Guest editors’ introduction: Poverty, technology, microfinance and development

• Main Authors: KAUFFMAN, Robert J., Riggins, Frederick J.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2012
• Subjects: Computer Sciences; E-Commerce; Technology and Innovation
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/1751; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sis_research/article/2750/viewcontent/1_s2.0_S1567422312000695_main.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

A consistent expectation on the part of public policy-makers, governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has been that information and communications technologies (ICTs) will be a driver of economic growth and social development for the people away from poverty in the nations that harness them effectively. As this process proceeds around the world in the presence of dramatic technical progress, poverty nevertheless continues to be a difficult and grinding social problem to combat. In spite of the promised changes, the reality is that today there are greater population pressures, continuing inertial forces for economic stagnation, unstable social conditions and regional strife, as well as an increasingly inequitable distribution of wealth and lacking opportunities for growth in many countries.