ICT in Africa: Building a Better Life for All

In the 1990s and the early 2000s, development-focused information and communication technology (ICT) research predominantly concentrated on bridging the digital divide through overcoming connectivity and access barriers for more and more of Africa's population. This provided connections to the rest of the world and ultimately helped to overcome to a large extent the so-called “last mile” challenge faced in Africa. As the penetration of ICTs increased across the African continent in the late 2000s and early 2010s, the focus started to shift to the uptake and impact of these ICTs in order to transform societies and economies since enhancing information flows alone is not sufficient to grasp development opportunities. It is vital to foster digital opportunities and social inclusion by enhancing the use of ICTs for capacity-building, empowerment, governance and social participation; to strengthen capacities for scientific research, information sharing and cultural creations, performances and exchanges of knowledge, and to enhance learning opportunities through access to diversified contents and delivery systems to support the transformation to knowledge societies. Barriers to be overcome are no longer only technological but also educational, cultural and linguistic in nature. Neglecting to invest sufficiently in human capacity may result in the “last mile” challenge becoming the “lost mile.”

In the first part of the two-part special issue on ICT in Africa, the focus was on whether and, if so, how ICT can enable better lives for the people in Africa (Volume 21, Issue 1). Articles examined the role of ICT infrastructure and institutional quality to enable an increase in intra-African trade, the use of mobile telephony in the agricultural sectors to enable information sharing, the use of ICTs to enable information access in remote rural areas and ways to increase successful implementations of ICT projects, all in order to ultimately enable increased sustainability and improved livelihoods for people in Africa, particularly for the rural periphery. In the second part, the focus is on human capacity-building, ICT skills development, and the diffusion and adoption of various ICTs and the impact thereof across the African continent in order to build better lives for the people of Africa. This editorial comprises five sections. In Section 1, we provide an overview on the state of higher education and employment on the African continent. Section 2 provides a discussion of the potential for ICT to build platforms for education and entrepreneurship. In Section 3, we discuss the special issue commenting on knowledge production and sharing from the Global South.¹ We introduce the articles in this volume of the special issue on ICT in Africa in Section 4. Section 5 concludes the editorial.

1. Africa's hope: the next generation

Approximately 250 million people are expected to join the African workforce between 2010 and 2050 (The Economist, 2014). According to Berman (2013), Africa will have the world's largest workforce even sooner; in this decade the workforce will increase by 163 million and by 2035 the workforce will be larger than that of China. Within the next 35 years, Africans will account for a quarter of the world's workers. In Africa, both sub-Saharan and North Africa, approximately 40% of the population is under the age of 15, and nearly 70% is under the age of 30.² With many countries in Africa in a demographic transition, the resulting youth bulge can result in a demographic dividend if the majority of young, working age adults can find productive employment.

For the foreseeable future, the ICT and IT-enabled services industry, which encompasses amongst others call centers, back office operations and business process outsourcing, can potentially create numerous new jobs and catalyze economic and social transformation. There is also a rising demand for profession-based services and knowledge process outsourcing that encompasses information-related business activities. Examples of KPO include market research, legal and medical processing services, investment and equity research, and editing for international publishing houses, among others. Selected African countries have already started capitalizing on these opportunities. For example, South Africa expanded into IT-enabled financial services and Egypt into multilingual call centers. African countries should further develop not only their infrastructure but also the human potential within their borders to benefit from this market opportunity since these opportunities, particularly the higher value added services that also command higher revenues, require advanced technical and analytical skills. But, in many countries these skills are inadequate. For example, Mutula and Van Brakel (2007) found that Botswana had an acute shortage of high-skilled ICT personnel to take advantage of the emerging digital economy in the country.

The skills for the knowledge economy are built at the tertiary education level. The tertiary student population in Africa tripled from 2.7 million in 1991 to 9.3 million in 2006 (Jegede, 2012, p. 2). In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), post-secondary education has grown faster than in any other region: with fewer than 200,000 students enrolled in SSA universities in 1970, the number rose to over five million in 2010 and has been increasing by 10–15% annually since then (Kigotho, 2014). According to the World Bank (2010), the entire continent is projected to have between 18 million and 20 million students by 2015 (Jegede, 2012, p. 2). And yet despite the rapid growth, only 6% of the tertiary education age cohort was enrolled in tertiary institutions in 2008, compared to the global average of 26%. Furthermore, according to the World Bank's vice-president for Africa, Makhtar Diop, “only 11% of African university students are studying subjects with potentially high employability” (Kigotho, 2014). One possible reason is the failure of young people, education providers, employers and governments to understand one another's needs fully (Kroeze, Ponelis, Venter, Pretorius, & Prinsloo, 2012). To avoid creating unemployable university graduates, higher education policies, curricula and career guidance need to be cognizant of industry demand. This, however, is not a problem unique to the African continent (see e.g. Mourshed, Patel, & Suder's (2012) discussion on the situation in Europe) but it does have unique dimensions. The continued exclusion of marginalized populations, particularly women and those in rural areas, from higher education is a further concern.

There are currently limited formal sector vacancies and the formal African labor markets are unable to absorb the growing supply of workers, for a variety of reasons including structural and political constraints. Fortunately, the youth not only need jobs but they can also create jobs, either through necessity or choice. A large number of young people aged 15–24 in SSA are self-employed in the agricultural and informal sectors. The informal sector comprises all non-agricultural, unincorporated private enterprises that produce their goods and/or services for sale or barter and are not registered under national legislation (ILO, 1993 in De Beer, Sowa, & Holman, 2014). Informal enterprises are a rational response to the onerous regulations with regard to registration and licensing in many African countries but there are concerns that the employment in the informal sector, particularly in survivalist enterprises,³ does not offer sustainable livelihoods and ultimately human well-being. But it is also in the informal sector that we find the so-called “cheetah generation,” a term coined by the Ghanaian economist George Ayittey (2014) to describe young African graduates and professionals who see every social need in Africa as a business opportunity. Many of these “cheetahs” are digital natives who are “innovators and users spearheading some of the world's most exciting ICT advances” (Best, 2014, p. 27). They are impatient and unwilling to wait for leaders to deliver on their promises. They are entrepreneurial and keen to use their own initiative to create employment and solve problems in Africa. As De Beer et al. (2014) state, “creating favourable conditions for youth entrepreneurship [should] be a component of any plan to bolster economic development.”

Innovation in sub-Saharan African countries with large informal sectors where large portions of the population depends on these small, medium and micro-enterprises (SMMEs) can result in benefits not only to the entrepreneurs, but also to the society as a whole since the informal sector can produce economically viable and beneficial innovations that affect a large proportion of the population (Kraemer-Mbula & Wamae, 2010). African SMMEs can – and do – rapidly develop local and localized applications, content, platforms and solutions enabling Africans to use the web to meet their communication, business, educational and commercial needs. One of the main sources of locally developed applications is technology hubs that take a variety of different forms, from the so-called hackerspaces (informal gatherings of developers) to formal co-working spaces to fully fledged ICT incubators supported by universities, governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST) in Ghana, the Co-creation hub in Nigeria or iHub in Kenya is widely regarded as models for technology hubs. Although it is difficult to know with certainty how many technology hubs there are given the rapid rate at which they are created, amalgamated and disbanded, the World Bank in collaboration with two African technology hubs, iHub Research in Kenya and BongoHive in Zambia, found more than 90 hubs located across the continent⁴ (iHub Research, World Bank, & BongoHive, 2014).

Youth unemployment in particular is a profound challenge to the future of Africa. African youth need quality education at all levels combined with skills training that, crucially, are matched with suitable opportunities to ensure that they not only have sustainable livelihoods but also emotional and evaluative well-being, able to participate fully and equally in global knowledge societies.

2. Enabling transformational human development with ICTs

Education is a key factor to ensure people find or create productive employment and sustainable livelihoods, and is inextricably linked to any sustainable development agenda: increasing access to and attainment of higher levels of education is “key to ensuring more equitable access to better living conditions, increasingly specialized and better-paid jobs, and a more sustainable environment as well as sustainable economic and social development” (United Nations General Assembly, 2013, p. 5). Without education that can foster human capabilities, access to information and ICT will not have the expected developmental benefits (Britz, Hoffmann, Ponelis, Zimmer, & Lor, 2013). Knowledge societies require “the capabilities to identify, produce, process, transform, disseminate and use information to build and apply knowledge for human development” (UNESCO, 2005, p. 27).

Whilst ICT is generally used to replace human labor, increase efficiency and improve products and/or services of ICT in developed economies, in developing economies in the Global South ICT is used to compensate for a lack of infrastructure and to develop new products and/or services for a rapidly expanding customer base (Roztocki & Weistroffer, 2009). African universities are admitting ever-greater numbers of students to meet the demand for higher education but this stretches their already thin resources further. The rapid expansion has had a negative impact on the quality of teaching and learning without a commensurate increase in resources (Mohamedbhai, 2008). Learning opportunities can be enhanced through access to diversified contents, and delivery systems must be enhanced in order to build equitable, open and participatory knowledge societies. ICT presents a plethora of possible delivery systems that can increase not only access to education across the African continent but also the quality thereof: using online, particularly mobile, platforms for learning, also for flexible lifelong learning opportunities, expanding access to libraries' resources and increasing regional and international knowledge sharing, teaching ICT skills for employment and connecting to the African diaspora worldwide for educational content and research support. For example, in South Africa a greater emphasis on the exploitation of ICT for “quality expansion of teaching and learning” (Department of Higher Education and Training [DHET], 2012, p. 8) was outlined in the Draft Policy Framework for the Provision of Distance Education in South African Universities of 2012 including e-learning, m-learning and a move to open learning using open educational resources. The challenges to enabling this change in emphasis are also acknowledged, namely, the development of appropriate high-quality learning resources along with access to and use of appropriate ICT by both institutions and prospective students (Ponelis et al., 2012). Further challenges include the high variability in local contexts in which ICT is to be adopted, and the perceptions, attitude and ability of teachers to integrate ICT into their pedagogy.

Research and knowledge production also play a critical role in the socioeconomic development of African countries. Many African universities are unable to fulfill their research mandates effectively. SSA contributed only 0.7% to world scientific output and this percentage is decreasing (MacGregor, 2013). Three countries – Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa – produced three-quarters of Africa's output. In addition, provision of postgraduate and particularly doctoral education is constrained and many students and faculty have to pursue their postgraduate studies, particularly at doctoral level, at great financial and personal cost at universities outside of Africa. Without a substantial enhancement of human capacity, African educational institutions in general, and universities in particular, will continue to fall further behind, with disastrous consequences for the continent in a global knowledge economy (MacGregor, 2013).

It is therefore becoming increasingly urgent to increase the capacity for doctoral level education on the continent. Many of the best and brightest that leave the continent to pursue further studies fail to return. Consider, for example, that one of every nine people born in Africa who has a university degree is a migrant in one of the 34 member states of the OECD (OECD-UNDESA, 2013). This diaspora resulting in lost skills to the African countries of origin is often referred to as a “brain drain” but many of those in the diaspora contribute to the ongoing development of the continent through research collaboration and partnerships, and doctoral training support and research supervision using ICTs.

A combination of education and ICT can be a powerful driver for growth on the African continent. Improving higher education systems should be high on all African countries' development agendas. Higher education institutions and policy-makers in Africa must ensure that their citizens acquire the skills to compete, innovate and respond to complex social, environmental and economical situations. Governments in partnership with the private sector and civil society need to ensure that they create the necessary physical and ICT infrastructure that can support an educated and skilled population, an efficient innovation system and allows enterprises to create and exploit knowledge in order to establish a competitive advantage in the marketplace (Ponelis, 2011).

The next section examines some of the challenges facing African scholars with respect to research and knowledge production within the context of this special issue.

3. Special issue on ICT4HD in Africa

Publication is a vital part of the knowledge creation process because it ensures transmission and validation of research findings (UNESCO, 2005, p. 114). More than 70 submissions were received that resulted in two issues on “ICT in Africa” instead of the originally planned single issue. It is heartening to see such an overwhelming response to ICT research in Africa given that researchers in many African countries face significant financial and technical challenges. Perhaps, it is also indicative of the continued scarcity of international publication outlets for ICT research on Africa.

There are several international conferences that provide tracks for ICT researchers to share their research from and about Africa, for example, the Association for Information Systems (AIS) Special Interest Group on ICTs in Global Development's (SIG GlobDev) track at the annual Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS), the annual European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS) and the annual International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS). However, it is still problematic for African scholars to attend conferences held in the Global North for a variety of reasons including stringent and costly visa requirements, and travel costs as discussed by Britz and Ponelis (2012). Some independent meetings such as the International Federation for Information Processing Working Group 9.4's biennial conferences and other workshops focusing on “Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries” are always held in developing countries around the world.

It can also be challenging to publish research originating from or focused on developing countries in mainstream top-tier international journals (Brown & Grant, 2010; Hamman, 2011; Sahay & Avgerou, 2002). According to Roztocki and Weistroffer (2009), relatively few articles reporting on ICT research related to developing countries have been published in prominent information systems (IS) journals. There is, as Roztocki and Weistroffer (2009) state, “tremendous opportunity for research dealing with ICT specifically in developing economies” and yet “most mainstream ICT research still concentrates on applications in developed economies” (p. 117). There have been a few special issues of such journals that seek to showcase research from and on developing countries. In 2002, a special issue on ICT in developing countries was published in The Information Society (Volume 18, Number 2) as well as a special issue on ICTs and Development in the Journal of International Development (2002, Volume 14, Issue 1). Five years later in June 2007 MIS Quarterly published a special issue on IS in developing countries (Volume 31, Number 2). A special issue of the Journal of Information Technology on the growth in ICT uptake in developing countries is also forthcoming (expected publication in December 2016). Fortunately, specialist journals such as Information Technology for Development and Information Technologies & International Development are dedicated and esteemed international forums for ICT researchers focused on development and/or developing countries. Publications in related disciplines such as communication studies, development studies and the like also offer platforms for research such as the special issue on the Development of ICT in Africa in Communications & Strategies (Number 86, 2nd quarter 2012). Given the size and complexity of the African continent, there remain relatively few opportunities for showcasing ICT research from and on the African continent in mainstream IS journals.

Hurdles to publication for authors from developing countries include both the more obvious linguistic challenges and the less obvious non-linguistic challenges. Non-linguistic challenges in the Global South include poor infrastructure, erratic connectivity and limited bandwidth, power outages, and scarce or non-existent bibliographical resources, amongst others, that add to the many linguistic hurdles (Salager-Meyer, 2014).

The most obvious linguistic challenges African authors face is most often their limited ability in English, the language of the majority of mainstream academic forums, that for many African scholars is a second, third or even fourth language – coupled with low levels of academic writing skills and poor structure and flow of papers (Salager-Meyer, 2014; Walsham, Robey, & Sahay, 2007). Reporting on publication in the medical research field, Coates, Sturgeon, Bohannan, and Pasini (2002) show that badly written articles correlate with a high rejection rate and that, even though several factors could influence the decision to reject an article, on equal scientific merit, a poorly written article has less chance of being accepted. Shashok (2008) predicts that this situation will continue to worsen because of the decreasing editorial tolerance for less-than-perfect language and writing clearly expected in the instructions for manuscript preparation. For non-native English-speaking scholars, it often requires the investment of significant resources, both of time and money, to produce manuscripts that fulfill the expectations of mainstream editors and reviewers who are most frequently based in high-income countries in the Global North with a good command of English (Salager-Meyer, 2014) or the necessary resources to access language editing. Fortunately, there are many journal editors who “try to find the ‘gems’ in an article that will make it publishable, even if these are ‘hidden somewhere on page 32 of the manuscript’” (Hamman, 2011) and spend significant time to work with authors to develop their contributions for publication such as Sahay and Avgerou (2002) and Walsham et al. (2007). We strived to have all manuscripts reviewed by at least one reviewer from the African continent in as far as it was possible given subject area expertise and reviewer availability.

Other problems often identified in manuscripts from scholars in developing countries include the misalignment between theoretical approach and empirical data (Walsham et al., 2007) and the lack of clear contribution to and integration with the existing [Global North-dominated] literature (Roztocki & Weistroffer, 2009; Walsham et al., 2007). Yet at the same time, researchers are often criticized for not citing research conducted in developing countries in addition to citing research from developed countries (Roztocki & Weistroffer, 2009; Salager-Meyer, 2014). However, with a relative lack of developing country-focused research published in mainstream journals and local and regional journals often considered to be less reputable and of a poorer quality, these authors have little option but to resort to doing so to increase their chances of acceptance. It also places a disproportionate burden on these resource-constrained scholars on the periphery to identify and articulate how their results contrast those in developed countries and to provide reasonable explanations for such differences. Why are researchers reporting on studies in the Global North not equally expected to compare and contrast their results with those published in the Global South?

Researchers from the Global South face another hurdle in that they must often “tailor their research to be of interest to high impact journals serving a Northern research agenda” (Czerniewicz, 2011; Nyanchoga, 2014) having to use “categories and conceptual systems which depend on a Western epistemological order” (Mudimbe, 1988, p. x). Researchers from developing countries sometimes even have to conduct empirical research in Europe and North America at great cost in order to have their work published in top-tier journals (Hamman, 2011) in order to overcome what Donovan (2007) calls “geographic prejudice.”

On the other hand, Best (2014) remarks that “computing researchers and practitioners design for the Global North, but the shear [sic] numbers and opportunities for innovation are overflowing in the Global South” (p. 27). There has been an increase of relatively well-resourced researchers from the Global North undertaking research in developing countries and publishing in the mainstream IS journals. It is rather ironic that many scholars in the Global South continue to be marginalized when writing about their own, local communities whilst their scholar counterparts in the Global North can more easily achieve recognition when writing about the same topic (Canagarajah in Salager-Meyer, 2008). It would indeed be a missed opportunity if the Global South simply provides novel empirical sites and local researchers are not equal partners in projects about their own contexts (Czerniewicz, 2011), remaining on the periphery of the academic conversation and not receiving full recognition for their contribution and role in the global and local knowledge production processes (see e.g. Schumaker's (2001) discussion of the role of African research assistants in anthropology research in the mid-twentieth century). In this special issue, at least one of the authors of each of the articles in this special issue is either from Africa and/or was located in Africa when the research was conducted, which meets one of our objectives as editors of the special issue to support the flow of information from and about Africa to the rest of the world and to promote collaboration.

In the next section, we provide an extended introduction of the articles in this special issue on “ICT in Africa” highlighting each paper's unique contribution and providing comments on linkage to relevant literature.

4. Articles in the special issue

Emerging technologies increase the pressure on several skill domains, particularly in the ICT sector but also related areas such as libraries, entrepreneurs and even individuals as citizens and consumers. A scarcity of ICT skills reduces the potential returns on ICT investments, serves as a disincentive for new investors and reduces the quality of service delivery. As discussed earlier, higher education institutions in Africa have struggled to meet the demand for skill sets for the knowledge economy. Ways to build the ICT capacity of the labor force are therefore of tremendous importance to any knowledge economy. The 2012 Tech Trends Report (IBM, 2012) shows that on average about half of participating South African organizations reported a moderate to major skills gap across the top four emerging technologies, namely: mobile (49%), cloud (50%), social business (49%) and business analytics (48%). Not only is the steady supply of recent graduates with appropriate knowledge and skills important to organizations but also the re-skilling of existing employees in emerging technologies. But what knowledge and skills must IS graduates have to be able to function in the fast changing computing environment of the twenty-first century? How can the required knowledge and skills be best imparted to students? How can the ICT skills shortage be addressed? These are the questions with which Johan Breytenbach and Carina de Villiers are concerned in their paper on “Increasing the Quality and Quantity of Tertiary-level Information Systems Students: A Graduate Development Framework.” In this article, the authors report on ongoing research aimed at creating a comprehensive graduate development framework within the South African context, which incorporates ICT4D, economic labor market theory as it relates to IS labor supply, IS education concepts and course structures, and a study of IS labor within the creative industries. A case study of a short course structured as a competition for high school students shows how the 20 concepts comprising the IS graduate development framework can be used to increase the quality and quantity of IS graduate supply chain. The authors conclude that a partnership among basic education institutions, particularly high schools, higher education institutions, industry, government and the media combined with ICT support to enable information flows amongst stakeholders, can increase not only the quantity but also the quality of IS graduates.

Libraries play a vital role in knowledge provision and sharing in their communities to, amongst others, support education. In recent years, emerging technologies have modified the traditional identity and role of the library. With the rapid spread of ICT and the increasingly social, mobile, interactive and collaborative environment, library users' expectations with respect to access to and interaction with information resources have changed (Carlucci Thomas, 2010; Iglesias, 2010). The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions' Code of Ethics for Librarians and other Information Workers states that “Librarians and other information workers' interest is to provide the best possible access for library users to information and ideas in any media or format.” No longer are only systems librarians expected to have advanced IT knowledge skills; all library and information science (LIS) professionals should have the knowledge and skills necessary to meet users' evolving technological needs (Erlandson, 2010). In “The Information Technology Influence on LIS Job Descriptions in South Africa,” Mzwandile Shongwe examines the situation in South Africa. Content analysis of 581 job advertisements placed in a major Sunday newspaper from 2009 through 2012 revealed that on average 13% of all LIS positions either explicitly require advanced IT knowledge and skills or have an IT-focused job title. When examining lower level categories, it is clear where the need for advanced IT skills is greatest: information-related positions (34 of 151 positions or 23%) and knowledge management positions (11 of 61, 18%) far exceed positions in archives and record management (7 of 69, 10%), in libraries (23 of 281, 8%) and for academic positions (0 of 19, 0%). This finding contrasts with the findings of previous studies by Snyman (2000) and Ocholla (2001, 2005) and suggests that in South Africa IT is starting to play a more significant role in the LIS profession as well. The author recommends that LIS schools in South Africa therefore introduce advanced IT core courses in their curricula together with continuing education options to meet the growing demand for advanced IT knowledge and skills in the country in order to ultimately contribute to building knowledge societies. This may, however, prove challenging given the reported lack of explicit requirements for IT skills for academic positions.

“Mobile” is the eighth most frequently appearing term in development informatics research (Heeks, 2014a). This trend is set to continue with the use of the term “mobile” increasing by 153% from Millennium Development Goal (MDG) documents to the post-2015 development agenda documents (Heeks, 2014b). This reflects the central role that mobile telephony can play to increase access to diverse information and services and connect users to others across the entire world. Focusing on South Africa in their paper entitled “Enabling Social Sustainability of E-Participation through Mobile Technology,” Nixon Muganda Ochara and Tendani Mawela examine the potential for mobile telephony to enable social sustainability through e-participation in government. They state that social sustainability requires citizen participation in governance, allowing for local traditions, social and cultural differences within communities, empowering marginalized groups, sharing and aligning goals with local people and adapting to evolving community needs (Avgerou, 2008, 2010; Hayes & Westrup, 2012). Following Klecun (2008), the authors argue that e-participation depends on access, skills and attitude toward mobile technology use for e-government services. Unfortunately, one main barrier to e-government adoption within the developing world is the low ICT literacy and skills of e-government users (Khan, Moon, Rhee, & Rho, 2010). According to Khan et al. (2010), the skills required for the sustainability of e-government are not merely technical but require a broader set of e-skills. Using Verdegem and Verhoest's (2009) Access-Skills-Attitude approach as theoretical model for their article, Ochara and Mawela developed a self-administered questionnaire to survey 220 South African citizens lived in the Gauteng province, particularly those who are socially and digitally excluded. The second section of the self-administered questionnaire aimed to assess the utility of e-government for e-participation through providing 37 statements to respondents that were aligned to the issues of access, skills, attitude and utility of ICTs. From the analysis of these questionnaires, the authors make a contribution to m-government research by arguing that mobile technology infrastructure, given its high adoption rates on the African continent, provides a more suitable alternative for conceptualizing e-government even though it was not initially intended to do so. However, focusing on skills and education, their analysis further revealed that for e-government to move beyond mythical status, ICT education should embrace electronic literacy and e-skills, not only in formal education but also in work practices.

Kenya's status as a global leader in innovative uses of mobile phones to transfer funds and make payments is undisputable: 71% report using their phones to move money, far surpassing the next closest countries, namely, Tanzania (40%), Liberia (39%) and Sudan (38%) (Afrobarometer, 2013). Even so, relatively little is known about the criteria and process used by small and medium enterprise (SME) owners to decide whether to adopt mobile-banking services or not. It is this gap that Boniface J. Mwangi and Irwin Brown seek to address in their paper “A Decision Model of Kenyan SMEs' Consumer Choice Behavior in Relation to Registration for a Mobile Banking Service: A Contextual Perspective.” Employing a cognitive research approach anchored in an interpretive paradigm, the authors use ethnographic decision tree modeling (EDTM), which is underpinned by the theory of real-life choice, instead of the more common variance theories. Ethnographic decision trees provide a simple natural process to predict the actual choices of individuals or groups with a reasonable degree of accuracy (Gladwin, 1983). The EDTM makes explicit the decision criteria underlying the choice behavior present in the social context in which SMEs adopt mobile-banking systems in Kenya. Although some SMEs cited several informational, transactional, spatial and temporal benefits of mobile banking, they were also quick to voice their fears of fraud and physical attacks when transacting with mobile-money agents. The authors also infer from their empirical research that the uptake of mobile-money services in Kenya is likely driven by factors other than affordability, which contradicts results from other studies (Mbogo, 2010). Apart from providing a descriptive and explanatory framework through which SME owners' decisions to adopt mobile-banking services can be understood, financial institutions can use this insight to improve mobile-banking services offered to SMEs. The decision model criteria can also feed into policy and legislation to promote more effective, safe and secure financial services for SMEs to increase the uptake and financial inclusion. The paper also serves as one of very few examples of how EDTM can be used in ICT4D research.

The introduction of new ICTs offers entrepreneurial individuals opportunities to meet societal needs and create employment. Patrick Kanyi Wamuyu is concerned with how technology-based SMEs are affected by and can cope with the challenges of users' constantly evolving ICT adoption in the article “The Impact of Information and Communication Technology Adoption and Diffusion on Technology Entrepreneurship in Developing Countries: The Case of Kenya.” Using qualitative case studies of four Kenyan technology-based SMEs, all older than 3 years, the article reports on 70 semi-structured interviews conducted with managers, employees and customers. The thematic analysis of interview data was supplemented by the analysis of documents such as marketing leaflets and brochures. The results reveal that customers' adoption and abandonment decisions are affected by convenience, utility, value for money and perceived and actual service quality, which includes the appearance of equipment, network performance and the quality of customer care services. Whilst rapid changes in ICT product and service offerings by competitors provide opportunities for early adopters to switch to competitors, it also provides opportunities to target late adopters with existing products and services. However, without accompanying innovation, the so-called question marks that can turn into stars in the Boston Consulting Group's growth-share matrix, these enterprises run the risk of eventual failure with cash cows turning into dogs. Entrepreneurial creativity can lead to sustainability of technology-based SMEs despite rapid changes in ICT products and services. Unreliable billing and collection systems, unsurprisingly, negatively affect sustainability. Slow adoption of ICT products and services in an environment where retailers make these available in quick succession also negatively impact technology-based SMEs. To cushion the potential impact of advances in ICT on technology-based SMEs, the author suggests that Kenyan government considers incentives and a more favorable tax regime for these start-ups, highlighting the importance of creating favorable conditions for entrepreneurship to flourish. Another avenue of exploration in future research is the market segmentation strategies these SMEs use in relation to consumers' adoption style, for example, early vs. late adopters.

The important role of skills and education in the adoption of ICTs is also emphasized by Almamy Touray, Airi Salminen and Anja Mursu in their article “Internet Adoption at the User Level: Empirical Evidence from The Gambia.” The authors propose an Internet adoption framework to determine the relevant elements of Internet adoption at the user level in The Gambia. Surrounded by Senegal on the north, east and south and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, The Gambia is the smallest country on the African continent with a population of around 1.8 million people. A case study research design was employed and data gathered from 200 questionnaires that were randomly administered to selected students from the University of The Gambia. This article focuses on the technology adoption school using the Venkatesh, Morris, Davis, and Davis’ (2003) unified theory of acceptance and use of technology as its theoretical point of departure. The findings of this study indicate seven determinants that influence Internet adoption at the user level in The Gambia: performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions, behavioral intention toward Internet use, education and income. The most important core determinant for Internet adoption at the user level is education, which confirms the finding by LaRose, Gregg, Strover, Straubhaar, and Carpenter (2007) that education is important for broadband Internet service adoption in rural areas, but also for Internet adoption in general at the user level. As ICT research focusing on The Gambia is very scarce, this article is a positive addition to the current ICT4D body of knowledge.

Continuing in the same vein as in Part 1 of the special issue, “ICT in Africa: Enabling a Better Life for All,” Uduak Okon discusses how ICTs are affecting and effecting development in Africa, especially in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria in the article entitled “ICT for Rural Community Development: Implementing the Communicative Ecology framework in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria.” Okon utilizes communicative ecology as a framework for discussing how ICTs should be integrated with other modes of communication in specific rural communities in order to facilitate ICT use and interaction in the wider context of people's lives. This article links to this part of the special issue by conferring that in knowledge societies (Castells, 2000; Friedman, 2006) information, increasingly in a digital form, is the basis of socioeconomic activities of such societies and “a key to economic wealth and prosperity” (Ponelis, 2014, p. 2). ICTs can be used for capacity-building through the social embeddedness of ICTs within local, cultural and social systems. Research in developing countries necessitates an understanding that ICTs are not merely external tools, but rather integral parts of these local sociocultural systems (Miller & Slater, 2000). Okon utilizes a hybrid methodological design that combines ethnography and action research in a participatory framework. When studying the everyday use of ICT, it is apparent that the social networks of people exchanging information play a key role in how ICTs are used. The research findings indicate that three key aspects shape the social life in Niger Delta communities: the conventional face-to-face interaction, the peoples' interest in participating in communal issues, and the ways and channels for information exchange. Five preconditions for implementing ICT facilities for rural community development emerged from the detailed analysis of the communicative ecology of the communities: community ownership, appropriate technology, local content creation, promoting social inclusion and enhancing community networks, and social cohesion. Okon concludes that ICTs are merely tools and instruments; it is the way they are used that determines whether they are beneficial for rural communities.

5. Conclusion

Given the diversity within Africa, our aim to provide insight into the practices and applications of ICT, identify problems and barriers, present context-specific findings and solutions and illustrate how ICT is enabling development in Africa in a special issue is ambitious. Nevertheless, we hope that the exemplary papers in this two-part special issue will not only support future development-focused ICT research efforts in and on Africa and help unleash the human potential on the African continent but also provide business practitioners, government officials and workers with further facts, models, understanding and ideas that can lead to actions on their part to advance African countries socially, economically and technologically to ultimately build a better life for all on the richly diverse African continent. There is, in the words of Kofi Annan, the then Secretary-General of the United Nations, in his opening remarks to the Tunis World Summit on the Information Society, “a tremendous yearning, not for technology per se, but for what technology can make possible” (Annan, 2005).

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge all authors of the articles and all who helped in the review process of the special issue through several rounds of review, in particular the reviewers who took the time to give comprehensive and constructive comments. A special issue requires collaboration, energy and involvement of many parties including authors, reviewers and journal personnel. All the parties showed tremendous cooperation and support and they are all thanked. We also give a special acknowledgement to Sajda Qureshi, the Editor-in-Chief, for her ongoing encouragement, support and advice, Rachel Ravichandar and Veena Maddireaddy, the editorial assistants, for their tireless assistance and willingness to assist with administrative tasks and Fiona McLeod, the production editor, for her prompt assistance, attention to detail and patience during the production of the two issues of the special issue.

Notes on contributors

Shana R. Ponelis is an Assistant Professor in the School of Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) and a Research Associate of the Department of Information Science at the University of Zululand. Before joining UWM, she was a Senior Lecturer with the Department of Informatics at the University of Pretoria (UP). She also worked as practitioner in industry as an IT consultant with Andersen and KPMG Consulting advising various organizations located in Africa on management information systems. Her research purpose is the empowerment of people to enable them to make informed decisions to develop themselves, their organizations, their communities and society as a whole. Her work has been published in, amongst others, ASLIB Proceedings, Information Development, Journal of Information Ethics, South African Journal of Information Management and The International Information & Library Review. She has presented papers and led panel discussions at various regional, national and international conferences such as MWAIS, IACIS and Conf-IRM and has co-chaired SIG GlobDev mini-tracks at AMCIS since 2012. She teaches various courses on ICT in undergraduate and graduate programs at UWM and UP. Shana also supervises several Masters and doctoral students enrolled at universities in Africa. She holds a Ph.D. in Information Technology from the University of Pretoria, South Africa.

Marlene A. Holmner holds a D.Phil. in Information Science from the University of Pretoria, South Africa, and is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Information Science at the University of Pretoria. Her research interests lie in the fields of information ethics, indigenous knowledge, ICT4D, information and knowledge societies, institutional repositories, digitization as well as curriculum development. Her work has been published in various academic journals including the South African Journal of Libraries and Information Science, Information Development and Mousaion. She has presented various papers and led panel discussions at national and international conferences such as ProLISSA, SCECSAL, and pre-ECIS and AMCIS SIG GlobDev workshops. She has also been the program chair and co-chair at SIG GlobDev workshops and mini-tracks. She teaches courses related but not limited to these fields at undergraduate and postgraduate level and is the study leader and supervisor of several Masters' students. She also coordinates the Carnegie Foundation sponsored Masters in Information Technology for faculty and academic librarians from sub-Saharan Africa where she specializes in network and mobile technologies. Marlene is a Microsoft Certified Professional and is a member of the Africa Network for Information Ethics.

Notes

1 The Global South refers to countries, most of which are located in the southern hemisphere, with a Human Development Index (HDI) less than 0.8 and greater than 0.5 (medium) and less than 0.5 (low). These countries were known as the ‘Third World’ and is also referred to as ‘developing,’ on the ‘periphery.’ In contrast, the Global North refers to countries that have a HDI greater than 0.8 as reported in the United Nations Development Programme. These countries are also referred to as ‘industrialized,’ or ‘developed,’ the ‘core,’ and the ‘First World.’ Most, but not all, of these countries are located in the northern hemisphere.

2 Youth in Africa is generally deemed to be those individuals aged between 15 and 30 years. The United Nations defines youth as those between 15 and 24 years of age.

3 According to the South African Department of Trade and Industry (DTI, 1995) a survivalist enterprise comprises “activities by people unable to find a paid job or get into an economic sector of their choice. Income generated from these activities usually falls far short of even a minimum income standard, with little capital invested, virtually no skills training in the particular field and only limited opportunities for growth into a viable business. Poverty and the attempt to survive are the main characteristics of this category of enterprises.” Thus the primary motivation of a survivalist proprietor is economic survival.

4 Bongohive maintains a crowd-sourced list at https://africahubs.crowdmap.com/reports.