Keywords: ICT for Development, innovation, collaboration, adaptation, knowledge sharing, rural communities in West Africa, ethics, complex contexts

"Intervention or Collaboration? Redesigning Information and Communication Technologies for Development"

How can we design and build digital technologies for and together with people in poor areas of the world, for goals chosen by themselves? And can we do this in a way that is inclusive and ethical and fits within their own living environment - which is usually dynamic and complex?  Based on experience and data from fieldwork carried out by a team of researchers over ten years in West Africa, this research project presents a new method for innovation, based on collaboration between end users and developers. In multicultural teams, different areas of knowledge (global, local, indigenous, academic, non-academic knowledge) are combined and innovative systems are developed to solve complex problems – related to for example food security or local trade - which can only be solved in close collaboration. This method not only brings ethical principles of dialogue and cooperation into the design process, but also ensures that technology is adapted to the complex circumstances, locally.

In contemporary, conventional international development cooperation, decisions are usually imposed from outside, without consultation and participation of those involved (e.g. farmers in Burkina Faso or Mali), and knowledge and technology are transferred, linearly, ignoring local knowledge and local goals. The method proposed here provides a practical alternative that gives attention to equal cooperation, sustainability, ethics and that does not ignore the complexity of local conditions.

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