A Theoretical Framework for Context-Aware Software Engineering in Low-Resource Computing Environments Across Sub-Saharan Africa

Dominant software engineering paradigms assume high-bandwidth internet connectivity, stable power supply, and high-specification computing devices, conditions absent across large portions of Sub-Saharan Africa including Nigeria's rural North East and North West zones. This dissertation develops a theoretical framework for context-aware software engineering adapted to low-resource computing environments, making an original contribution to the field of constrained software systems design. A grounded theory methodology is employed across three phases: a systematic review of 80 low-resource software engineering studies; a multi-site qualitative study involving software developers, deployment technicians, and end users at 12 community computing centres in Adamawa, Sokoto, and Taraba States; and expert validation sessions with 20 international and Nigerian software engineering researchers. The framework introduces three original theoretical constructs: Resource-Adaptive Architecture (RAA), Progressive Connectivity Engineering (PCE), and Constraint-Informed Testing (CIT), which together provide a principled approach to designing software systems that degrade gracefully under resource limitations rather than failing catastrophically. Each construct is operationalised through design principles validated against real deployment scenarios. The framework is critically situated within existing software quality theories, extending the ISO 25010 quality model to incorporate resource efficiency as a primary quality characteristic for constrained environments. The dissertation contributes a publishable theoretical contribution, a validated design principles repository, and a testable hypothesis set for future empirical refinement. Keywords: low-resource computing, software engineering theory, Sub-Saharan Africa, constrained systems, context-aware design