The studies presented here had their origins in a major International Development Research Center research project – the impact programme - whose objective was to study ways by which the impact of information on development could be assessed in a systematic fashion. The studies undertaken by ECA in this series were to examine the impact of electronic communication in Africa on development. In the course of the project, the research team adopted the title "Connectivity in Africa: use, benefits and constraints of electronic communications" as more representative of the work done.

The broad purpose of these studies were to see how the electronic communication phenomenon- new to Africa at the time that the studies began in 1995- could be placed within the context of the information impact programme: to discover what differences, in the short, medium and long term, the availability and use of information made in the ability of people to cope with the issues they themselves consider critical for their well being and success.

The studies were undertaken in four countries: Ethiopia, Senegal, Uganda and Zambia, all countries where nodes had been established with the assistance of the ECA-implemented and IDRC-financed project "Capacity Building for Electronic Communication in Africa (CABECA)." The researchers were all persons native to the countries under study, trained in research methodology and well familiar with electronic communication.