The following are the comments submitted by IT for Change to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) regarding the upcoming expiration of the Joint Project Agreement (JPA) with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). These comments calls for the US to forgo its unilateral control over critical Internet resources, since Internet is a global public resource and all countries and people should have equal participation in its governance.  

This paper is based on a lecture delivered at the Michigan State University in February 2009. ICTD today is imagined and understood by many through an ideological framework of neo-liberalism and market fundamentalism. Unpacking this hegemonic neo-liberal view on ICTD, this paper details a two-fold discourse, where the utopic preoccupation with technology and an ahistoric conception of the world converges with the construction of ICTD as an engine to propel the marketisation of development.

ITfC organised a workshop with the ICT for Poverty Reduction programme of UNDP’s Poverty Group based in New York on *‘ICTs for Participatory Local Development - Exploring a Systemic Approach’ in Bangalore on 9th and 10th December, 2008*. The workshop offered a forum for researchers from five countries – Brazil, India, Philippines, South Africa and Uganda – to present their initial findings regarding a multi-country ‘ICTs for Participatory Development’ research that IT for Change is coordinating.