The Meaning of Development, Sustainable Development and Rural Development

Development generally means the improvement of people's lifestyles through improved education, incomes, skills development and employment. Development also means that people should have decent housing, and that they should have security within those houses. Development means too, that people should be able to read and write, and in Africa this is a problem as most people are still illiterate, South Africa included. In order to develop or have better lives, people must get a good education. Because illiterate people do not develop as much as educated people do, it is therefore important that people should get themselves a good education, or send their children to school to get that education. There are various definitions of development, which we look at here. You are also welcome to use any appropriate definition of development that you find in the study material. The definitions do explain how communication and ICTs impact on development.

Development

In any developing country, one of the prime ingredients of development is information. Furthermore, how that information is disseminated between people is also crucial. Information is disseminated for various purposes; information about new fertilizers, agriculture or land development, town planning and community building, public health (e.g. HIV Aids) and education information campaigns, and so on. The process of education is basically related to information dissemination and ICTs, because information educates (or information is education), and ICTs disseminate education or information. Through communication via ICTs, the world is a global village where people from one country learn about happenings in many other countries as soon as the news breaks. ICTs and traditional mass media such as television, newspapers and radio, are therefore some of the components of the information-transfer system in international communication.

When a country invests in education it is a productive investment, because an educated labour force is a source of productivity. Castells (1998:5) states that to be educated means nothing if the educated ones do not enjoy good health, decent housing, psychological stability, cultural upliftment and cultural fulfilment. One can add that to be educated also means nothing if that education cannot get one a good job to feed, develop, provide one with a good health system, buy one a good house, educate one's children and sustain one's living standard. In other words, development must improve all these aspects of people's lives, and which Servaes (1999) calls multi-dimensional development. ICTs are used to share educational information among people and countries for development purposes.

An economist of the World Bank, Joseph Stiglitz (1999:1), views development as "a transformation of society, a movement from traditional relations, traditional ways of thinking, traditional methods of production, to more modern ways". Stiglitz (1999) argues that a characteristic of traditional societies is the acceptance of the world as it is; the modern perspective recognizes change, it recognises that we, as individuals and societies, can take actions that, for instance, reduce mortality, increase life spans, and increase productivity. ICTs influence this change from traditional to modern societies, through information-transfer explained earlier in this study unit. For example, telecommunications technologies/ICTs and mass media and their Western content, influence the lifestyles of people in LDCs (where Western content dominates local media), according to what they see in the media like television, the Internet and Web TV where it is available.

Development does not mean the same thing in different countries, or in MDCs and LDCs. Jussawalla (1992:3) states that there is a difference in the meaning of development between developed and developing countries; that in MDCs, the provision of telecommunications or information infrastructure leads to increased economic activity and innovation, while in LDCs (less developed countries) a lack of the telecommunications and information infrastructure hampers economic development and innovation. This, therefore implies that for developing countries to develop more, they must develop their telecommunications and information infrastructures, as Mbarika (2002), and Van Dijk (1999) have argued.

ICTs can assist in the development of communications and information infrastructures of LDCs. ICTs are part of the information society infrastructure in developing nations, which LDCs should develop in their own regions towards their own economic development.

Mansell and Wehn (1998:8) state that development in MDCs and LDCs does not mean the same thing, and that development has been understood since the second World War to involve economic growth, increases in per capita income, and attainment of a standard of living equivalent to that of industrialized countries. However, one believes that LDCs, will not, in the near future, develop to the extent of MDCs, because there are many areas of development in LDCs that need to be developed, areas which have been in place for many years in the developed world. These areas, for example, include education, health systems, technological development or innovation. Each LDC needs to reach its own consensus on the changing meaning of its own development, and also define the role ICTs play in that development.

Development should, then, be viewed as a multi-dimensional process involving major changes in social structures, popular attitudes and a national condition of life from unsatisfactory to satisfactory (Servaes 1999:77). In this regard, argues Servaes (1999), satisfactory means materially well to do and spiritually happy or content with what one (or country with reference to this study unit) has got.

Castells (1998:4) believes that the role of ICT in stimulating development is two-edged:

It allows countries to leapfrog stages of economic growth by being able to modernize their production systems and increase their competitiveness faster than in the past. The most noteworthy example is that of the Asian Pacific economies, called the Asian Tigers, and particularly the case of Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and South Korea. This is so despite the 1998/9 financial crises in the countries, which is unrelated to competitive performance and may be related, in fact, to the attractiveness of the booming Asian economies to global capital flows. In South Africa's new ICT policy, ICTs are viewed as a means to aid South Africa leapfrog into a developed status (New Telecommunications Policy Colloquium 2001). South Africa is not the only African country that hopes to leapfrog to the information society using ICTs, most African countries intend to use the same leapfrogging strategy for the upliftment of their peoples.

For those economies that are unable to adapt to the new technological systems, their retardation becomes more pronounced. Furthermore, the ability to move into the Information Age depends on the capacity of the whole society to be educated, and to be able to assimilate and process complex information. This starts with the education system, from the bottom up, from the primary school level to the university. And it relates, as well, to the overall process of cultural development, including the level of functional literacy, the localization of content of the media (instead of the globalisation of the media content), and the diffusion of information within the population as a whole. In this regard, what should happen in developing countries is that regions and firms should concentrate on the most advanced production and management systems that will attract talent (and foreign investment into their countries) from around the world. While attracting skills and expertise from afar, local people should not be left unskilled and uneducated, and countries should invest in the human resources development of their own people.

Countries should build ICT and telecommunications infrastructures as these infrastructures contribute towards socio-economic development. Nadir (1998) states that in the global information society we now live in, there is a direct correlation between access to telecommunications and socio-economic development, and that telecommunications is no longer the consequence of development, rather it is a necessary precondition for development. This view is shared by various other telecommunications and development theorists and experts, including Hudson (1997), Nulens & Van Audenhove (1999), Castells (1998), Van Dijk (1999). An improved teledensity of a country, and the use of international communication by that country will both improve a country's development and economic status. However, Van Dijk (1999:220) cautions that new media technologies are not the whole substance of society. Van Dijk believes that it is an exaggeration to suggest that new media technologies are the whole substance of society.

New media technologies are part of the necessities for development, but the main ingredients of development are the people themselves who should state their development goals for their own communities, and how these development goals will be achieved. The technologies can be part of these strategic tools to be used towards the achievement of the development goals, together with other types of media, for example, community leaders, oral and printed media, international and local soap operas, and so on.

Soap operas, for example, have been successfully used in various countries for development goals and they have been successful in countries including Zimbabwe, the Philippines, Tanzania, Zambia, India and Mexico. Sherry (1997:75-101) provides a discussion of how soap operas in all these countries were used successfully for development projects. For example, Sherry (1997:76) argues that a Mexican television producer, Miguel Sabido, created six prosocial television soap operas between 1975 and 1981. Sabido' s soap operas focused on development themes of adult literacy, family planning, adolescent sexual education, women's equality and responsible parenthood. The Zimbabwe Male Motivation Project was aimed at teaching men to participate more in family planning and be active family planners, while the famous Tanzanian soap opera Twende Wakati, was an entertainment-education soap opera on Tanzanian radio, aimed at teaching Tanzanians about family planning and HIV prevention.

In the Philippines, puppet shows and local theatre (called Zarzuelas) have also been very useful for development projects including health education and entertainment-education. According to Valbuena (1986:2) folk media are instrumental for development in many Third World countries that still have problems affording ICT. Valbuena argues that including the traditional and modern systems of communications, labour-intensive and appropriate technology, self-reliance, user-oriented strategies, and popular participation in development planning and implementation are still important requirements for successful development in Third World countries. This sentiment is shared by Boeren and Epskamp (1992) who support the importance of traditional and popular media, in support of new media technologies, in the pursuance of development of developing or growing countries. More African countries can use these different media for national and international communication and development purposes because they are more cost effective to use than ICTs.

In addition to understanding the meaning of the concept development, you should also understand what is meant by sustainable development.

Sustainable Development

Sustainable development is defined as "development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (Sharhan 2000:44). ICTs, with their huge capacities to produce, transmit and store information within countries and across national borders, also have the capacity to allow people and organisations to share this wealth of knowledge in the pursuance of development goals. For example, we produce information on our computers when we conduct research and type that information. We transmit the information to people in the same city or in cities located in other countries of the world via electronic mail (e-mail). We also store the information on our computers when we save it into files, for future reference and usage.

Sharhan (2000) states that one of the most important preconditions for the full and comprehensive implementation of sustainable development is the need for a sustainable information society. ICTs, therefore, make it possible for those people who have access to this technology, to share information to create a sustainable information society. To this end, developing countries have to establish, develop or upgrade their information and communications infrastructure for the obvious important linkages and relationship with the concept of sustainable development. ICTs provide a platform for information - sharing and information - storage towards this sustainable development. Information societies are those societies which have well developed ICTs to share information for development and innovation information. Information societies have both relevant and useful information for development, and are also innovators in many areas or spheres of development, for example they are leaders in software development and new technology manufacturing. These countries are mostly developed or more developed countries (MDCs), like the United States (US), Japan and Europe and are called the information haves or information-rich. Countries which are not information societies do not have well-developed communications and telecommunications infrastructures, and, therefore, do not manufacture and share enough information for their own development. These countries are predominantly the developing and/or less developed countries (LDCs) and are mostly found in Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin America.

Mbarika (2002) states that the digital divide between the West and Africa seems to be drawing closer for many northern and southern African countries in terms of ICT, because these countries are experiencing tremendous growth in the use of computers, Internet connectivity, wireless communications and other related technologies. Mbarika further argues that the same cannot be said of Africa's least developed countries that still lag behind in terms of the level of basic telecommunications infrastructure such as teledensity (the number of main telephone lines for every one hundred inhabitants in a country). The latter countries may not reap the benefits offered by the Internet and Mbarika (2002:10) suggests the following development strategies that can be adopted by these countries, so that they can improve their telecommunications infrastructure and provide the Internet for their local people.

The suggested strategies suggest that Africa's LDCs should, amongst other things:

• Privatise the telecommunications sector and allow for free enterprise and competition between ICT and telecommunications service providers.
• Minimize foreign dependency to run and maintain Africa's LDCs telecommunications resources.
• Encourage "do-wellers" (private sector) investors in order to generate financing of telecommunications projects aimed at the growth of teledensity.
• Encourage growth in wireless communications and establish community-based telecentres.

Telecentres provide ICTs including telephone services (both fixed line and mobile), facsimiles (fax), printing services, Internet where available, electronic mail where available, photocopy services, library services, scanning and other shared-ICT services for community development. African countries such as Senegal, South Africa, Uganda, and Mali have telecentres that are used in rural areas, mainly for rural-urban connectivity and computer services. Let us now look at the concept of rural development.

Rural Development

According to the South African Rural Development Framework/SARDF (1997:9), rural development can be defined as:

Helping rural people set the priorities in their own communities through effective and democratic bodies, by providing the local capacity; investment in basic infrastructure and social services. Justice, equity and security; dealing with the injustices of the past and ensuring safety and security of the rural population, especially that of women.

The SARDF, developed by the Department of Land Affairs, is a South African government initiative aimed at addressing rural poverty. It aims to involve the community in finding solutions to their problems. The SARDF document seeks ways to:

• Involve rural people in decisions that affect their lives through participation in rural local government
• Increase employment and economic growth in rural areas
• Provide affordable infrastructure
• Ensure social sustainability in rural areas.

What is a Rural Area?

The SARDF document defines it as
a sparsely populated area in which people farm or depend on natural resources, including the villages and small towns that are dispersed through these areas, also includes large settlements in the former homelands, created by apartheid removals (SARDF 1997:9).

Rural areas are plagued by poverty, with the most vulnerable sectors of the population being women, children and the elderly. The South African Government, through the Reconstruction and Development Program (RDP) and the Growth Economic Advancement and Reconstruction (GEAR) strategy would like to address:

• social development in areas such as education and health
• local democracy and development: to ensure service delivery
• the role of national and provincial governments in defining the needs of the local rural people
• local economic development and rural livelihoods
• social sustainability by highlighting people's constitutional rights
• rural development in partnership with NGOs
• safety, security, welfare and legal issues and highlighting the rights of children.

In recent (2000 and beyond) South African government documents, privatisation of states assets (including the listing of the state-owned telecommunications operator Telkom on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange/JSE and New York Stock Exchange/NYSE on March 3, 2003), and the use of ICTs for development are actvely promoted, mainly for economic development, job-creation, rural development and poverty-alleviation. South Africa's Minister for Public Enterprises Jeff Radebe (2001) believed strongly that telecommunications competition in South Africa, including Telkom's listing, will lead to lower business costs, and that those who want to do business in South Africa will find it cheaper to so, including local and foreign investors in the South African liberalised telecommunications sector. The new South African telecommunications environment also promotes the participation of women in investment in the sector, whether the women conduct research, own telecentres, or find more work in the ICT sector.