Leveraging Information and Communication Technology for Development

Information and communication technology (ICT) has already transformed the financial services, media, retail, and telecommunications sectors. Through the globalization it simultaneously feeds on and accelerates, it is reshaping societies, economies, and governments worldwide.

Highlights

• ICT has grown into one of the most powerful forces shaping the 21st century. But, its digital dividends are unevenly distributed because many are left out of one of the greatest revolutions in history.
• ICTD springs from the desire to leverage ICT to propel economic and social progress and enhance its effects in developing countries, where over 3 billion people subsist on less than $2.50 a day. In these less-fortunate environments, countries that harness ICT can leapfrog stages of development.
• In 2016, the ICTD Team in ADB's Thematic Advisory Service Cluster drew a work plan to ramp up ADB's role in ICTD in the short term, in appreciation also of how ICT can accelerate action on the Sustainable Development Goals.