One-size-fits-all policy?

As a side note, something that I take issue with in the Van Audenhove article (source below) is that in discussing developing nations, rarely are the circumstances of any particular nation mentioned; rather, they are grouped together by continent, such as South America, Africa, and so forth. In his 2207 TED presentation on Gapminder, Hans Rosling uses visual displays of statistics to show vast differences between countries, such as between Mauritania and Uganda in Africa, noting that improvement of the world must be highly contextualized. Even within a country, differences among the population call for sensitivity to those differences, rather than calling for a single one-size-fits-all policy that governs development. I also wonder what must come first in the equation of development. Will information and communication technologies (ICTs) in fact bring the means to achieve prosperity, or are there some other more basic needs that must first be met before ICTs can fully take root?

Rosling, Hans (2007). Hans Rosling’s new insights on poverty. TED presentation, accessed from http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_reveals_new_insights_on_poverty.html, February 2, 2010.

Van Audenhove, L., Burgelman, J.C., Nulens, G., and Cammaerts, B. (1999). Information society policy in the developing world. Third World Quarterly, 20(2), 387-404.