Information and communication technologies (ICT) have become the primary drivers of socio-economic development in theworld. ICT firms from the developed countries and some large emerging economies (e.g. India and China) play the key rolein the diffusion of the ICTs, and actively promote their goods and services to the global markets. This expansion, however, isinhibited by various political risks. This article uses a broad range of sources to identify the specific political risks for transnationalICT corporations in the markets of the Global South, and to explore the use of development cooperation tools by theWestern donors and China to minimise such risks. It has been found that the political risks for ICT firms tend to originatefrom the decisions of the host country government in four policy domains: infrastructure policy; technology transfer policy;trade policy; tax and income redistribution policy. In order to manage these risks, donors employ a wide range of developmentcooperation tools, which include not only traditional grants and loans (both concessional and non-concessional) butalso a variety of private sector instruments. Three main ways to manage political risks were explored: 1) zero‑risk supplyof goods and services through the direct involvement of ICT corporations as aid contractors; 2) mitigating risks through influencingthe policy environment in the recipient countries; 3) providing political risk insurance to ICT firms. Each of thesethree modalities is illustrated with concrete examples of donor activities, both bilateral and multilateral. The conclusion isdrawn that the discourse on the ICT development is becoming increasingly polarised due to a growing competition betweenmajor donors, primarily, the United States and China. This leads to a dangerous situation where political risk mitigationefforts of one donor produce novel political risks for another donor, making it even harder to achieve sustainable digitaldevelopment in the countries that are left behind.

This research has been conducted with a financial support from the Russian Science Foundation, project No 23-28-01060, https://rscf.ru/en/project/23-28-01060/

This article was submitted 18.07.2024