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Higher education institutions around the world have increasingly come to see information and communication technology (ICT) as vital to the business of teaching and learning. Institutions invest a considerable amount of time and resources to erecting the appropriate institutional infrastructure, creating policy and practice, instituting strategy, training faculty, and building the capacity of technology staff. However, in under-resourced regions of the world, such as Africa, ICT, the availability and use of, has several challenges to overcome: a lack of institutional infrastructure, sufficient bandwidth, and limited capacity to employ ICT in the research process or the classroom. Universities report inadequate funding, poor management and infrastructure, resistance to change, inadequate training, and high costs associated with effective ICT use. Moreover, critiques of Western technopositivism surface misgivings related to the performance outcomes and appropriateness of ICT adoption in Africa. In this chapter, the author will explore the work of international organizations and regional and national research and education networks in the diffusion of ICT discourse, consider on-the-ground adoptions and innovation at universities in Nigeria, and reflect on the suitability and sustainability of technology adoption, all within an ICT for development (ICT4D) framework that lenses the evolution of technological applications in higher education. This chapter is significant in that it connects African higher education to ICT4D and frames the various discourses, policy landscapes and practice arenas, as they relate to international actors, continental initiatives, networks, universities, and faculty.

Citizens are substantial stakeholders in every e-government system, thus their willingness to use and ability to access the system are critical. Unequal access and information and communication technology usage, which is known as digital divide, however has been identified as one of the major obstacles to the implementation of e-government system. As digital divide inhibits citizen’s acceptance to e-government, it should be overcome despite the lack of deep theoretical understanding on this issue. This research aimed to investigate the digital divide and its direct impact on e-government system success of local governments in Indonesia as well as indirect impact through the mediation role of trust. In order to get a comprehensive understanding of digital divide, this study introduced a new type of digital divide, the innovativeness divide.

The research problems were approached by applying two-stage sequential mixed method research approach comprising of both qualitative and quantitative studies. In the first phase, an initial research model was proposed based on a literature review. Semi-structured interview with 12 users of e-government systems was then conducted to explore and enhance this initial research model. Data collected in this phase were analyzed with a two-stage content analysis approach and the initial model was then amended based on the findings. As a result, a comprehensive research model with 16 hypotheses was proposed for examination in the second phase.

In the second phase, quantitative method was applied. A questionnaire was developed based on findings in the first phase. A pilot study was conducted to refine the questionnaire, which was then distributed in a national survey resulting in 237 useable responses. Data collected in this phase were analyzed using Partial Least Square based Structural Equation Modeling.

The results of quantitative analysis confirmed 13 hypotheses. All direct influences of the variables of digital divide on e-government system success were supported. The mediating effects of trust in e-government in the relationship between capability divide and e-government system success as well as in the relationship between innovativeness divide and e-government system success were supported, but was rejected in the relationship between access divide and e-government system success. Furthermore, the results supported the moderating effects of demographic variables of age, residential place, and education.

This research has both theoretical and practical contributions. The study contributes to the developments of literature on digital divide and e-government by providing a more comprehensive framework, and also to the implementation of e-government by local governments and the improvement of e-government Readiness Index of Indonesia.

This study examines the problem of unequal access to the Caribbean ICT industry on the part of women, and considers causes, consequences and possible solutions. The latter includes integrating gender perspectives in ICT policies and programmes to increase access for all to education and employment opportunities for national development.

Mixed Methods research techniques (questionnaire surveys, elite interviews and focus group discussions) were used to collect data from national stakeholders in Jamaica and St Lucia.

Despite policy commitments to gender equality and the deployment of ICTs to promote development, significant gaps persist between policy and practice. Results show that disadvantages in ICT access for women result in gender differences in sector involvement. Gender socialisation and the resulting discrimination in education and employment undermine commitments to inclusive development. Consequences include untapped opportunities for innovation, efficiency and business along the ICT value chain relating to development.

Case studies only represent Anglophone Caribbean and may not reflect all subregional contexts.

The paper demonstrates the value of collecting, analysing and using data disaggregated by sex to identify needs of vulnerable groups relating to inclusive development.

Equitable access to ICTs for women through training, community Internet-access-points, and support to establish/expand Micro Small and Medium-sized Enterprises will enable women to combine paid and unpaid family caregiving work and to participate in the ICT value chain.

There is a dearth of gender-based analysis of ICT policymaking in the Caribbean. The paper contributes theoretical, methodological and policy analysis geared towards understanding and promoting inclusive access and gender equality in ICTs for sustainable development in the Caribbean.

As the World Bank approaches its fiftieth year of involvement in the education sector, its Sector Strategy for Education 2020 focuses on key challenges created in the past decade. With the successes in building up primary education systems, millions of matriculating students in many developing countries will now be seeking secondary and tertiary education. For most observers, this is a crisis: even if enough schools could magically be built in time, there would not be nearly enough trained teachers to staff them. For some observers, this is a crisis that can be coped with: information and communications technologies (ICT) have reached a stage where virtual schools and distance learning can be employed at scale to meet such challenges. Curiously, the Education Sector Strategy 2020 makes no mention of virtual schools or distance learning. In fact, it contains only a single, ambivalent reference to ICT for education. The curious silence belies the World Bank's vital leadership and active involvement over the years in identifying and funding model ICT uses in the education sector. However, this chapter is ultimately not about arguing over the extent to which ICT should be mentioned in the World Bank's Education Sector Strategy. Instead, the goal here is to draw attention to a specific opportunity that the World Bank has before it to shape and guide the many ICT-based virtual school projects that will be undertaken in the coming decade. The crucially important opportunity is one for which the World Bank is uniquely suited: to seed and grow an open e-learning movement based on open source, open educational resources, and open pedagogy for secondary and tertiary education in the developing world.

Comparative education and international education are central themes in the field of information and communication technology for development (ICT4D). Policies, projects, and practices around technology are often created and enacted based on best practices compared across multiple contexts and disciplines. As such, ICT4D research is at the nexus of understanding how youth can be empowered through technology, teacher pedagogy can be enhanced through technology, and how marginalized communities can leverage technology to leapfrog into the 21st century. In this essay, the authors explore these themes as a way to enforce the synergies among scholars in the fields of ICT4D and comparative and international education.

We conduct a literature review on forms of organizing that address grand challenges, which are operationalized as the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations, as this framework is universal and widely adopted. By analyzing the articles that match our criteria, we identify six differentiable organizational forms: movements, temporary organizations, partnerships, established organizations, multi-stakeholder networks, and supranational organizations. These six forms are differentiated based on the two following categories: organizing segment and communicational technological approach. Our analysis shows that tackling a grand challenge often starts with collectives as a protest culture without any expected goal, besides sending an impulse to others. This impulse is received by criticized institutionalized organizations that have the capacity and resources to address the problem properly. However, new challenges arise as these organizations inadequately resolve these problems, thereby leading to conflict-laden areas of tension, wherein emergent organizations complement institutionalized organizations that have created the first infrastructure. To solve the most complex problems, a trichotomous relationship between different forms of organizations is necessary. Moreover, communicational technological approaches become more sophisticated as grand challenges increase in complexity.