International Development: Food or hi-tech goods?

Everyday I read statements by "experts" declaring that laptops, and now cell phones, are vital to the developing world.

I realise that such technology can be beneficial to such economies, but do hi-tech items that not so long ago would have been considered luxury goods even in more affluent societies, warrant the use of words such as "vital" and "key to"?

Or is there perhaps another agenda behind all this? After all the developing world is a vast market just sitting there waiting to be exploited - the way it always has been.

Maybe this is a bit simplistic, but if I were living in an African village having to carry buckets of water from an unhygienic well ten bloody miles away, I can't see myself thinking, "Oh I wish I had a cell phone and a laptop - life would be so much easier".