Online Advocacy Principles and Case Studies within the Context of ICT and Conflict Transformation

Introduction


Information Communications Technology (ICT) in South Asia, as well as in the rest of the world, is an experiment in progress. Reading the wealth of literature on ICT, it is easy to forget that it is not a panacea for problems facing developing nations. Normative assumptions about ICT tend in most cases to outstrip knowledge of how technology is actually used. ICTs cannot magically liberate people, alleviate poverty, erase the ‘digital divide', and ensure prosperity. Much of the literature written on ICT does not treat it as one factor amidst a myriad of others that shape inter-state and intra-state relations in developing countries. Furthermore, in planning for and using ICT, many countries often concentrate on ICT itself, rather than what they want to accomplish through it. It must be remembered that ICT is a means to an end, not an end in itself.

This paper will concentrate on the increasing confluence between ICT and Conflict Transformation. Case studies in this field are rare, since ICT and Conflict Transformation are still at an embryonic stage. Interestingly, while NGOs working in the fields of human rights, conflict transformation and governance etc. have been quicker to adopt IT savvy advocacy principles,governments in South Asia are also increasingly aware of the potential of ICTs to buttress interventions, on an official level and grassroots level, to transform ethno-political conflict.