The information revolution is not about technology, it is about people. This is increasingly recognised and has led to the convergence of major global development initiatives. Today, there is a strong correlation in the quest for an inclusive and equitable information society and the effort to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Beginning in the middle of the twentieth century, development assistance or aid to newly postcolonial nations from more industrialized economies assumed a tripartite public sphere, consisting of the private sector, the state and its agencies, and non-profit and non-governmental organizations (NPOs and NGOs). This ‘third sector’ served to disseminate funds and aid to the most disprivileged sections of developing societies, correcting for the excesses of the market and supplementing state-sponsored developmental efforts. Of late, however, it appears that the market is expanding to encompass activities and services that were supposed to be within the purview of either the state or the third sector. In South Asia, in particular, through the liberalization of the Indian economy in the 1990s, the government relinquished control over many social services, including health-care and education, selling or closing significant Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs), and forming new collaborations with corporate leaders. Having received little additional funding from the state or from local industry, developmental NGOs in some regions of South Asia also face new governmental restrictions on their eligibility for and use of international funding. In general, the non-profit sector has had difficulty keeping pace with the new demands of their growing economies.

As is well known by now, India’s IT sector took off in the early 1980s with the establishment of off-shore development centers. Relatively cheap English speaking engineering and technical talent were employed at centers in Bangalore and Chennai, then Hyderabad, and now in the suburbs of New Delhi (NOIDA and Gurgaon). Since the liberalization of the Indian economy in the early 1990s, the Indian government has relentlessly promoted the IT sector as the harbinger of the nation’s economic aspirations. Even though the country possesses only 3.7 million Personal Computers (PCs; Pentium I or superior), it houses the largest number of software professionals outside California, whose efforts might result in the export of software worth 8 billion dollars next year, much of it to the United States. The checks and balances of electoral politics in India’s largely rural society mean that economically liberal and technologically sophisticated leaders cannot afford to leave themselves open to the charge of promoting IT at the expense of rural development, and this is a fine line to walk. Andhra Pradesh’s Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, nevertheless, crafted an aggressive state policy to attract IT-oriented investments, simultaneously claiming that this sector served the larger public interest. Beginning in 1996, he was the first Indian politician to advocate E-governance for making the state machinery more responsive and sensitive to citizen needs at the district and panchayat level. By 1998, these policies were echoed at the national level through an “IT for the Masses” policy statement, as well as a policy statement on E-governance.

Knowledge sharing and management is one of the key issues facing many organizations today in both developed and developing country contexts. It relates, in particular, to how lessons learned are recorded and transferred within and between organizations, as well as collaborative processes and tools for knowledge and information exchange. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have been mainstreamed into many development initiatives over the last decade. The Australian Development Gateway is an example of effective ICT use for knowledge sharing for sustainable development.

Since its foundation in 2001, Open Forum has been committed to building cross-sectoral partnerships among all stakeholders. Its major goal is to foster effective, people-centered and innovative use of ICT for development (ICT4D) and facilitate mobilization of investments at village, state and national levels. Today, with its partnership base Open Forum is a leading multi-stakeholder network committed to harnessing and unleashing the potential of ICT for sustainable and equitable development. As part of its strategy, Open Forum also acts as the convener of multi-stakeholder activities for sharing knowledge and building partnerships at the local, regional and national levels.

The information revolution presents a tremendous opportunity for development. This is reflected in the accelerating convergence of global development initiatives, particularly the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and the UN Millennium Project. They recognize that Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) can play an important role as enablers for human development and poverty reduction.

The increasing convergence of once separate development agendas is encouraging. They nurture hope that a common understanding of the nature and scope of the central challenges and opportunities in development will emerge around which political will and action can be mobilized. The discourse on ICT has shifted its focus away from mainly technological issues to an emphasis on the human and development dimensions of information and communication technologies. As a result, the definition of ICT has been broadened to include not just digital technologies such as computers and the Internet but also more traditional technologies such as telephones, radio and television. At the same time there is growing agreement among actors that ICT should not be viewed in terms of their economic potential alone, but rather as an overarching enabling platform for building an inclusive and equitable global information society. As is argued on the following pages, ICT can not only make a significant contribution to achieving specific development goals in individual sectors such as health or education. Because of their generic and transformative power they can also help meet a number of key challenges:

•	Scaling up ICT can facilitate the scale up of development investments and initiatives, both in terms of planning, implementing and monitoring a great number of interventions simultaneously as well as in terms of broadening access to essential services.
•	Poverty reduction ICT can significantly contribute to poverty reduction by facilitating the efficient, scalable, affordable and pervasive delivery of goods, services and information flows between people, governments and firms and by enhancing empowerment, opportunity and security.
•	National policies ICT are not only an economic sector with significant potential of its own. ICT can and should also be made part of broader national development policies because of their cross-cutting and transformative nature.
•	Civil society participation ICT can facilitate the strategic involvement in public debate and policy formulation of a diverse range of actors from social movements to local entrepreneurs, civil society organisations and researchers, public policy makers, political analysts and journalists, students and teachers.
•	Good governance By improving efficiency, transparency, accountability and participation, ICT can contribute to realising fundamental principles of good governance.
•	Harmonisation ICT can help increase aid effectiveness by facilitating the coordination of all different actors and the sharing of information and knowledge.

In its report “Investing in Development – A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals”, the UN Millennium Project recommends a significant up-scaling of development investments, initiatives and interventions as a precondition for achieving the MDGs. Up-scaling faces two main challenges. One is the sheer number and range of interventions that need to be realized simultaneously. The other is the need to bring a broad range of essential services to most or all of the population – quickly, equitably and sustainably. To some extent, the need to scale up arises from the limited impact of pilot projects, or “islands of excellence” amidst a sea of inertia – small projects implemented at local or district levels without a measurable impact on national indicators. In the area of ICT for development, this has led to a search for ways to up-scale – replicate and/or expands – initiatives and to identify the more “upstream” factors that can assist in this process. It is in the nature of things that there will be continuous experimentation and innovation.

Open Forum, its some of the initiatives has tried to harness the potential of ICTs for Development. Mission Literacy (M-Lit) for Basic Computer Education, K4D - India’s First Community Call Centre, Digital Library Project (DLP), e-radio for digitizing all the radio programmes from community and for the community for its proper dissemination and Community TV; both online & Offline versions, are Open Forum’s some of the models that are appropriate in a particular conjuncture. Open Forum wish as new technology choices emerge, expectations about roles and responsibilities change, and new ways of doing things are discovered definitely there will be up gradation to all the services and we at Open Forum also wish to operate these initiatives along with other Civil Society Organizations. However, it is also becoming clear that a variety of solutions and approaches that appear to be unsustainable can be made sustainable and effective in the new environment – provided that some of the key challenges are addressed and there is acceptance of an approach that allows for a range of solutions and technologies rather than a “one-size-fitsall”. Such an approach can ensure that innovation by grassroots and social entrepreneurs and local solutions can be nurtured within the context of a more systematic ICT4D policy and strategic frameworks for scaled rollout of ICT for development programmes. The need for systematic mainstreaming and integration is critical as evidence and analysis suggests. Open Forum believes, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is a key component of the development toolkit that stakeholders in developing countries can use to be better connected to and to participate in national and global processes, to respond to challenges and make use of emerging opportunities, to be empowered and at the same time accountable, and to secure the delivery of key services which ICT make possible on a much more cost-effective basis. Given the potentially high economies of scale, the low costs of replication and a variety of other advantages of ICT, one could ask why ICT has not been more integrated and put at the service of development on a greater scale. There are certainly challenges in many under-serviced areas such as the lack of complementary factors (electricity and other infrastructure services, low levels of general literacy, etc.). However, it also appears to be a question of a development policy divide as much as a digital or developments divide that hinders the further unleashing of ICT’s development potential. ICT is often perceived to be competing for development funds. Also, ICT4D integration capacities are very much work in progress at organizational or sectoral levels.

The development goals outlined in national strategies have been signed off by over 150 Heads of State in the Millennium Declaration and agreed to by 191 member states of the United Nations. They have pledged to meet the 8 concrete Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. To realize this, there is a need to scale up effective development interventions themselves as well as social and infrastructure investments and activities that will permit other stakeholders to play their parts and contribute to the achievement of these goals. We at Open Forum have analyzed that while the need to scale up development interventions and initiatives is widely recognized, the role of ICT in the context of helping to achieve the MDGs is very much work in progress as far as the majority of development decision-makers is concerned.