Billions of US dollars are invested each year by the public, NGO and private sectors in information-and-communication-technologies-for-development (ICT4D) projects such as telecentres, village phone schemes, e-health and e-education projects, e-government kiosks, etc.Yet we have very little...

It often seems that use of participative approaches in the development of information systems (IS) has reached the status of a new orthodoxy: a ‘magic bullet' technique that is always relevant, always beneficial in trying to overcome the high failure rate of information systems. Yet...

Most information systems — including current ICT projects — in developing countries fail either totally or partially. This paper develops a model which explains those high rates of failure. The model is based on the notion of design — reality gaps: the match or mismatch between IS designs...