University of Manchester’s Global Development Institute: Can digital development catalyse poverty reduction?

With funding from the Rory and Elizabeth Brooks Foundation, Epiphania Kimaro from Tanzania is currently conducting her PhD research into the organisational context of digital development initiatives in East Africa. Establishing how rapidly changing digital development tends can benefit low income households around the world is a key focus for the Global Development Institute. Having completed her fieldwork, Epiphania reports back on her emerging findings: 

“One of the main global development puzzles is that significant technological advances have not met their expected potential to reduce poverty. In fact, the unintended consequences of digital technologies may threaten future development, by increasing inequalities. Many developing countries also lack the human capacity to effectively catalyse technology-driven development. 

It is thus a privilege to be among the researchers at the Global Development Institute, supporting its vision to address development challenges and extend knowledge frontiers. I am forever thankful to the generous support from Rory and Elizabeth who have given me this opportunity to pursue my research. 

My research focuses on the organisational context of digital development initiatives in developing countries. These are organisations that implement and deliver various technology projects, aiming to bring social impact to communities in developing countries. I want to better understand the factors that influence the performance of the people who work in these projects, which is a key factor for the success of the initiatives. 

In my research, I have combined case study with action research methods, not only pushing the methodological boundaries of digital development research, but also exploring the practical utility of the findings, showing how digital development organisations can better support their practitioners and hence attain better outcomes. 

This is important because from a development perspective, there is a shift towards more human-centred development approaches. Similarly on the digital development front, we are learning that the solution to harnessing the potential of digital technologies may not be as much about doubling down on technology innovations, as it is to enable the human capacity in developing countries to create, use, or adapt those technologies, so that they can address social issues in their countries, be it access to healthcare, or quality education. 

I have conducted my research with several technology social enterprises in the East Africa region, which has uncovered rich data about the under-studied organisational context of digital development. My research therefore helps us to understand the opportunities and challenges related to the human-aspects of digital development, so that we can pave pathways to address and harness the challenges and opportunities. 

The emerging findings from my research show that a key factor is to balance between focusing on the outcomes of digital technologies, and strengthening the capacity of producing those outcomes. If we can fully understand the opportunities and challenges present in the human capacity of digital development practitioners, we can then strengthen it, hence broadening the digital development workforce that goes on to reach the bottom of the pyramid, contributing to the vision of the Sustainable Development Goals. 

I have so far finished data collection and most of the analysis, and I am currently working on writing my thesis, which I plan to submit next year.”