Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) refers to the use of ICT in the fields of socioeconomic and international development. The most important sectors where ICT has a transformational impact on developing countries today are agriculture, smart cities, climate change, education, health, financial services, and government, as well as ICT as a fast growing industry in and of itself.

ICT is playing an increasingly important role in developing countries. A recent report by the World Bank determined that 75% of all development projects included an ICT component. For example, developing countries continue to rely heavily on agriculture as a means to provide income for the rural poor and food for ever growing populations. Even though their disposable income is minimal, about 70% of this population has access to mobile phones. ICT is being utilized to deliver information relevant to farmers, such as weather forecasts, agricultural techniques (to determine the optimal amounts of fertilizer, pesticide, irrigation, and seeds), commodity prices, etc.

Mobile phones are being used to provide financial services, e.g. through the M-PESA service that originated in Kenya and has spread to other countries on the continent and beyond; ICT enables electronic filing of taxes, and its application in government is bringing more transparency and openness to the political process.

Besides utilizing ICT4D to improve the daily lives of people it is also a growth industry that allows developing countries to leapfrog industrial development. While it is true that many developing countries need to build processing facilities instead of exporting raw commodities at lower prices only to import expensive refined goods, an ICT industry provides another leg to stand on that allows them to bypass heavy industrialization that takes decades to build and leads to continuing reliance on foreign expertise and import of supplies.

Many developing countries, in particular on the African continent, are primed to continue their momentum that has been instigated by ICT4D. This attracts Foreign Direct Investment, but a lot more needs to be done to continue the transformation.

In support of this transformation, CSRspace provides the following ICT4D services: