Telecentres in Rural Asia: Towards a Success Model

Abstract

The global digital divide threatens to deprive millions of people of the benefits that are attainable from having access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Most of these people live in rural parts of developing countries and they are unlikely ever to own their own computers. However, international aid agencies, governments and NGOs are becoming increasingly enthusiastic about the potential for generating rural development from community based telecentres. This report describes five telecentre projects that are concerned with bringing about social and economic development in rural communities in Asia. Existing success models from the field of Information Systems that relate to similar ICT based innovations in organisations, namely the Information Centre and End User Computing, are examined to establish how they might be adapted to the community based innovations represented by telecentres. A success model for telecentres is derived and applied to the five Asian projects. Results indicate that earlier research offers promise in understanding what leads to a successful community telecentre. In particular, the characteristics of communities emerge as the most potent influence on the success of community telecentres, yet are probably the least manageable. Suggestions for future research and implications for practice are drawn.