Information and Communication Technology in developing economies:
A literature review on the reasons for failures of ICT;
The case of Cameroon
Presented by Ishmael Shu Aghanifor
Student of Swedish Business School University of Örebro Sweden
Masters in Informatics Thesis
Abstract
The goal of this work is to examine the reasons for the failure and successes of ICT in SubSaharan Africa the case of Cameroon. The questions to be answered go to identify the critical factors responsible for ICT failures as well as efforts to address these failures. The Webster & Watson (2002) approach of gathering and organizing data was used in the study. Documents were retrieved from search engines such as Scirus, Google scholar, ISI web of science and ACM Digital Library. These documents were read through and available concepts identified leading to the establishment of a conceptual framework. Among the many documents reviewed for the study, much emphasis was placed on those of Dichoya (2005) and Heeks (2002) and Steyn(2006) as they form the bases for the establishment of the extended ICT limiting factor model. It was realized that those critical factors influence ICT adoption in LDCs negatively and concluded that even though ICT has been proven to be slowly adopted in the LDCs due to these factors they should not be overemphasized because some remarkable successes are still realized despite the backdrops.Key words: ICT failure, ICT successes, Government efforts towards ICT,
1.0 Introduction
1.1 BackgroundIn the past decades, some advanced countries have enjoyed higher level of successes with the adoption and use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) while developing economies like Cameroon had reacted so slowly towards this adoption. Some individuals and government agencies, even when provided with full access to information still prefer not to adopt the existing systems to provide modern solutions (Arrey Mbi et al, 2008). Elgali et al (20 10) citing Cuban (2010), Wild, (2006) stated that despite the great promise of technologies, the challenge of effectively harnessing technologies to benefit learners, educators, and administrators is still great. This challenge is most apparent in regards to efforts by policymakers to integrate information and communication technologies (ICTs) in their system. Though significant efforts have been made in ICT integration programs, we find a disproportionate number of failures of such programs. According to Ned (2002), the ICT sector has emerged as one of the epoch‐defining sectors in the world today. The last ten years may be regarded as the fastest penetration of consumer technology in human history. These unprecedented advances in technology have enabled many countries to address their problems and to improve the quality of life of citizens. Ngwenyama et al, (2007) has also mentioned that ICT has been promoted as an engine of growth that would significantly transform the economic, political, cultural and social condition of many developing nation states. This will lead to increasing the productive capacity of developing nations by creating new work opportunities for their citizens. Ngwenyama et al, (2007) argued further that the information which these ICTs bring to the residents of developing nations has the capacity to generate new knowledge and bring about unprecedented potential for improvement. This accounts for the reasons why international organizations and institutions like the United Nations (UN), World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), have been pushing governments of developing countries to formulate technology policies and invest heavily in ICT infrastructure expansion should ICT be termed successful in these nations. However, the point of view to be contemplated is how appropriate is this course of action because even though some anecdotal evidence suggest
that ICT has brought successes in the socio‐economic development of poor countries, there is little research to demonstrates the efficacy of these policies. Scholars have suggested that these investments will make substantial contribution to the development of these nations by fostering opportunities of the global digital economies to their communities (Pohjola, 2001). It is due to this failure‐success debate that this research has been conducted to examine the reasons for the failures of ICT in the LDCs with application within the Cameroonian context. This work follows the IMRaD structure where the first section chapter one involves the general background of ICT in the less developed economies. Section two follows the research method where I have used the Webster and Watson (2002) approach of literature study. Through this study, I have constructed a conceptual framework of limiting factors that has hindered ICT in the less developed world. I reproduced two tables with explaining statistics mapping these statistics to their critical variables in the framework and induce explanation of failures (from literature) in Cameroon on these variables by compare Cameroon with other African countries on those variables. Finally after the result sections I also made a short summary on successful ICT initiatives and then drew conclusion from the critical perspective.
1.2 Objective of study and Research Question
Literature shows that planning and management of ICT projects has very poor record in developing countries, (Gichoya D. 2005). The main objective of this work examines the reasons for failures of ICT in these economies. For this objective to be achieved, these setbacks will be discussed within the Cameroonian context by taking into consideration some critical variables that explain the reasons for these failures. These variables were better explained not by words but also with some basic statistics so as to understand Cameroon’s standing position in ICT progress within Sub‐Saharan Africa compared to other countries. For this goal to be accomplished the following question was answered: ¾ What factors could be termed as being responsible for ICT failures in a Less Developed Economy like Cameroon? The reason for such question is due to the fact that while the European countries (Sweden) and Asia (Singapore) are making advances in ICT, resource rich Sub‐Saharan Africa and Cameroon has been making little or no effort towards this move. It seems to be that even though huge amount of money is spent to carry out investment projects in Sub‐Saharan Africa, there has
being only little results on the outcomes of such investment (GITR, 2010‐2011). It is against this backdrop that this question has being posed to be answered. However, as a further motivation as to why failures have being investigated, summary investigations of some of the efforts or successes of ICT in Sub‐Saharan Africa have being pinpointed in the work. This has also being captured in our framework below.
2.0 Research Methodology
This paper using qualitative research has surveyed published papers of diverse and related fields within the information science. The Webster & Watson (2002) criteria has been used as the main technique to conducts this study. Documents for what reasons for the failures and successes of ICT in the less developed world were searched from sources such as Scirus, Google scholar, ISI web of science, ACM Digital Library, IEEE, ISI web of knowledge, Social science research network(SSRN), science direct.com and finally emeraldinsight.com. Despite the use of all these engines to retrieve materials not all of them yield results due to the scarcity of literatures within the area and scope of study especially as the research is exploratory meaning there are just few or earlier studies to refer to. Search Engines SSRN, science direct.com and finally emeraldinsight.com yield little or no results except for Google scholar, Scirus, ACM digital library and IS Web of Science yield most of the papers searched for with Google scholar having an upper hand. These papers were retrieved using a combination of key words such as ICT failures, Success, ICT infrastructure, and challenges of ICT.
More than 40 articles have been reviewed for this study. Most of them focused on Information systems and e‐government failure. Some interested papers that were found close to the topic such as those of Gichoya D. (2005), Heeks R. (2002) Steyn. (2006) etc they were included in the research; others that just focus on the general discussions on Information Systems in Africa were not so much given more emphasis to avoid diversion. I read the abstract and conclusion of these papers to ensure that they captured the relevance of the research questions. As Webster & Watson (2002) has cited Robey et al. (2000) I also went through their references to pick out similar articles related to this study which were of course very beneficial for this research. These articles were read through and available concepts identified leading to the establishment of a conceptual framework as show below
2.1 Conceptual framework This framework known as the ExtendedICTlimiting factor model captures ideas from the Heek (2002) reality Gap Model and Gichoya D. (2005) postulate. It is an extended framework because it does not only consider Heeks (2002) and Gichoya D. (2005) ideas but it considers also the politics and policy criteria which is an exemplary situation in Cameroon as shown below. Heeks (2002) focus on design while Gichoya (2005) is more general factors affecting ICT. They have been chosen because they formed served as inspiration for the establishment of an extended ICT‐Limiting Factor model. They are they contain the focus on why ICT or information systems have being a failure or slowly adopted in the less developed world. My model is different from theirs in that I have examined political consideration and the lack of national ICT policies as important inhibitors responsible for ICT failure in the country. I have grouped these variables into barriers and inhibitors. Barriers are those occurrences that hinder ICT implementation.
Inhibitors do not necessarily prevent the implementation of ICT projects but they do prevent advancement and restrict successful implementation and sustainability (Gichoya D. 2005). Politics and ICT policies Gichoya(2005) Heeks(2002)
Figure 1: A conceptual framework on the critical factors responsible for ICT failure in LDCs 2.2 Operating the framework and their Relationship The broken arrows represent relationship between the inhibitors and the barrier factors and vice versa. The reason for this relationship is due to the fact that most of the factors have chain relationship where one factor can emerge as a result of another factor. For example lack of ICT infrastructural policies will leads to poor infrastructure which in turn will give way to digital divides making it impossible for digital access to be possible. Furthermore, the design of a technology will be influenced by the cultural value of that society and the culture reflects the people’s attitudes receiving that system as well as how skillful are personnel in charge of maintaining the system. This shows the mapping that exists between the factors that has lead to failure in ICT represented by the broken arrows connection.
ICT LIMITING FACTOR MODEL E‐readiness in Staffing and Skills Poverty Lack of ICT Policies Infrastructure Attitude Cultural Barriers Political Considerations Digital Divides /(Access) Design BARRIERS INHIBITORS Some Efforts made to address this problem
To further expatiate on the method, I have used some basic statistics presented on two tables to make comparison between Cameroon and some concerned Sub‐Saharan African countries so as to be able to know where Cameroon stands in terms of ICT within the African continent. In this section, I have used indexes such as the e‐government index; the network readiness index and sub‐indexes and finally the Human Capital development index each of these indexes serving as explanations for the critical variables responsible for ICT failures. This could be presented on the table below. Table 1: Mapping Indexes with some critical factors A tabular presentation
Indexes
Factors
Infrastructure environment/mobile Teledensity Lack of infrastructure Network readiness Index Digital divides and Access Importance of ICT to the government Political consideration Government success in ICT promotion,Government ICT readiness, Lack of ICT National ICT Policy Human Capital Development Index Education and staffing(skilled personnel) Egovernment development index value Overall stability of ICT in SSA. Still on the method, I ended by making a summary on successful ICT initiatives so as to balance the debate as a necessity for the reason why failure factors have been examined.
3.0 Results
3.1 Presentation of Data As a reminder, this paper has looked at the limiting factors that have served as barriers or inhibitors to ICT in the less developed economies. Thus to fully expressed how these factors in our ICT Limiting framework above could contribute to ICT failures in Cameroon requires us to take into consideration some basic statistics capturing the indicators of the concepts (failing factors). These indicators will therefore be compared with those of other countries within Sub‐ Saharan Africa for comparative analyses so that we will be able to know Cameroons position in terms of ICT progress or failure. These indicators have been retrieved either to explain or to be aclose proxy to the concepts above as defined by the UN, WIS & GITR (2010, 2011). These indexes could be presented as shown below Table: 2 ICT indicators of the crucial variables Sources: United Nations E‐Government Survey 2010, NRI; the Global Information Technology Report 2010–2011), The Global Information Society (2010): a Statistical View, for development partnership and measurement of ICT Table: 3: Network subIndexes and others (Mean=4.31) Infrastructure
env,t Gov,t readiness Government Success in ICT Promotion Mobile density Tele‐ (2009)
Importance of ICT to government vision in the future. Chad 1.97/135 2.25/135 Cameroon 2.43/122 3.48/111 72/4.20 37.89 3.16/117 South Afr 3.25/73 3.72/92 95/3.94 96.67 3.85/89 Kenya 2.77/102 4.11/70 64/4.32 48.65 4.12/64 Sources: World Economic Forum, Executive Opinion Survey 2007, 2008, & International Telecommunication Union,
3.2 Definition of concepts and their relativities: Linking indexes with their critical variables. Here, the various indexes are operated in line with their indicators. In table 2, the factor lack of infrastructure is being captured here in one way as the infrastructural environment and also in terms of the mobile Teledensity defined as the number of main telephone lines for every one hundred inhabitants (Mbarika, 2002). E‐government Dev,t Index value. World average is (0.4406) World e‐government
development ranking Network Readiness Index, 2010‐2011 and 2009‐2010 Human capital Dev,t Index Country 2010 2008 2010 2008 Score/Rank( 2010/11) Score/Rank(2009/10) 2010 Gabon 0.3420 0.3228 123 129 ‐ ‐ 0.8437 Congo 0.3019 0.2737 135 148 ‐ ‐ 0.7742 Equatorial Guinea 0.2902 0.2890 138 145 ‐ ‐ 0.7868 Cameroon 0.2722 0.2734 149 149 3.04/33 2.86/128 0.6269 Central African Rep(CAR) 0.1399 0.1412 181 179 ‐ ‐ 0.4194 Chad 0.1235 0.1047 182 182 2.59/22 2.57/133 0.3363 Region /World Total & Averages 1.469/6 0.2448 1.4048/6 0.2341 908/6 151.33 932/6 155.33
Digital divide is defined as the inequality between the information haves and information have‐nots. It can also be defined as ‘‘the gap between individuals, households, business and geographic areas at different socio‐economic levels with regard both to their opportunities to access information technologies (ITs) and to their use of the Internet for a wide variety of activities’’ OECD (2001). Digital divides can be treated by digital access.
Wise (1997) explains ‘access’ to refer to making ICTs available to all citizens ‐ in other words ‘access’ is used solely to refer to the provision of physical artifacts. From the table above, digital divides could be captured by the Network readiness Index and access could be captured by the usage of ICT across the different countries. In table 1 we have the Network readiness index (NRI) defined as “the degree to which a community is prepared to participate in the Networked World and also expanded to include a community’s potential to participate in the Networked World in the future. (Global Information Technology Report, 2001‐2002). It captures key factors relating to the environment and the
readiness and usage of the three stakeholders in ICT (individuals, businesses, and governments),
and can be used to understand the performance of a nation or even a region with regards to ICT
development (Global Information Technology Report, 2001‐2002).
Moreover, the factor such as political consideration and lack of ICT national policy being example of Cameroon’s situation can be explained by the importance of ICT to the government as well as government success in ICT promotion (table 2). Skilled personnel are explained by the
human Capital Development index (table 1) which is a close variable to ICT Literacy and
absorption in the economy. Here three factors such as attitude, culture and design were found difficult to be allocated an index because they are dummy in nature .Therefore mere literatures were used to explain their contribution to ICT failures in this country. The overall model will be concluded by the egovernment development index value since it incorporates a broad range of issues. E‐government uses ICT to ease the government process.
4.0 Discussion of Results: Operating the Research questions tied to their
indexes
In this section I am going to discuss on the subject matter in line with Cameroon. It is very important to note that we cannot explain how Sub‐Saharan Africa or Cameroon has failed in ICT
without making a comparison with other countries. For this to be accomplished, I have used some indexes as seen on the table above to be able to know where Cameroon is standing with respect to other nations. Here, I am going to operate the factors in general terms applying the settings within the Cameroonian context. The comments here will be based essentially on what steyn (2006), Heeks (2000) and Gichoya D. (2005) and etc put in place. 4.1 Reasons for Failures of ICT in Cameroon Educated staffs and Skills Steyn (2006) states that Africa lacks the requirements for the implementation of ICT and Even where ICT had been made available by governments and other institutions, the failure rate is exceptionally high. Readiness in terms of educated staffs and skills not only in Cameroon but Africa in general is a call for concern. Steyn (2006) said to use a device for accessing or adding digitized community knowledge and memory, not only language literacy is required, but also the ``literacy, or skill´´ to use the device itself. The order of acquiring these skills is set: first language literacy, then device literacy. Ponting (2001) pointed out ``large populations cannot read or write, and if they can, large proportions of language literates are not ICT literate´´. This point could be explained by the Human Capacity Index with Cameroon on a scale of 0.6269 while countries like Gabon, Congo and Equatorial Guinea are on the top scale of 0.8437, 0.7742 and 0.7868 respectively. This implies that her Human capacity abilities to cope with emerging technology are still low as compared to its counterparts of the same zone. Even in developed economies proportionally fewer people have technology literacy than language literacy (Steyn, 2006). This has really being a problem with ICT success.
Heeks (2005) citing Ndou and Basu (2004) said that Less developed countries has chronic lack of qualified staff and training schemes, which are necessary conditions for the existence of successful e‐government schemes (Ndou, 2004). The same stance has been taken by Basu (2004) who states: “there are insufficient numbers of people in developing countries trained in appropriate technologies…training opportunities are also straining to meet needs”. The low rates of literacy in developing countries make this situation very difficult and costly to change, thus accounting for why e‐governments so often fail in these countries.
Steyn (2006) further attributes the failure of ICT in Africa for due to poverty. This poverty as he claimed could be found in many different levels. Financial poverty in Africa touches individuals on grassroots levels, as well as entire governments. Governments cannot afford to build schools; parents cannot afford to pay school fees, thus preventing the younger generation from eventually using ICT (Ponting 2001). Wilson (1996) said because of poverty Cameroon finds it difficult to create a truly comprehensive informationinfrastructure policy to carry out a sustainable ICT infrastructural investment. From above among the countries chosen for the analyses it´s clear that Cameroon has a low infrastructural environment witnessed by her global position of 22 levied on a scale of 2.23 after south Africa and Kenya who are topping the group. I have also witnessed this country to have a low mobile Tele‐density which is an indicator of ICT infrastructural investment to be low (37.89) as compared to South Africa and Kenya. This factor has greatly served as a barrier to ICT in Cameroon. Developing countries often have a poor IT infrastructure, which constitutes a further obstacle (Tapscott, 1996). There may not be consistent and reliable electricity, telecommunications, and Internet access (Jaeger & Thompson, 2004).
Lack of infrastructure
Schware and Deane, (2003) had stated that due to lack of infrastructure in most developing countries, the telecommunications costs can be high, thereby nullifying this benefit. Numerous people in developing countries do not have access to ICT even if the infrastructure is available. The Digital Divide is ever present, and there is a large gap between the educated elite who can afford technology, and the uneducated poor who cannot (Basu, 2004). The divide varied between countries (Norris, 2000). Based on the case above this divide is captured by the Network readiness Index with Cameroon having 3.04 and a position of 33 as compared to Chad having 2.59. All are still below the mean Value of 4.31 and thus could still be considered as low. Cultural factor, in line with design and attitude Moreover, an important factor that can be a strong barrier of ICT in the less developed economies is the Cultural factor. This cultural barrier gives birth to inhibitors such as design and attitude. The attitude of the people towards ICT is highly influenced by their culture and believes. Thus many problems may arise not because of IS but in most cases because of designers of IS and
the cultural environment which it is adopted (Hasa & Dista, 1999) This is quite feasible within the Muslim community in Africa where the culture inhibits the population especially women from western technology under the pretext that it is influencing their culture and was also seen as a manipulative tool by the west. Furthermore as stated by alterman (2002), countries such as Tunisia, Bahrain for socio‐political reasons and cultural reasons manipulate internet tools and the united emirates and Yemen use proxy servers that could be used to prevent users access undesirable sites. They claimed that such technology has been designed as a manipulative tool used by the western government to Oppress and spy on their citizens. This has greatly influence the failure of ICT especially in the northern part of Cameroon which predominantly a Muslim society. Since there are no alternative method to be adopted or a new technology that could be used suitable to their culture, they end up in failure even in the little they have adopted.
Political Considerations
Moreover, we have Political considerations. The perceptions and attitudes of a political system greatly affect the acceptance and growth of technology in any society. A political system conscious of the payoffs of ICT for the enhancement of its economic activities will frame appropriate policies for the adoption and dissemination of ICT throughout the length and breadth of the country. Furthermore, the growth of ICTs will be generally welcomed in a democratic society, because, ICTs are known to democratize societies through wider dissemination of information. However, in a society in which an autocratic form of government prevails, growth of ICTs may not be viewed with favor because; greater access to information may encourage interest in creating more democratic space in the society (Rajesh M, 2002). For the case of Cameroon, this factor could be explained by three variables. These include Government readiness, Government successes in ICT promotion and finally Importance of ICT to government vision in the future. In this domain Cameroon has scored below average with values of 3.48, 4.20 and 3.16 positioned numbers 111, 72 and 117 respectively which are below the world average of 4.31. This means Cameroon still has to do a lot in terms of her quest for ICT as compared to other countries like Kenya, and south Africa whom even though are below average but perform better. The importance of ICT to the government is still very low noted by her low successes in ICT promotion.
To further substantiate this point the government of the incumbent president put a banned on mobile twitter in the country following the Islamic awakening in the Middle East. This can stifle innovation and growth in the country (Tande D., March 2011). Samarajiva R. (2011)
also commented on the same situation and stated that the government under the banner of `protecting the nation´ has grown increasingly wary of the role Twitter and other social networks could play in sparking an Egypt‐ or Tunisia‐style uprising, said the director of a local non‐government organization, speaking on condition of anonymity.“The Cameroonian government dreads more and more the use of social networks to issue calls for resistance” against Biya’s regime, she told the French Press Agency (AFP), adding that authorities have already issued warnings to MTN Cameroon and Orange‐Cameroon, another provider.
Lack of ICT Policies
Finally, the country is still in a process of drafting a national ICT policy. There are still concerns about the lack of a clear direction and an appropriate policy framework on ICT policies, e‐strategies and related implementation plans and initiatives in Cameroon. These concerns are linked to the absence of a vision and a national policy as well as the difficulties with coordination and harmonization experienced by the different organizations in charge of designing and implementing Cameroonian ICT policies and strategies. The delay in adopting such policy can be explained by the power struggle among some institutional players, and the shift in leadership with the establishment of the National ICT Agency (Scan ICT, 2007). This shows that Cameroon ICT policies has been controlled by ``decrees and not by degrees´´ where people with little or no knowledge of ICT uses their power to define the vision and trend in this sector for their personal interest. To substantiate this point, I will look at the overall e‐government development index of the country. The rate has dropped as compared to the 2008 scores within members of the Central African Monetary community. Cameroon ha scored 0.2722 which is too low compared to that of Gabon 0.3420 and Congo 0.3019 which are below the global average of (0.4406). This shows that they are still lacking behind.
In line with the explanations above, the results could be presented using the Webster Watson (2002) matrix table. This approach shows a matrix of relationship between the authors and the concepts whereby a tick is attributed to each concept that relates to the comment or
research of that author in relation to that factor. I realized that 18 authors commented directly on the critical factors that affects ICT in the less developed economies. It does not mean that only 18 articles were reviewed. Others were reviewed but they do not capture the factors explained. From the literature it is true that most of the authors focus on illiteracy and infrastructural problems as the main obstacles to ICT adoption in Africa witnessed by the number of times that these authors spoke on these variables. Specifically looking at Cameroon the aspect of policy and politics has been the measure call for concern so far (Scan ICT‐survey 2006). Article and Concepts Staff/ Skills (literacy ) Pove rty Infrast …
Culture politics policies attitude Design Digital Divide s& access Heeks (2000;2005) √ √ Gichoya D. (2005) √ √ √ √ Mbarika (2002). √ Ponting (2001) √ √ Steyn (2006) √ √ Ndou (2004). √ Basu (2004) √ √ Wilson (1996) √ Tapscott, (1996). √ Schware&Deane (2003) √ √ Hasa & Dista, (1999) √ √ √ Alterman (2002), √ √ Tande D.(2011) √ Samarajiva R. (2011) √ Scan ICT (2007). √ Norris (2000). √
Table 3: A presentation of available concepts in correlation with their research authors using the Webster and Watson matrix table.
4.2: A summary of Government Efforts towards ICT promotion
The drive for success
Even though it has earlier being asserted that the less developed economies has failed in several domains in their drive for ICT, some substantial efforts however has being made by these nations to catch up with the global trend. It is easy to find instances of good news concerning Africa and the information revolution (Wilson, 1996). Crafts, (2003) Chen and Zhu, (2004) had stated that the potential for ICTs to transform the productive capacities of developing nations has been noted. Some aspects of successes have been witnessed within Sub‐Saharan Africa: To name a few are; through Health Net, clinic patients in rural Kenya have better health care because they can consult by satellite with doctors in Nairobi and, if necessary, with specialists in Boston. Pinpointing the position of southern African, trains via Transtel satellite data and voice networks permits faster and cheaper deliveries of goods (Wilson, 1996). Also Cameroon has been on a good footing. The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa provided ICT support to rural schools in Cameroon through a project known as the Electronic Rural Schools in African Languages (ERELA) Initiative, launched in collaboration with the National Association of Cameroonian Languages Committee (NACALCO). Over a three‐year period a computer‐based linguistic model was developed based on local languages in rural schools and is currently being piloted. Three training manuals in local languages, for supervisors, teachers and students, were developed, and specialized software in local languages has been installed in the schools. As a result of this initiative, rural school children in Cameroon will have access to computers as well as be able to use them in their own local languages. One thousand students are targeted to benefit from this initiative (ECA, 2009). Jaeger and Thompson(2004) √ Rajesh M,(2002) √ √4.3 Conclusion
This work goes to look at the critical factors that could be considered as been responsible for ICT failure. As Dichoya, (2005) has stated it is the absent of these factors of failures that could be termed success. In this work some icons of successes has being highlighted as efforts made by the government towards ICT adoption. Based on the above review, the following factors were found as factors of failures grouped under Barriers and Inhibitors. Barriers include ICT illiteracy, cultural factors, poverty (finance), and infrastructure. On the other hand inhibitors include lack of ICT policies, politics, attitudes design and digital divides. These factors have been captured by world indexes to explain the reasons for ICT failure in the less developed world. Among the many countries scanned through it was realized that the problems of ICT varies across the regions differently due the complexity and broad nature of ICT applications. The problem faced by ICT in Cameroon is more similar to that within the African context. However some successes as enumerated above were still found possible to keep the venture for ICT moving ahead in Africa. ICT has fundamentally brought new ways of creating knowledge, educating people and disseminating information, conducting economic and business practices, running government, engaging politically, providing speedy delivery of humanitarian aid and healthcare, and improving living standards for millions of people (WIS 2003). The issue now is whether it could be sustainable within the African context. Thus even though ICT has proven to have positive correlation with economic growth in developed countries, evidence for developing countries is not as extensive” (Ngwenyama et al, 2006) due to the fact that Anecdotal evidence have suggested ICT championing projects that have left hopefuls disappointed in Africa. This view is consistent with the findings of Banard and Vonk (2003) who examined the status of ICTs in Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Uganda and Zambia and reported that, “…many, if not most countries in Africa lag behind in basic requirements for ICTs to play a meaningful and sustained role in people’s lives”.
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