Silvia Masiero

Financial vs. social sustainability of telecentres: mutual exclusion or mutual reinforcement?

The debate on development‐led telecentre projects revolves around the concept of sustainability. Although it is accepted that telecentre sustainability has both a financial and a social dimension, the relationship between these two sides is sometimes axiomatically defined as one of mutual exclusion. Through the case study of the Akshaya Telecentre Project in Kerala, southern India, we problematize this logic: we individuate a set of mechanisms through which the social dimension of telecentre sustainability feeds the financial one, rather than obstructing it. As such, we propose a new paradigm for telecentre studies, in which social and financial sustainability are interlinked by mutual reinforcement.

The Origins of Failure: Seeking the Causes of Design–Reality Gaps

The theory of design–reality gaps is an extant framework to explain failure of information systems in developing nations. This paper problematizes the nature of failure, with a particular focus on situations in which well-implemented systems, apparently corresponding to users’ views of reality, still fail to meet the expectations of their key stakeholders. To extend existing theory on this phenomenon, I advance a diagnostic model to identify the root causes of design–reality gaps. The model is illustrated through a case study of the Ration Card Management System in Kerala, South India: by capturing the causal chains underlying design–reality gaps, the model sets to trace the origins of failure, and the processes through which it is ultimately determined. The model I propose is both explanatory and normative, as it elicits causes of failure and serves as a basis to combat them.

Digital governance and the reconstruction of the Indian anti-poverty system

Abstract On a global scale, programmes of social protection for the poor are becoming increasingly computerised, and architectures of biometric recognition are being widely used in this respect. I research how these architectures, adopted in anti-poverty systems, structure ways to ‘see the state’ for citizens living in poverty. To do so I study India’s Public Distribution System (PDS) in Kerala, which is augmenting its main food security scheme with the computerised recognition of its users. In the government’s narrative, biometric technology is depicted as an optimal solution to the illicit diversion of PDS goods on the market. Nevertheless, according to the multiple narratives collected across the state, beneficiaries dispute this view in different ways because of the mixed effects of the new technology on their entitlements under the PDS. The government’s capability to reconstruct its image through digital innovation is thus found to be constrained by citizens’ perceptions derived from their encounters with the new technology of governance.

Women’s income generation through mobile Internet: a study of focus group data from Ghana, Kenya, and Uganda

Abstract For many women in resource-constrained environments, mobile phones are the first and foremost information and communication technology (ICT) used. In theory, the increasing pervasiveness of mobiles and mobile Internet across developing countries should provide growing opportunities to women, especially in terms of earning through small, on-the-fly jobs, using the very mobility aspect of the devices. Using Donner’s six affordances of mobile Internet and Cornwall’s discussion of what women’s empowerment means, we analyze data from 30 focus groups conducted with 18 to 25-year-olds earning under

Reconstructing the state through ICTs?: a case of state-level computerization in the Indian public distribution system

2 a day in peri-urban areas of Nairobi, Kenya, Accra, Ghana and Jinja, Uganda). We explore the relation between the affordances of mobile Internet and structural changes in the economic and societal status of subjects, as reflected in the narratives of women adopters. We find that such affordances, while leading to new mechanisms for income generation, at least in our focus groups, do not result in changes of societal structures: older cultural stereotypes are built around adoption of the new technology, and policies underlying economic activities are hardly challenged by digitalization. This problematizes the extent to which the mobile Internet can be universally conceived as a tool for income generation, and by extension as a long-term, secure means for the empowerment of many women.

Getting It Right: The Importance of Targeting Structural Causes of Failure in E-Government

This study focuses on the role of public sector ICTs in reconstructing the image of the state, as conceived by developing country citizens. Drawing on contemporary readings of the Gramscian politics of the governed, I look at the Indian Public Distribution System (PDS), a food security net based on subsidization of foodgrains to the poor, as it is locally computerized in the state of Kerala. My results, derived through an in-depth case study, confirm and dismiss theory at the same time: on the one hand, the state uses new technologies for reshaping its image, and indeed the very nature of its service provision. On the other hand, though, the loci of image formation that are found in citizens (direct experience, social networks, and political circuits) systematically escape control by governmental action, and seem to be only marginally touched by the ICT-induced reinvention of government. It seems, therefore, that the capacity of the state to reconstruct its image, through the usage of new technologies, is limited by the nature of the spaces of image formation which citizens experience in their daily lives.

Decentralisation, clientelism and social protection programmes: a study of India’s MGNREGA

In this paper we look at the application of ICTs to the improvement of state-citizen relations in developing countries. Our argument is that, to maximize responsiveness of the government, ICTs need to “get it right,” by targeting exactly those problems from which unresponsiveness of the state to citizens emerges. Failure arises from the fact that ICTs, rather than being used for tar-getting issues in government responsiveness, are utilized for other purposes, primarily as a means to obtaining and preserving political support. This argument is illustrated through a case study of computerization of the ration card procedure in Kerala, southern India. Here, while the structural problems of the ration card process lie at the back-end level of application processing, the technology devised by the government addresses predominantly the front-end, politically appealing node of application performance by the citizens. This strategy does not “get it right,” as it leaves untouched the crucial reason of state unresponsiveness, and indeed, it produces long-run dissatisfaction in citizens. Implications are both theoretical, as a cause for expectation failure in IS is identified and deconstructed, and practical, as an orientation to structural problems is recommended to ICT designers and policymakers.

Digital Technologies and Pro-poor Finance

Abstract Does decentralisation promote clientelism? If yes, through which mechanisms? We answer these questions through an analysis of India’s (and the world’s) largest workfare programme, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), in two Indian states: Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh (AP). The two states adopted radically different implementation models: Rajasthan’s decentralised one stands in contrast with Andhra Pradesh’s centralised and bureaucracy-led model. Using a mixed method approach, we find that in both states local implementers have incentives to distribute MGNREGA work in a clientelistic fashion. However, in Rajasthan, these incentives are stronger, because of the decentralised implementation model. Accordingly, our quantitative evidence shows that clientelism is more serious a problem in Rajasthan than in AP.

MGNREGA, Power Politics, and Computerization in Andhra Pradesh

Social enterprises need to be ambidextrous, i.e. simultaneously pursue social and financial goals. In this paper we focus on how digital social entrepreneurs at the base of the pyramid implement ambidextrous strategies. We draw on a case study of Rang De, India’s first platform for the delivery of credit to the poor, whose ecosystem involves multiple intermediaries and thousands of borrowers all over India. The paper identifies key actor-technology mechanisms leading to the achievement of social and financial goals, finding that the platform is instrumental to building trust amongst the social investor community and, at the same time, delivering loans at the base of the pyramid. The study contributes to a deeper understanding of pro-poor finance in the Indian context and also adds to the literature on digitally driven financial inclusion.

Empowering Wageseekers? The Computerisation of India's NREGA in Andhra Pradesh

Abstract The link between e-governance and accountability of state administrations for service provision has been problematized in the literature to date. However, little is known about its application to anti-poverty programmes, of which public workfare schemes are an increasingly important subset. In this paper, we fill the gap with a study of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), India’s largest workfare scheme, as it is being computerized in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh. A state-level information system was devised to ensure transparency of transactions, and hence combat the illicit diversion of the programme’s funds to non-entitled recipients. But while doing so, the system carries a policy of centralization, which concentrates decision-making power in the hands of a limited set of actors rather than distributing it across the programme’s stakeholders. In particular the Field Assistants, appointed officials responsible for the village-level management of the scheme, have direct control on the information inputted in the system, which reinforces their position of authority rather than challenging it in favour of greater empowerment of wageseekers. Furthermore, wage payments are traced by the information system till they reach the disbursement agencies, but are prone to capture in the ‘last mile’ where workers collect their salaries, which results in greater vulnerability for them. As a result, MGNREGA workers are constructed by the new information system as sheer beneficiaries rather than active participants in the programme, which concurs to crystallizing existing power structures rather than resulting in wageseekers’ empowerment. Lessons are drawn for other states currently computerizing their social safety nets.