ABSTRACT
Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) offer tremendous potential to improve and transform many sectors. A number of ICT projects have been launched with great hope and at huge cost across India. Yet, the reality of ICT projects most often does not match the expectations. Many projects have died without achieving their set objectives and there are various reports of‘total’, ‘partial’, ‘sustainability’, and ‘replication’ failures 1 . Sustainability of ICTs is therefore a key concern.
This paper is based on an ethnographic study of the implementation process of health information infrastructures in púmary health care centres in Andhra Pradesh. Health Information Systems Programme, the case study presented here, is a public-private partnership (PPP) between the University of Oslo and the Commisdonerate of Family Welfare in Andhra Pradesh. The main objectives of the programme are: to develop a comprehermve computer-based health information infrastructure; and to develop the capacity for information management at varnus levels of the public health system.
The author identifies a number of factors that influence and affect the sustainability of ICTs in general and this programme in particular. The paper presents an analysis of the challenges in maintaining, institutionalizing and sustaining information infrastructures. The author argues that sustainability is achieved when there is active participation of the end users from inception to institutionalization, rather than when it is imposed by vendors, external agencies and top management. Further, sustainability is compromised when institutional, financial and infrastructural support is not available. The author Jurther suggests that those conceiving and implementing ICT projects should, from the beginning, endeavour to address these factors and think through how other immediate factors such as political, technological, andfunding issues affect sustainability in the long term.
