Why Some Well-Planned and Community-Based ICTD Interventions Fail

Abstract

Despite being community-based and well planned, some ICTD interventions fall short of expectations. The present analysis seeks to advance the understanding of the effectiveness of the ICTD initiative by exploring some of the reasons for failure. In this article three such case studies were identiªed and issues with their outcomes analyzed. Each project enjoyed some successes, but also suffered from some anomalous outcomes. A common characteristic of the projects is that the people who executed the program were not included in the program design. The goal of this article is to advance the debate about the effectiveness of ICTD initiatives and dispute the notion that community-based interventions carried out in conjunction with local partners assure success. The main lesson is that even a nearly imperceptible deviation from the full inclusion of all relevant parties in every aspect of the project can result in large deviations from the expected outcomes.