provide incentives for the private sector to go where it would otherwise not go. Should we revisit this consensus and ask ourselves how the private sector decides to invest or not invest in a particular area? Are those decisions based on false assumptions regarding the purchasing power of the poor? Or are we talking about small, local entrepreneurs taking advantage of their knowledge of local markets? A couple of related resources of interest: Can ICTs help the urban poor access information and knowledge to support their livelihoods? http://www.unhabitat.org/programmes/ifup/conf/Theo-Schilderman.PDF Making Knowledge Networks work for the poor http://www.itdg.org/html/icts/knowledge.htm Barbara Fillip, Ph.D. Information and Dissemination Coordinator DOT-COM Alliance http://www.dot-com-alliance.org (202) 884-8003 ------------ This DOT-COM Discussion is funded by USAID's dot-ORG Cooperative Agreement with AED, in partnership with World Resources Institute's Digital Dividend Project, and hosted by GKD. http://www.dot-com-alliance.org and http://www.digitaldividend.org provide more information. To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: <http://www.dot-com-alliance.org/archive.html>
