Beyond ‘Technology for Development’ and ‘Sustainability’ towards systemic and holistic rural innovation: Success factors from the Southern African experience over 20 years

Abstract

This paper describes essential, real-world activities and processes needed to develop and deploy people-centred networks enabled with innovative technologies that in turn produce “essential knowledge economy functions in service of systemic and holistic rural innovation” based on some of the authors’ own and multiple other documented difficulties encountered in Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) and broader “technology for development” implementations in the developing world - especially in the light of the challenge of directly linking ICT4D application (and adoption) to scalable socio-economic development in a number of Southern African initiatives. The authors subscribe to a view of development as a participatory process, improving the individual and communal asset-base and embedding it in bottom-up visioning. Their rural enterprise and economic development (REED) involves a shift away from an ICT4D-driven orientation to an approach now focusing on people-centred network development that consists of: identifying the key visions (and dreams) as well as innovative systemic dependencies in the targeted context and services delivery channel; developing a programmatic behavioural change process; utilising ICTs as enablers of human-centric community networks that render knowledge economy services into the local delivery channel – called Infopreneurs®; surfacing and understanding the individual and collective resource base in support of the engagement; surfacing existing mind-sets and managing behavioural change as well as relationship building. Infopreneur® networks engage directly with the community and deliver a range of knowledge economy services to enhance, build and grow the five main community assets /resource bases: human, physical, financial, natural and social. They act as the extended local delivery channel (“extending extension”) to support new scalable and sustainable micro-enterprises within the local contexts. The results of the emerging approach involve five key aspects including: local ownership, a systemic and holistic approach, knowledge economy services, ongoing monitoring, evaluation, reflection and learning as well as the application of systems thinking and network theories.