پایداری برنامه اطلاعاتی روستایی در کشورهای در حال توسعه: مطالعه موردی از استان سیچوان چین  Sustainability of rural informatization programs in developing countries: A case study of China’s Sichuan  province

1. Introduction Considered one of the strategies to solve China’s high level of urban–rural economic inequality, the Chinese government has initiated various national and provincial programs to connect rural communities to the information highway. The current rural informatization1 activities are usually composed of relatively independent, but fundamentally interrelated, “projects” sponsored by different government institutions (Xia, 2010). Several statistics have indicated that some significant achievements have been made so far. In terms of connectivity, telephone service was nearly ubiquitous in rural areas and broadband connections were available in 84.7% of all administrative villages by the end of 2012 (MIIT, 2013b). China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) estimated that 136 million rural residents had used the Internet in 2011, a nearly 9% increase from the previous year (CNNIC, 2012). In addition, there were over 31,000 agriculture-related websites, approximately 1 million village information service stations and 700 thousand supporting staff members across the country (MOA, 2011) 2 . The unique feature of the Chinese model is the attempt to integrate connectivity and content together both in its strategic planning and national programs, which is arguably the first of its type in the world (Xia, 2010). As the largest emerging economy, China’s strategy in rural informatization is of significant interest to both ICT4D scholars and practitioners of other developing countries. There have been a few studies focusing on the institutional design of China’s informatization programs (Hanna, Qiang, Bhavnani, Kimura, & Sudan, 2009; Liu, 2012; Ting & Yi, 2012; Xia, 2010). However, due to the relatively short history and the general lack of familiarity with operational details of China’s rural informatization programs, research on this subject is still very limited and, particularly, the existing studies seem to have limited strength in assessing the sustainability of those programs. This paper serves the purpose of filling this important gap by providing a detailed account of the historical evolution of China’s informatization program, based on firsthand evidence from the field, and analysis of its sustainability challenges. By looking at Sichuan’s unique government-carrier cooperative model, this paper argues that, while Sichuan’s model provides a low-cost solution to deliver information to mass recipients in rural areas, it is at risk of financial, institutional and cultural/social sustainability failures. This article has six sections. The second section briefly reviews the research on China’s rural informatization and various theoretical models to study sustainability of ICT4D projects. The research methodology is outlined in the third section. The fourth section presents the case study of Sichuan’s rural informatization program, with the emphasis on the historical development. Next, the fifth section summarizes the case and discusses its sustainability issues. The last section derives important implications for rural informatization development in developing countries.