Rural development and food security: a "community informatics" based conceptual framework

The paper presents an approach to ensuring the accessibility and utility of information and communications technologies (ICTs), within the real context of specific conditions and limitations in the range of developing world contexts and specifically for those in rural areas. Central to issues of use and usefulness of ICT\´s for rural development is the question of access. Without access, that is the means of making direct use of ICTs and particularly entering into and using the world wide ocean of information and communications capabilities presented by the Internet, little else is possible. A.C. Clement and L.R. Shade (2000) have developed what they call an "Access Rainbow" which is a systematic rendering of the different levels through which access is determined. Their access model is freely adapted by the author.