What is the most effective way to measure the impact of ICT for development (ICT4D) initiatives?

Answering to Michael's query, M4P is an acronym for Making markets work for the poor. To elaborate it is an approach whereby market growth or development is facilitated but which leads to pro-poor growth.

Shahroz, thank you for this clarification.

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Dear Shehzad and Dear All,

Interesting to follow the forum. I see the reasoning behind defining some common indicators that can be aggregated, compared, benchmarked across different projects working in ICT4D initiatives; however don’t you think doing so might limit projects to only measure against a predetermined ‘wishlist’ of indicators? I think it is more important for ICT4D initiatives to first map out the logic of their work and then determine what indicators can be used to measure those different levels of changes. Indeed at a higher level, common indicators for market development project often include scale reached, additional jobs and additional income created but I think it’s very risky and pre-mature to have a standard set of indicators that fits all projects. Market development is also about thinking of innovative solutions to engage the private sector, so just as solutions are different, the indicators related to interventions can be different.

Just as an example, I recently did some work for a programme doing some ICT work in Cambodia. One of the projects is about setting a system to pay bills, transfer money using mobile phones. Now one of the many impacts of the project is that traders are using mobile phones to make instant payments to farmers, which saves them the hassle of often travelling long distances to get money. This time can be spent in doing alternate activities. However it would be very difficult to attribute indicators such as increased productivity, increased income as a result of this.

Would be interested in hearing others thoughts on this matter.

Nabanita.
 

Dear Shehzad & Dear All

Well, when I said a universal set of indicator I meant something like Poverty index or consumer price index or human index. CAPRI (Common Agricultural Policy Regionalised Impact) can be a good example.

Common set of indicators does not mean that measuring the impact should be confined only by those. There are many different types of ICT4D project and other projects using ICT as a tool for access to information, access to market and for similar facilitation of opportunities for the poor. Of course the scope, timeframe and many other factors differ among those projects. But there should be some common set of indicator irrespective of other factors to measure the impacts. Apart from those factors there should also be other indicator to measure the specific intended or unintended impacts of the project based on its objectives. The idea is to create a standard measure against which some of the impacts of all ICT/ICT4D projects can be measured. But then again the merit of the project should not be considered only by those indicators. In this regard I completely agree with Nabanita that there might be a risk of limiting the projects by the common set of indicators. 

And finally indicators can be qualitative also, whenever the word indicator is mentioned generally a set of numbers are considered by most of us. But qualitative indicators are also very important to see the change in the whole system. To tell the complete story the use of the qualitative indicators are no less important than the quantitative ones.

Thank you everyone, have a good day

Asad
 

Isn't it worth discussing about these indicators and trying to list out both quantitative and qualitative ones to be able to start thinking in developing an ICT index for agriculture. This will build the base the future databasis and comparative studies across states or nations. At this forum we can think and try to do this.

Surabhi 

The comments till now seem to underestimate the comments and evaluation of ICT end users

The comment till now seem to underestimate end user comments and evaluation of impact./

Hi Ehud. Would you tell us a bit more on what you mean by end user comments, and evaluation? This could add a new dimension to the ongoing dicussion.

Thanks!

In this context, I would like to draw your attention to a recent publication by UNCTAD on measuring the impact of ICT. You can find it at http://www.unctad.org/en/docs/dtlstict2011d1_en.pdf.

Kind regards, Torbjörn

".....efaminu wrote: � You raised deep and probing questions. There is need to track down how ICT is affecting production and productivity, in relation to farmers' behaviour in terms of adoption rates, and what factors facilitate adoption of a particular technology - cost, availability, accessibility etc. coupled with farmers' access to other information sources. For emerging economies these are very important statistics we need especially as penetration of ICT is low.

My comment:

The free, public domain e--book "ICT Adoption in Agriculture" provides a wealth of information - specifically on ICT Adoption  affecting production and productivity. The link to the book is http://departments.agri.huji.ac.il/economics/gelb-main.html
The authors of each of the chapters review their  long and comprehensive experience in ICT Adoption in their fields of competence with a focus on decision makers faced with ICT Adoption and development. Last year the book was accessed several hundred thousand times. 
Comments will be most welcome.
Ehud Gelb [email protected]