ABSTRACT
Knowledge is frequently invoked in academic and strategic literature on the relationship between information and communication technology (ICT) and development (see for instance World Bank 1998, CAS tells 2000, UNDP 2001), and international development agencies have put significant resources into knowledge initiatives with heavy emphasis on ICT. These include resources not only with a general knowledge focus, such as the Global Knowledge Partnership, the World Bank indigenous knowledge project and Global Development Gateway, and the G-8 Digital Opportunity Task Force (DOTForce), but also those aimed at knowledge in specific domains such as health, science, education, democracy and the environment. Knowledge and learning paradigms at the same time are becoming increasingly prevalent in regional, community and organisational development. Technology-based knowledge and information management practices are being adopted not just in developing-world public administration and commercial enterprises, but increasingly also in voluntary-sector aid and development organisations (Powell 1999, Madon 2000, Hunt 2000). As one researcher put it there is a ‘ . . . powerful consensus . . . within the development communities of the South regarding the centrality of knowledge creation and diffusion, especially as mediated by ICT’ (Mukherjee Reed 2001).
