Development as Freedom in a Digital Age: Experiences from the Rural Poor in Bolivia

Concludes that under certain conditions, information and communication technologies (ICTs) can significantly enhance poor people’s human and social capabilities and have a positive impact on their well-being. ICTs can enhance poor people’s individual and collective agency; strengthen their existing individual or community assets; and enhance their informational capabilities. ICTs receive meaning only if people use and enact them for specific purposes and if local communities can exert control over their use by interpreting and appropriating them for their specific sociocultural realities. The study illustrated that the most immediate and direct impact of ICT programs on people’s well-being is the personal empowerment of the most marginalized groups, such as indigenous women, whereby the newly acquired ICT capabilities provide women with a sense of achievement, significantly strengthening their self-esteem. The role ICTs play in enhancing people’s well-being remains significantly limited by the broader structural barriers of extreme poverty and social exclusion of poor communities in Bolivia.