Appropriate technology is fundamental to the creation of sustainable livelihoods. Widespread access to technologies such as ICT and RE is, today, a necessary condition for evolving new livelihoods and industries that can accelerate sustainable development, particularly in low income countries. Thus, people can satisfy their basic needs and empower themselves to create their own livelihoods rather than be permanently dependent on subsidies and grants from governments and aid agencies.

ICT helps communities access the information, products and services they seek to fulfil many basic human needs. Health, education, commerce, governance and entertainment are areas where ICT applications have made a major difference by improving access and efficiency and creating new opportunities. However, there exist many barriers to the rapid expansion of ICT-based services. To be successfully used, information must be adapted to the requirements of local communities – it must be relevant to their needs and presented in local languages; it must be accessible even by those who are illiterate or otherwise marginalised, and it must in some way add value to their lives and livelihoods. For effective access, hardware must be available that is rugged and durable, even under the adverse conditions under which it must operate in remote locations where technical support is minimal. And for this hardware to work, adequate connectivity and power must be available on a reliable basis.

Limited access to energy is a major cause of rural poverty. Decentralised RE, based on sources such as biomass, wind, solar and micro hydro, probably offers the most effective and efficient energy solutions in areas remote from the national grid. It offers certain excellent advantages even in some areas that are connected to the grid. It can provide more reliable power; a cleaner and healthier environment and a significant number of local jobs and income generation. Above all, it can be operated at the convenience of the community and can thus lead to community empowerment and self-reliance. However, as with ICT, decentralised community-run energy solutions face significant barriers. Very small scale systems are sometimes seen to be financially uncompetitive – largely because they are compared with the conventional energy industry, which enjoys generous subsidies and other publicly supported advantages. Community-based initiatives require a favourable regulatory regime, availability of start-up finance and significant technical capacity. Capacity building initiatives should engage local entrepreneurs, community-based groups, civil society and civic entrepreneurs to adopt viable business models with steady cash flows.

Although ICT and RE implemented individually and separately, can contribute significantly to sustainable development, a very large potential exists for realising synergies, and consequent savings and value addition, from taking them forward simultaneously. The potential to contribute to sustainable livelihoods is similar for both sectors. So are the barriers to implementation and key success factors. Both sets of technologies are the basis of new economic sectors and at the same time facilitate more efficient and innovative operations in existing economic sectors. Effective projects in both ICT and RE require an unusually high level of community participation for design and implementation, and have to be adapted to local conditions. Both are amenable to public-private partnerships that can satisfy community-specific needs and yet be based on commercially viable business models. These similarities mean that implementing ICT and RE simultaneously (ICT-RE projects) can often lead to significant efficiency and economy in dealing with the technical, financial and policy barriers they face, since these are largely similar. Although ICT-RE projects are rare, lessons from our experience in managing such ventures suggest that they could contribute to large-scale rural livelihood generation, empower communities and have the potential for up-scaling.