How do development actors do "ICT for development"? A strategy-as-practice perspective on emerging practices in Ghanaian agriculture

This paper examines how development actors within the Ghanaian agricultural sector enact information communication technology (ICT) in their day-to-day outreach practices with smallholder farmers. We draw on an in-depth qualitative case study, informed by the theoretical perspective of 'strategy-as-practice' to answer the research question: 'what ICT-mediated strategic practices are used by development actors in the Ghanaian agriculture sector'? The research findings reveal that: (i) the activities of development actors are meshed within a network of interdependencies; (ii) the enacted strategic practices reflect the trade-off between novelty of content and novelty of the technologies used to deliver it; and lastly, (iii) the praxis of development actors for doing ICT for development consists of hybrid strategies, combining bottom-up approaches consistent with farmers' indigenous smallholder logic, with top-down imperatives framing agriculture 'as a business' and nurturing value-chain integration. Consequently, our research points to the impact of ICT initiatives as step-wise and attained over the long term, rather than disruptive and attained in the immediate term.