Nonetheless, the many developments occasioned by and through information and communication technology (ICT), the plethora of debates on what ‘development’ means persist. Researchers, practitioners, policy makers and stakeholders of ICTs for Development (ICT4D) have a good understanding of ICT4D, yet their views differ when it comes to the ‘development’. The ICT (as an entity), do not get interrogated well enough as a research reality or phenomenon in itself. Differing opinions persist. Without a common understanding, diffusion and adoption of ICT4D will continue fragmented. In continuing the conversation, one area to reimagine is the ICT and digital technologies in ICT4D or information systems. This paper revisits Walsham’s (“ICT4D research: reflections on history and future agenda”) 2017 paper, as a backdrop to elucidate the emancipatory ethos of critical realism and introduce the conceptual CIPPUA model. Through explanatory stratified ontological review of the position, nature and identity of digital technologies/objects, this paper contributes to the ongoing discourse on critical realism in digital development, especially the connection of ICT to development. More so, this paper with the conceptual CIPPUA model, contributes in part to the discourse of operationalizing critical realism in practice.