Building Communication Opportunities (BCO) is an alliance of
development organisations concerned with information, communications
and development issues. It was formed in 2004
with an initial three-year mandate to support activities which
make use of information and communications resources and
technologies to contribute to sustainable development and
poverty alleviation, empowerment and human rights.
BCO agencies have been concerned from the outset to include
“impact assessment” in their objectives for the alliance. An initial
report describing the activities supported through BCO was
published in 2007.
This second report includes the outputs from a series of investigations
commissioned by BCO in 2007-2008 to look at different
aspects of information, communications and development, including
but reaching beyond work in which BCO partners were
themselves involved. This introductory chapter outlines the
BCO programme and impact assessment work as a whole and
presents an overview of the outcomes arising from the latter.
- The full report of the impact assessment study was published in June 2008 and shared by BCO with others working in this crucial field of development.