Over the last decade, governments, international development agencies, foundations, and corporations have made significant investments to increase public access to information and communication technologies (ICT), particularly in developing countries. As these investments continue to grow, questions are being raised about their social and economic impact, particularly:

• What are the observable social and economic impacts of public access to ICT?
• What is the magnitude of these impacts and how can we measure them?
• What is the relationship between costs and benefits of providing public access to ICT?

The project will answer these questions using longitudinal and comparative research approaches. It will examine the impact of a range of shared, public access to ICT models, such as libraries and telecentres, as well as other models and innovations that will emerge over the next five years. The research will examine both positive and negative impacts on populations’ well-being in the areas of employment and income, education, civic engagement, democracy and governmental transparency, culture and language preservation, and health, among others.

Starting in late 2007, the program will run over five years. Phase One (12 months) focuses on secondary data research and three country-level field studies to pilot plausible research methods and frameworks to generate early results.  Phase Two (4 years) will strive to generate the hard evidence of impact from a series of longitudinal and comparative field studies in a number of countries.  Researchers will come from existing and new research networks, and teams to be formulated at both the global/regional and country-specific level where the field research will be carried out. 

The Public Access to ICT Impact Project is important because it will generate evidence to support policy and investments decisions and provide insights into how to develop better initiatives. It will also build research capacity in developing and emerging economies and improve methodological approaches by creating a common framework and vocabulary.