ICT for Nation Building

Use of ICT for development is not a new idea. While the instances of ICT being deployed for improving public services is as old as ICT itself, of late, there have been a lot of coordinated global efforts around this. Ever since the global community agreed on the Millennium Development Goals-where both access to certain basic healthcare and education feature prominently-there has been international discussions, symposia, and programs around how ICT can be leveraged effectively to achieve these goals.

When it comes to implementation, however, countries have their own unique challenges and have to figure out the unique ways of meeting those challenges. Those become extremely complex for a country like India, which does not just have a huge population but is also geographically, linguistically, and culturally diverse. What works perfectly at one place may be a non-starter at another. Also, the fact that its a democracy, means its almost impossible for the government to do anything without first having a broader consensus.

But Why this ICT-D?

Though by and large the world has moved from why to how in ICT for Development (ICT-D), there are certain reasons (whys) that make India's success in leveraging ICT to provide better healthcare, education, and access to financial services important not just for India but for the entire world.

India is a microcosm of the entire developing world, whichever way you look at it-be it in its diversity or distribution of wealth. Arguably, no other country has India's diversity. And, few have as many billionaires as well as so many people living below the poverty line. Most commercial enterprises seeking to tap the market opportunities in the emerging world have already started using India as a test bed of innovation because of this reason. The assumption is that what works in India has a higher chance of working anywhere else in the developing world. That assumption is true when it comes to the overall national development as well. What works in India would have a higher chance of succeeding elsewhere in the emerging countries. It becomes especially true in this area-ICT-D-given India's strength in technology. The solutions to the developmental challenges found in India, to a great extent, can be exported to the rest of the developing world. That is a definite expectation from India's experimentation.

While that may be a well-acknowledged expectation, what is less obvious about implication of India's development for the world is the increasing importance that it will assume as a provider of global workforce. In the next 3 decades, India will have the largest surplus working-age population in the world. Surplus working-age population in a country or region is the total working-age population minus that part of the population that is needed to serve the needs of the non-working-age population in that country or region.

The other countries that will have a fairly large surplus working-age population are countries such as Nigeria, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Congo, and Indonesia. None of these countries-with possible exception of Indonesia-are anywhere near ready to serve the needs of the rest of the world. So, the world will turn to India and Indians. That manpower needs development in healthcare and education, which are the basic needs.

India's Challenges

Size, of course, is a big challenge before India. Any solution that one would find for a billion people would have to be complex. That is the reason why we have focused on only 3 basic needs. Two of them are of course most fundamental. The third-access to financial services in some form-is needed to make the other 2 successful.

Despite the availability of technology manpower, significant spending by the government, and some of the most successful implementations (in isolation) happening in India, by and large, India's story has not been too impressive. The prime reason is the absence of a vision with an integrated strategy and a coherent action plan.

It's not difficult to understand why creating a coherent plan is such a big challenge. In India's federal structure, healthcare is a state subject and education is a concurrent subject with primary education being mostly handled by the states. Any plan designed at the center is rarely implemented appropriately in the states. Even among the 3 areas we have taken up, we have seen much better progress in access to financial services, known as financial inclusion, because its being directly driven by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and all banks have to follow suit. There is no such body in education or healthcare. The center can at best be an advisor and resource provider, but rarely the implementor. A better cooperation and a mission approach-as seen in some of the successful e-governance initiatives-will work better. But that requires that the states should see the benefit of it directly.

Another bottleneck has been the traditional government approach of trying to improve than innovate. Most of the technologies applied to the existing systems and processes are very archaic to get any real benefit out of the technology; or even if they become a little efficient, it is a painfully slow process. What we need is a disruptive approach. A disruptive approach means a disruptive change. A disruptive change is rarely welcomed and the least so by the government. While one component of this-innovative thinking-is still there in some form, the gap lies in carrying forward those ideas. Some of the best success stories of disruptive changes have been where each stakeholder has seen benefits. The computerization of Railways Reservations in the late-80s is an apt example. There are many more.

A disruptive approach does not just speed up processes, it makes possible things hitherto thought to be impossible. For example, earlier, communication was not reliable. So anything like a tele-education or tele-medicine was impossible to imagine. Take financial inclusion. For years, the government was talking about making banking accessible to all people. What it was doing was it was trying to build more branches. The advent of ATM's made most of the services accessible to people at all times. Initially, many ATM's operated only in a branch and were open from 9 to 5. It is only after remote ATM's and 24/7 concept came that the real benefit of ATM's reached people. Finally, its the bold move by the RBI to allow agents or business correspondents that finally saw financial inclusion becoming a reality, though there are still miles to go.

Beyond the Present and Immediate

Another peculiarity of India is that it is a young nation. So any solution that is found has to be worked out keeping in mind the future in mind and not just to address the immediate need; ie, it has to be sustainable. This is in sharp contrast to the West, where the population is aging and the focus is on immediate quick fixes.

That should start from the approach itself. For example, education should see significantly higher spending while certain areas within healthcare such as maternity care should see a higher investment. Not just that, the focus in healthcare should be on awareness, campaigns, child immunization as compared to just provision of better hospitals and doctors. Quality healthcare is important, but access and sustainability are more important. In financial services, employment linkage should be a priority.

Since most of the technology still comes from the West, we have to be extra careful about the applicability of the solutions to India. While there is no point reinventing the wheel by trying to create basic technology and tools, solutions have to be worked out keeping the Indian condition in mind. And, they should have built-in sustainability.

Tne aspect of that sustainability is creating a healthy base of indigenous technology solutions. The idea is not to create technology for technology's sake, but to ensure that the response time for creating a solution to a new challenge is faster and the implementation time is quicker. One positive fallout of this will also be better adaptations of solutions to different local conditions within India itself. That will also make the whole system more robust.

One manifestation of that is integrating identified areas-healthcare, education, and financial services going by the Dataquest recommendation, and any other area identified by the government-to the technology course curriculum itself. Skill development should also be a parallel activity.

Given India's demography, we have to not just create a solution to known problems but unknown ones as well. So, an equal emphasis should be given to create solutions as well as to create multiplier effects.

All these should be tracked centrally to measure the progress.

Dataquest
Recommendations

Dataquest spoke to a cross section of individuals-those that are experts in the areas of education, healthcare, and financial services as well as those with a track record of creating technology solutions-to come out with some definite recommendations. The challenges, various approaches, and some definite recommendations are presented in the next few pages-separately for education, healthcare, and financial inclusion.

While our approach in education and healthcare is a more holistic, integrated approach-as at the national level, we are yet to see that approach emerging, in financial services, it is more of specific but isolated suggestions, as the basic framework is already in place.