EJISDC (2017) 79, 6, 1-22 The Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries www.ejisdc.org 1 USING LIVELIHOOD PROFILES FOR ASSESSING CONTEXT IN ICT4D RESARCH: A CASE STUDY OF ZIMBABWE’S HIGHVELD PRIME COMMUNAL Sam Takavarasha Jr University of Zimbabwe Harare, Zimbabwe stjnr1@gmail.com Gilford Hapanyengwi University of Zimbabwe Harare, Zimbabwe ghapanyengwi@compcentre.uz.ac.zw Gabriel Kabanda Zimbabwe Open University Harare, Zimbabwe kabandag@mail.zou.ac.zw ABSTRACT The importance of context specific ICT4D innovation has been highlighted in Information Systems research by the short-comings of a-contextual innovation. This has often been accepted without due understanding of how to develop context specific interventions. There is therefore a need for a framework that elucidates ICT4D contextualisation and guides the development of context specific interventions. This should be useful to practitioners that are constantly advised to develop context specific artefacts without any clarity of how to do so. Using evidence from Zimbabwe this paper proposes the use of livelihood profiles for identifying the livelihood issues that matter in a particular locality and Sen’s Capability Approach for assessing the opportunity freedoms to exploit the local livelihoods. This is presented as a systematic way of establishing the context under which ICT4D interventions will be deployed. The study uses focus groups under an interpretivist paradigm to investigate contextual issues in Zimbabwe Highveld Prime Communal livelihood zone. The study found a politically polarised contextual setting characterised by poor agricultural finance, ineffective crop and livestock markets, unrewarding labour markets against a good agricultural climate that is affected by cyclical droughts. As a result the study posits that ICT4D innovations for the zone must be designed to operate under these realities and limitations. 1. INTRODUCTION A new idea, it would seem, more easily moves into significance if it drives up with a novel methodological side-car attached. It follows that if potentially interesting ideas roar in without appropriate side cars in tow, the research community sets about to craft them (Alkire, 2004, p1). A growing number of studies have aptly articulated the importance of context in Information Systems (IS) research (Klein and Myers, 1999; Avgerou, 2001; Walsham, 2001; Avgerou and Madon, 2004; Avgerou, 2008; Hayes and Westrup, 2012), yet project failure due to unsocialised technical rationality techniques betrays the prevalence of a-contextualism (Heeks, 2003; Dada, 2006; Avgerou and McGrath, 2007). Contextualism has been defined as where and when information systems are developed, implemented and used (Hayes and Westrup, 2012). This inevitably calls for a methodological side-car to help innovations to conform to different cultures with different capabilities and social arrangements. This paper focuses on addressing the context of the locality where Information and Communication Technology (ICT4D) innovations will be deployed. While ICT penetration has happened at a phenomenal scale in recent years, it has seen different levels of success and penetration between and within peoples and places of different developing countries due to differences in context. This has made it difficult for success stories in one part of developing world to be replicated in another (Soeftestad and Sein, 2003). A typical example is the failure to replicate the M-PESA success story in South Africa and Tanzania (Hayes and Westrup, 2012) although it worked as EcoCash in Zimbabwe. IS scholars have emphasised the importance of political, social, cultural and economic context and assertively rejected one size fits all approaches to innovation (Avgerou,