ICT has been hailed as an engine of innovation and development, but poorly applied, it can reinforce existing inequalities and disproportionally benefit the urban elite.

The Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy writes,

"In large measure, development is a function of the ability of nation-states to engineer innovation, apply technology to economic activities, and increase productivity. ICT thus plays a crucial role in the development equation.

While ICT attracts a relatively low proportion of trade and investment in developing countries compared to traditional sectors such as

Wing, a mobile phone banking service leverages existing retailers and local agents to help extend financial services to the urban and rural poor in Cambodia.

The Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy writes,

"In early 2009, the mobile phone banking service Wing was launched by the Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) banking group. Today Wing has more than 150,000 users in Cambodia and the company estimates that they will have over 200,000 users in 2011.

"An engineering team... developed novel technology to turn biomass (agricultural waste) and garbage (solid municipal waste) into liquid fuel, electricity, waxes and paraffin."
"It is the first time that this innovative project, developed in South Africa by South Africans, has been manufactured on a small-scale to make it economical for South Africa and other developing countries."

"Lesotho is to harness the power of wind and water in a China-funded US$15-billion green energy project, the biggest of its kind in Africa. The Lesotho highlands power project (LHPP) will generate 6 000 megawatts (MW) of wind power and 4 000MW of hydropower, equivalent to about 5% of South Africa's electricity needs."
"Lesotho says the scheme will help end its plight as one of the world's poorest countries, “making it a case study in how investing in renewable energy can transform a nation's fortunes”

"South Africa has 811 830 stokvels [group savings clubs providing for mutual financial assistance, as well as social and entertainment needs] with a total estimated value of R44-billion (US$5.3-billion) according to a survey released on 21November.
“The value of the stokvel market would create a bigger sector than the
agriculture or electricity sectors,” said Mamapudi Nkgadima, managing director of African Response, in a statement.

Vulture funds”... prey on the world’s poorest economies, almost always African.... and their practices aren’t technically illegal.
An impoverished country will take a loan for a few million dollars from some other country. The creditor country, maybe facing financial issues itself, subsequently sells that loan to a company. That company then aggressively pursues repayment of the loan, along with all the compound interest it attracts, refusing to participate in any debt relief or reduction
programmes."

One example is Zambia.

A combination of automatic sensing, GIS, and field work help provide accurate and granular land use detection in Taiwan.

NISTPASS writes,

"Since land use change was very dynamic in time and space, developing a responsive detection system is indispensable. Taiwan, Republic of China has a good example on this case. Collaboration between university and government has been successfully developed an interactive web based land change detection system…Basically, the system consists of three subsystem as followings:

The Pacific Regional Land Initiative seeks to use sustainable land management practices (SLM) to help mitigate effects of urbanization and resource strains, and as a tool for local community and economic development. The initiative helps bring SLM to the Pacific.

NISTPASS writes,

“The Pacific Regional Land Initiative includes three components with potential to support and complement national and local land policy reform efforts in the Pacific countries:

"Asian countries such as Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia are surfacing

"The healthcare system in Pakistan is in crisis . Government hospitals are
old and not maintained, and there is inadequate funding of the sector. There is growing violence against doctors who are perceived as wealthy targets and who are more likely to participate in the “medical brain drain” to the U .S ., Europe and the Middle East . There is a new, growing trend: every year, several hundred Pakistanis travel to India on health visas to get the healthcare they need, particularly for cardiac-related treatment . Congenital heart problems are common in Pakistan . The Pakistanis who