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21 - Promoting Good Governance through ICT Systems: Improving Transparency and Reducing Corruption

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 2011

Emmanuel T. Laryea
Affiliation:
Monash University, University of Ghana, Bond University and Lancaster University, England
Ross P. Buckley
Affiliation:
University of New South Wales, Sydney
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Summary

INTRODUCTION

This chapter proposes that investment in information and communication technology (ICT) systems through a debt-for-development exchange can be used to promote good governance, and in turn development, in developing countries. It proceeds on the basis that deficient (or poor or bad) governance in developing countries is a principal cause of their underdeveloped conditions.

Many heavily indebted developing countries are resource rich. The seeming paradox of poverty and debt amidst heavy resource endowments has been the subject of much study and writing. Some have called the situation the ‘resource curse’, suggesting a correlation between resource endowments and poverty and underdevelopment. Others disagree, as does this author. Arguably, it is the quality of governance that determines whether the availability of natural resources (and related revenues) will be positive or negative for a nation. Strong political will and institutions underpinning sound governance can ensure that the economies of resource-rich countries are efficiently and effectively managed for the betterment of those countries and their peoples. That is what distinguishes resource-rich developed countries (such as Australia, Canada, Norway and the United States) from the many resource-rich but poor developing countries. The poverty and indebtedness are due to factors other than the presence (or even lack) of natural resources.

Some of the factors that have been proffered to explain the underdevelopment of resource-endowed economies include human geography, culture, colonialism and conspiracy of world powers and deficient governance (or poor or bad governance).

Type
Chapter
Information
Debt-for-Development Exchanges
History and New Applications
, pp. 260 - 295
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

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