Poverty reduction has been a key focus of development interventions and development research. Global levels of poverty have declined in the last decade, but there still remain many who cannot afford their basic food requirements for the day. Statistics illustrate that, in 2008, developing regions were home to nearly 1.4 billion people identified as being income poor (Chen and Ravallion 2008). Finding innovative ways to reduce poverty therefore continues to be a pressing goal. It is in light of this goal that IDRC's “Information and Communications Technologies for Development” (ICT4D) program sought to support research that investigated the role of information and communications technologies (ICTs) in reducing multi-dimensional poverty or addressing its root causes. In order to do so, IDRC partners focused much of their research on understanding the circumstances and conditions under which the poor accessed and used ICTs.

While studying this issue, a second focus emerged that was related to definitions and conceptualizations of poverty. A key aspect of poverty research has been to develop a realistic measure of poverty (where, if you are below a certain poverty threshold, you are considered poor). The rationale for a poverty line or threshold is that governments would then be able to have a statistical estimate of deprivation within their country. Using this guideline, governments could make decisions about the eligibility, costs and allocation of welfare resources to the families most in need (i.e., social protection programs such as child and social grants).