Enhancing Development Opportunities Through ICT: Lessons Learned from the Latin America and the Caribbean Region

Untapped world opportunities exist to replicate, multiply and scale up successful pilot projects and approaches in the deployment of ICT as a means to reduce poverty and promote social development. Of particular interest are those opportunities that further the potential of ICT for sharing knowledge, generating synergies and economies of scale, and adapting to local conditions. Indeed, scaling up poverty reduction efforts through ICT requires extensive outreach and capabilities for deepening its impact. This paper attempts to present some of the best practices and lessons learned primarily in the Latin America and the Caribbean countries, a region posed to rapidly grow in the present knowledge economy. In all these cases, pilot and demonstrative undertakings contribute to setting the stage for Multi-lateral Development Banks’ (MDBs) loan and technical cooperation operations of a wider scale, and as part of the overall modernization and reform of the education, health, government and financial sectors, among others. Moreover, such ICT-based interventions in priority sectors can contribute to instrument MBDs’ new financing frameworks.To this end, this paper aims to contribute to delineating the road for ICT4DEV investments by a socially responsible private sector, while modernizing and strengthening the capacity of local and national public administrations to use and allocate their financial and technical resources in an effective and efficient manner