Victor Mbarika ICT Weblog

Toward Sustainable Adoption of Technologies for Human Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: Precursors, Diagnostics, and Prescriptions

By Philip F. Musa, Peter Meso, Victor W. Mbarika
Communications of AIS, Volume 15, Article 33

ABSTRACT
This paper proposes and merges an extension of technology acceptance model with ideas from human development research targeting least developed countries. Specifically, the paper proposes an extension of the influence of perceived user resource, which in turn was developed from the original TAM literature. It is also tied to the Information Technology literature about socioeconomic development. Our objective is to shed light on the interactions between socio-economic development needs and factors generally innate to sub-Sahara Africa and other developing countries that impede sustainable technological adoption and diffusion.

The Neglected Continent of IS Research: A Research Agenda for Sub-Saharan Africa

Victor W. A. Mbarika, Chitu Okoli, Terry Anthony Byrd, Pratim Datta

(Originally published in the Journal of the Association for Information Systems, Vol. 6, No.5, pp.130-170/May 2005, pp. 130-170)

Abstract
Research with a focus on Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), a major region within the world’s second largest continent, is almost non-existent in mainstream information systems research. Although infrastructures for information and communication technology (ICT) are well established in the more developed and industrialized parts of the world, the same is not true for developing countries. Research on developing countries has been rare in mainstream IS and, even where existent, has often overlooked the particular situation of SSA, home to 33 of the world’s 48 least-developed countries. Ironically, it is such parts of the world that can stand to gain the most from the promise of ICT with applications that would help the socioeconomic development of this region. In this study, we present the need for focused research on the ICT development and application for SSA.

Cyberspace Across Sub-Saharan Africa: From Technological Desert Towards Emergent Sustainable Growth?

Victor W. A. Mbarika, Mike Jensen & Peter N. Meso

Communications of the ACM, 2004. Vol. 45, #12, pp. 17-21

Introduction
Over the past three decades much of the continent of Africa, and especially the Sub-Saharan region, has been viewed as technological desert [8]. Spanning over 24 million square kilometers from the Sahara in the north to the Cape Verde in South Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa comprises 49 countries and is home to 659 million people [12]. With her many problems of hunger, epidemics, war, and other related socio-economic problems, the diffusion of the Internet might be the last thing to be associated with Sub-Saharan Africa. While much research has been published on the status and impact of Internet diffusion in other regions of the world [1,2,3,4], little is found in mainstream journals on the diffusion of the Internet in Africa [5], particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. An update of the status of the Internet is thus in order, along with a discussion of some inhibitors and contributors that appear to shape the diffusion of the Internet in this region.

Teledensity Technological Growth Strategy for Africa’s LDCs

‘Viagra’ Development Strategy or Sustainable Development Strategy?—The African Telecommunications Stakeholders Speak

By Victor W. Mbarika, Patrick R. McMullen, John Warren

Proceedings of the 34th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 2001

Over-dependence of African countries on the West has been reflected in various socioeconomic dimensions. Such dependence has also been reflected in the telecommunications industry of Africa’s LDCs in a bid to solve its low teledensity (number of main telephone lines per one hundred inhabitants) problems. African LDCs are greatly behind other regions of the world in utilizing information and telecommunications technologies, which in turn, has repercussions such as the great digital divide that leaves African LDCs far behind other regions of the world. Various technological-oriented obstacles account for the low levels of teledensity in these countries.

Telemedicine in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Proposed Delphi Study

Victor W. A. Mbarika & Chitu Okoli

Proceedings of the 36th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS’03)

By the end of 2001, an estimated 40 million people worldwide—2.7 million under age 15—were living with HIV/AIDS. More than 70 percent of these people (28.1 million) live in Sub-Saharan Africa. Anotherkiller, malaria, is responsible for as many as half the deaths of African children under the age of five. The disease kills more than one million children each year—2,800 per day—in Africa alone. As such
statistics demonstrate, the need for medical care in Sub-Saharan Africa is paramount.

“Are We There Yet?”

An Exploratory Relationship between National Information Infrastructure Expenditures, Infrastructure Development, and Service-Sector Productivity

By Pratim Datta & Victor Wacham A. Mbarika

Proceedings of the 37th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 2004

The worldwide scramble for information expenditures in order to gain productive advantage has been an issue of interest for both national policymakers and researchers. Yet little attention has been paid towards the dimensions of the productivity process, including the time lag between investments and returns. This paper illuminates the dimensions by disaggregating information investments into
information expenditures and information infrastructure development. Based on past literature, this study uses service-sector productivity as a logical outcome of information expenditures. We contend that productivity follows a path from information expenditures through information infrastructure to
service-sector productivity.