It is clear that ICTs and their associated benefits are not yet reaching poor communities, especially the rural poor (Torero and von Braun, 2005). In general it is hard to gauge the development impact of ICTs, and there is little research on direct links between ICTs and poverty reduction, or links between ICTs and sector-level economic development (Morrow, 2002; Torero and von Braun, 2006; Indjikian and Siegal, 2005).

However, the potential of ICTs is also clear. The promise of ICTs to improve rural livelihoods has been confirmed in a study by the International Institute for Communications and Development (IICD, 2006) focusing on price information and market access. It found that ICTs do contribute to MDG1 by increasing incomes of small-scale farmers, strengthening the agricultural sector, and giving better access to production information, markets, and prices of input factors for agricultural commodities.

Torero and von Braun (2006) point out that in countries where there has been significant network investment (mostly wealthy countries) there is a clear link between telecommunications infrastructure and GDP, however these networks need to reach a critical mass to have an impact on economic output. These researchers also note that ICTs have significant impact on the performance of small-to-medium enterprises, considered to be an engine of economic growth in developing countries.

Other researchers observe that ICT interventions don't have to be specific to agriculture to enhance rural livelihoods; any intervention that improves the general livelihoods of the rural poor may also lead to significant agricultural development investments for rural families (Richardson, 2005). It can do this by: improving access to capital and financial services; freeing time for agricultural work as a result of information services that help improve families' health and well being; allowing people to take better advantage of the remittance economy; providing better information to rural people to make relevant decisions about livelihood strategies; and improving efficiency and quality of government rural services such as health and education.

Another indirect benefit of ICTs is their use as a tool for: intermediary information providers, e.g. universities, government offices, NGOs; mediating organizations, e.g. community development organizations such as farmers' groups; and development workers and extensionists (Morrow, 2002).

Alongside the potential of ICTs are numerous challenges. For poor rural people, the so-called digital divide is a considerable gulf operating on both North-South and rural-urban axes. The divide manifests itself in access (infrastructure and price), investment, skills and content.

In much of the rural areas where poverty occurs, overall exposure to fixed lines and Internet is extremely low. Globally, fewer than one in five people are connected to a fixed-line telephone and these are concentrated in wealthy countries. The same ratio applies to the Internet. In fact, more than 30 poor countries have connection rates of less than 1 per cent (ITU, 2007), and of this 1 per cent, the majority is the urban wealthy. Very few rural poor people get a direct benefit. Mobile phones, on the other hand, show more promise: the global penetration rate is a much healthier 50 per cent.

For many developing countries, reaching a 'critical mass' of telecommunications infrastructure requires significant network investment. And once this is in place, pro-poor economic growth will depend on an enabling environment of strong institutions that facilitate private investment, and regulation that creates competition among providers, free movement and adoption of technology and targeted subsidies (Torero and von Braun, 2006). But even with infrastructure in place, there are more issues to consider such as developing appropriate, tailored services, developing users' skills, and content (relevant information in accessible languages is currently scarce).

Until the infrastructure, investment and enabling environments are in place, new ICT development initiatives should follow the lead of innovative projects that optimize existing high-penetration ICTs such as mass media (radio, newspapers, TV), and the rapidly expanding networks of mobile phones. One thing is clear: as leading researchers (Richardson, 2005; Morrow, 2002) emphasize, optimizing the use of ICTs for rural development depends on developing programmes and projects driven by local people and their needs, not by new 'technology of the day' - experience shows that top-down projects tend to fail and community-driven projects succeed.

Written by Geoff Thompson, Associate Information and Communications Officer, UNESCAP-CAPSA, Bogor, Indonesia.