SEND Foundation of West Africa
South – South Exchange Travelling Workshop
(Chennai and Pondichery, India)
November 28, - December 5, 2005
Reflections and the Way Forward
for other
Development Organisations
A
Participant’s Reflections
on
THE FOURTH SOUTH – SOUTH EXCHANGE ICT ENABLED TRAVELLING WORKSHOP
November 25, - December 5, 2005
(Chennai and Pondichery, India)
Shafiu Shaibu
SEND Foundation
Tamale, Ghana
Social Enterprise Development Foundation of West Africa
(SEND Foundation)
K12 Kalpohin Estates,
Box TL341, Tamale, Ghana, West Africa
Tel: +233-71-22547, 24515, 23430, 23419
Fax: +233-21-711189
send-tam@africaonline.com.gh
www.sendfoundation.org
Introduction
The Forth South – South ICT Enabled Travelling Workshop organised by the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) and sponsored by the Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP) and the International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD) took place between the 28th of November to the 5th of December of 2005 in and around the cities of Chennai and Pondichery, India.
The workshop brought together participants engaged in ICT enabled development projects from Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Congo (Brazzaville), Swaziland, Philippines, Bangladesh, Paraguay, Malaysia and India. Participants were from varied backgrounds giving the workshop the chance for sharing experiences from diverse fields.
This report seeks to find out the relevance of the workshop to a learning organisation such as SEND Foundation of West Africa (SEND) in its attempt to employ ICT as a tool to facilitate the delivery of its interventions. The report is therefore not looking at what happened and how it did but the implication of each observed program activity during the workshop period; looking closely at how MSSRF does some of its activities and recommending how SEND and other development organisation in developing countries could adopt and adapt such approaches.
Some Projects Presented
Knowledge WorkersParticipants gave brief summary of their ICT4D related programs. This speed-geek session was basically an icebreaker to let everyone understand what each other is doing in their respective countries. Participants gave brief summary of their ICT4D related programs. This speed-geek session was basically an icebreaker to let everyone understand what each other is doing in their respective countries. Each participant spoke for six minutes about his/her project to an audience of not more than five other participants. At the end of six minutes the group of listeners would move on to listen to another presenter and another group of five participants would join the first presenter to listen to him/her. Each presenter told his/her story briefly but three times (to different groups). Such small groups facilitate participation by all; no one can hide in a crowd! And as everyone repeats the story three times he/she will have a chance to improve and perfect his/her presentation. As the time allotted is limited to six minutes, people are forced to tell only the salient features - the crux of the matter as it were.
Tata Consultancy Services Limited, India
Tata Consultancy Services Limited is a software development company that has developed a language teaching software that is capable of making a person literate in forty (40) hours of committed study. The software is not intended to teach a person a new language but to teach someone who already understands and speaks a language to be able to read and write.
Council for Economic Empowerment of
Women of Africa-Uganda chapter (CEEWA-U), Uganda
CEEWA Uganda uses ICT enabled devices to deliver entrepreneurship trainings to women groups under their programs. This concept they termed Mobile ICT Clinic uses a laptop computer, an electricity generator and multimedia CD ROMs to conduct the trainings.
Development Research Network, Bangladesh
The D-Net in Bangladesh functions as an agency for undertaking research in the use of ICT for the alleviation of poverty in Bangladesh. D-Net also runs a Computer Literacy Program for Rural Underprivileged Youth that provides computer facilities, train the teachers and develop the learning tools.
Community E-Centre ProjectDevelopment Academy of the Philippines, Philippines
The government of the Philippines in collaboration with its partners has set up an organisation with the sole aim of establishing one hundred (100) Community e-Centres in the most deprived locations of the country especially the far-flung places, with the objective of ensuring that the capabilities of the digital technologies impact every Filipino regardless of distance.
Lagos Digital Village, Nigeria
The Lagos Digital Village focuses on the young; it teaches them that there is more in the internet than the Four – One – Nine (419) scam. The centre which started with a grant from Microsoft Unlimited Potential Program (MUPP) now offers basic IT training for the youth and operates an internet café the revenue of which is used to pay for the running cost.
Fundacion Paraguaya, Paraguay
The Junior Achievement group in Paraguay operate a PC-Bus system where a fully computerised bus moves from one High School to another in the deprived parts of the country. This process they do through partnership with major transport and computer companies in Paraguay.
Interacting with the Content Managers and other MSSRF StaffOne-World South Asia, India
One-World South Asia advocates for pro-poor ICT policies and promotes communication for development. In its latest issue of its magazine on the millennium development goals (Mainstreaming ICTs), One-World South Asia presents a number of articles that highlight some successful ICT enabled development initiatives taking place in South Asia that are worth giving closer study to see how they could be replicated in Africa. An important article shows how the Digital Equaliser (DE) project run by the American Indian Foundation is making a difference through resourcing deprived schools with computer and internet connectivity. The DE provides infrastructure, connectivity, teacher training, digital curriculum, continuous mentoring, management support and sustenance strategies.
The Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP), Malaysia
The Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP) is a worldwide network committed to harnessing the potential of ICT for sustainable development. GKP provides a forum where all development organisations could meet to present a stronger voice that otherwise would hardly be heard individually. The concept is to develop partnerships and share knowledge in all areas of ICT related interventions. The GKP is a member based organisation seeking to break boundaries to share knowledge globally. Though membership is by the payment of prescribed dues, this is only to demonstrate commitment to the common cause and not to be a source of funding for the activities of GKP.
Central Visayas Information Sharing Network
(CVISNET), Philippines
The Central Visayas Information Sharing Network (CVISNET) is an e-government project of the government of Philippines serving as the government hub and showcase of the Information and Communication Technology in the Philippines. It aims at establishing a One-Stop-Shop Information and Internet Portal for government, non-government agencies and business organizations in Central Visayas. Its main objectives include assisting government in areas of information literacy among employees and schools, interconnecting government agencies through the internet, propagating the use of ICT in government and the development of standards for government data.
AZUR Development, Congo – Brazzaville
AZUR Development is committed to contributing to the social, cultural and economic development of the Congo through incorporating the use of ICT among other interventions. AZUR Development’s ICT related activities include training and capacity building of students, CSOs and unemployed youth in basic ICT skills. The resources at the training centre including internet facility are also made available to the trainees. The organisation assists and encourages postgraduate students in the universities in Congo to take up research work in ICT for rural development or at least incorporate such a component in their research work. AZUR Development is also in the process of providing a web portal for civil society organisations in the Congo.
Lubombo Community Multimedia Centre (LCMC), Swatziland
Lubombo Community Multimedia Centre (LCMC) in Swatziland advocates for legal frameworks to enable information flow, access to ICTs, capacity building and training, access to community media and to promote the usage of ICTs and community media in rural communities. LCMC is in the process of establishing youth and women ICT network in the area of coverage, and its main objective is to enable targeted groups to come up with activities that will allow all beneficiaries address the question of ICT facility utility.
Social Enterprise Development
Foundation of West Africa, Ghana
SEND Foundation of West Africa is implementing a market access project (Eastern Corridor Agro-Market Information Centre – ECAMIC) in the Northern part of Ghana. The project seeks to provide agricultural market information to local food-crop farmers to enable them make informed decisions in the marketplace. The system involves having three centre offices with full internet access; two are located in the communities (local hubs) while the headquarters (main hub) is located in the Regional Capital. Collation and higher level processing of information are done at the main hub. The main hub receives the buyer related information through a network of information centres of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture located at the major market centres. Weekly market information is sent from the local hubs to the villages where a notice is used to display summary of such information but the details are obtainable from the leaders of the farmers cooperatives in the communities. The farmers give out their production information either directly or through the cooperative leaders to the local hub which is then forwarded to the main hub where it is posted on the project website. The project tries to minimise the challenges associated with technology by employing the notice-boards as means of dissemination at the village level. The project is very young as it is only six months old (Dec. 2005). Some of the components described above are still being fine-tuned (e.g. website is under development) but the farmers are very excited of the prospect of being linked up directly to the final consumer who may offer much better price than the middlemen and women.
The
MSSRF Projects
The Informatics Division of the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) runs broadly two programs: Information Village Research Project and the National Virtual Academy for Rural Prosperity. Founded in 1990 by Prof. M S Swaminathan in Chennai, India, the MSSRF has been acknowledged as one of the best research centres with focus on sustainable agricultural and rural development programs. It is against the background of its chalked successes that it has hosted all the past three South - South Travelling Workshops on ICT enabled development including this year’s (being the fourth).
In 1998 the MSSRF launched the Information Village Research Project in Pondicherry, India. The project established information centres in a number of villages in Pondicherry and Tamil Nadu. The centres are community based and housed in the community volunteered building (rent free or community paying for the rent) with the community taking full charge of the payment of utility (water and electricity) bills. The Village Knowledge Centres (VKC) are run by volunteers known as Knowledge Workers. The knowledge workers who usually have minimum schooling are identified by the community. They are given trainings in computer operations and data transmission techniques with the assistance of the staff of MSSRF.
The village centres use the spread spectrum technology in communication with the hub which is located in Pillaiyarkuppam (14 km from Pondicherry town). Till a few months ago, the hub was located in a rented building at Villianur, a somewhat large town. It was shifted to MSSRF’s own building (new built) at Pillaiyarkuppam only in mid-2005. MSSRF project staff operate from this hub which has 24 hour internet facility. The hub at Pillaiyarkuppam is described as Value Addition Centre which gives it the main function of collating, processing and disseminating information tailored to the needs of the Village Knowledge Centres (VKC). The staff of MSSRF located at the hub in Pillaiyarkuppam are responsible for managing the content of what is transmitted to the VKCs, and they receive support from the MSSRF headquarters.
With literacy levels in the villages ranging above 80%, content generation and data transmission is done in the local language (Tamil). The high literacy rate facilitates the use of products like a twice-monthly community newspaper which touches various aspects of the peoples’ lives.
In 2003 the MSSRF launched the National Virtual Academy for Rural Prosperity (NVA). The main aim of the NVA is to recognize outstanding rural men and women who have selflessly contributed to public good and select them as Fellows of NVA and give them training and use their services in Mission 2007 which aims to bring together experts and grassroots people in two-way communication with the objective of getting knowledge to reach every hut and hamlet. The main hub is located at MSSRF HQ in Chennai from where links are made to Village Resource Centres (VRC). With the assistance of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and other partners, MSSRF has eight VRCs and thirty-two VKCs in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry.
The whole structure thus looks like this:
The InteractionsMSSRF Centre at Chennai is the mother hub where all research activities are carried out and results obtained based on identified needs per the feedback from the communities.
The Village Resource Centres service as the second level hub where secondary level processing is done by the knowledge workers. Basically there is a very fine line between the VRC and VKC. The main difference is that the VRC is more resourced, manned by ‘higher level staff’ and is capable of serving the VKCs under it. VRC are managed by MSSRF staff and all expenses are met by MSSRF, whereas VKCs are ‘owned’ by the local communities and run by local volunteers/ knowledge workers selected by the local community. Also VKCs are located inrent-free accommodation provided by the community, whereas VRCs are in rented premises and managed by MSSRF staff.
The Village Knowledge Centres (VKC) is the lowest centre within the structure but the most important because it is the centre that is in direct contact with the local people. The content development for most programs or research initiatives start from the data collected by the volunteers at the VKC. The VKCs are located in public buildings (rent free or paid by the local Panchayat[1]) accessible to all persons of diverse political and religious persuasions, irrespective of age, gender and level of education.
Observations
of
the
MSSRF Activities
Looking closely at the whole setup of MSSRF one comes to the conclusion that this is a huge edifice inspired by a visionary leader surrounded by a team of hardworking staff working with communities that are dedicated to project ownership in a democracy that has seen no interference.
The Visionary
Professor MS Swaminathan is a distinguished and renowned Agricultural Scientist of international repute. He has been able to organise a team and inspired them towards results, marshal resources through awards won and support from goodwill of other partners in development.
It is obvious that the success of the MSSRF project(s) is partly due the person behind the foundation as a whole. Aside all the other factors accounting for a successful project, the commitment and sacrifice from the initiator is very important and this was demonstrated by the huge financial and intellectual commitment made by Prof. MS Swaminathan. He has donated all the funds from the award(s) he has won.
The Team
A close look at the composition of the MSSRF team reveals the presence of a group with different backgrounds managing diverse units of the foundation. The foundation has a number of units including informatics, biotechnology, ecotechnology, coastal systems research, biodiversity and advocacy. Each unit has specific contribution to the information needs of the Village Knowledge Centres. The Informatics Group itself is small and the coordinator of the workshop (known in the development community as Prof. Arun) has been a full-time volunteer with the MSSRF for the past ten years.
The Communities
All the communities visited during the workshop demonstrated strong commitment to the village centre project in all respect. Their commitment could be felt from the level of participation in terms of accommodation given out for the project, the volunteers who man the centres, the payment of utility bills and the regular visit to the centre to make use of its resources. The people demonstrate the concept of living the system and not just receiving a service from MSSRF.
The Political Atmosphere
Being the world’s largest democracy and having remained a democracy since independence in 1947, India could be said to have enjoyed perfect atmosphere for any kind of development including ICT-based rural development. The president of India, His Excellency Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam, has shown tremendous commitment to the concept of empowering the rural Indians through a program termed PURA (Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas). In this PURA program the political leadership in India is pursuing activities to ensure Physical Connectivity, Electronic Connectivity, Knowledge Connectivity and Economic Connectivity of the 637,000 villages in India to reach the 700 million people living in those villages.
The Partnership
The power of partnership is easily seen in the success stories of MSSRF’s activities. The Indian Space Research Organisation for instance has provided the foundation satellite connectivity free of charge as long as the foundation is in the service of the rural poor in India. That is a great demonstration of recognition of the contribution that MSSRF is making and the need to offer the foundation high quality communication infrastructure. Connectivity cost may account for more than fifty percent (50%) of ICT based projects. MSSRF uses this facility for regular videoconferencing. The many other collaborating partners of the MSSRF (Rajiv Gandhi Collage of Veterinary Science, Tata Consultancy Services, Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP), etc.) have contributed immensely to the success of the foundation.
Proven Results
Proven results have been the basis for the continuous expansion and further development of the Village Knowledge Centre (VKC) project in its eighth-year of implementation (1998 – 2005) by the MSSRF. Often times, good initiatives are stalled too quickly due to the inability of the implementing agency to ‘prove’ results. The success stories - saving lives of fishermen using weather information, improving the price of selling price using market information, finding employment for villagers using employment information, etc are but a few of the impacts documented under the VKC project.
The Determination to Succeed
As Prof. Subbiah Arunachalam, facilitator for the workshop, pointed out, the challenges upon which the success stories of the MSSRF were chalked are immense and require determination and fortitude to see through. In some communities (where there were problems such as discrimination based on caste and social status or unwillingness to share information with everyone) the Foundation simply had to say quit and move on to the next. It is a fallacy to postulate that adhering to any well-known expert-endorsed-processes in VKC establishments will lead to success. MSSRF’s VKC project has been successful partly because of the determination demonstrated through keeping all options open. Just as any methodology that fails to work is dropped, any community that is not receptive to the concept and is unable to propose any credible alternative is equally left out and the next community tried.
Recommendations
for
other
Developing Countries
Have Visionary Leadership
The remarkable role of Professor Swaminathan to the success of MSSRF and its projects demonstrates what good leadership means and can lead to. It should be recognised that such leaders can be found in other developing countries of Africa, Latin America and Asia. What is required is to put the good ideas in the right domain of hardworking and dedicated team, collaborative communities, right political atmosphere, good partnership with other stakeholders and all the other ingredients for success.
Develop the Teamwork
The MSSRF team may look quite diverse as it sought to cover most of the requirements of the village centres. It is possible to build such cadre through successful harnessing of expertise and providing the right leadership that promise a future for the talented youth and job satisfaction for the matured and experienced. There is the need for the visionary to inspire and move the team into bringing out the ultimate of their potential; this is not lacking in Ghana and other developing nations of Africa and Latin America; this is less utilised in most developing nations; this is one of the lessons for the way forward.
Seek Community Participation
The role of the communities in the success of the VKC of the MSSRF is remarkable. Interaction with the community members reveals a deep-rooted feeling of ownership and the commitment to get it succeed. The difficulty with most developing nations (Ghana as a case) is that there was prolonged period of service delivery to the people which makes them find community participation rather slow and unfulfilling. The people prefer projects that simply come to deliver services to them rather than those that seek their active involvement. The present approach of continuous education and the unrelenting pursuit of community based approach that emphasise the contribution of the community, however small, to the project must be sustained and intensified. The rural poor have two abundant assets: time and labour. It is up to the development practitioner to find appropriate approach to get the people to utilise these assets as their contribution in support of a community based project.
Induce the Political Leadership
With the current trend of democracy taking root in Ghana and most other developing countries, it is anticipated that the political leaders would be more responsive to the needs of the people through the implementation of pro-poor ICT policies. Most governments have ICT policies whose wording far differs from the practice. Through the advocacy programs of civil society organisations, governments of developing countries should be further encouraged to support ICT based programs targeting the rural poor.
Work in Partnerships
It is important for NGOs in Ghana and other developing nations to seek greater partnership with industry and other government institutions in ICT4D. The collaboration in other sectors especially agriculture has been quite successful but in the field of ICT, which is relatively new to Africa, we still need a lot more engagement between government and industry on one side and civil society on the other. It is sometimes perceived that some industry players are exploitative and so development minded organisations simply do not want to talk to them. The Microsoft Unlimited Potential Program (MUPP) is a support program of Microsoft Corporation to assist community based projects through the offer of some software and hardware training. As civil society organisations, we may have our own differences with Microsoft as a multi-national but if they have a program that will assist us to achieve our objectives, we should take advantage of it.
The work of Tata Consultancy Service in developing local language literacy software is an important project to be emulated by other developing countries. The representative of Tata Consultancy Services, who spoke at the workshop, explained that it is quite easy to transfer the knowledge to other programmers in other countries to develop the software for their local languages. What is required is a collaboration of local civil society organisations in each country to liaise with local software developers to undertake this project. The importance of this project can be seen when one looks at the literacy level of project principals in the MSSRF project communities. When a community (e.g. Veerampattinam and Embalam) says they are 80 – 85% literate, what they mean is that each of these persons could read and write in at least the first language. The effect of high literacy level among project principals on project implementation is quite obvious to all development practitioners.
Prove Results
Often times potentially good projects are abandoned due to lack of proven results. Other projects fail because they are simply overambitious or ‘oversized’. Further, some practitioners are unable to track the bit-by-bit positive impact of their project on the lives of the project principals. Looking closely at the MSSRF VKC projects, it is clear that project impacts have been systematically documented and shared with all relevant partners at appropriate forums. The most important thing to note hear is: ‘do it small; do it properly and prove results’.
Be Determined to Succeed
Success in community work is not just absence of failure but the presence of the ability to manage challenges. Some groups or some communities as a whole may simply be too uncooperative to the proposed solution to their need even though they have been duly consulted. They may not be prepared to contribute the two assets they abundantly have; i.e. their time and labour in order to get a project going. Keep up the pressure of dialogue but never forget that the option of moving to another community to implement the same kind of intervention is still open.
Conclusions
List of Workshop Participants
1. Ms Niombo Ngoueme Sylvie GiseleICTs Researcher / Executive DirectorAZUR Developpement
2. Mr A.K.M Ganiul ZadidFellowBangladesh Friendship Education Society (BFES)
3. Mr Virendra TripathiProject Coordinator cum ResearcherDatamation Foundation
4. Mr Md. Forhad UddinResearch AssociateDevelopment Research Network (D.NET)
5. Ms Shipra SharmaResearch & AnalysisOneWorld South Asia
6. Mr Rouf Mohammad AbdurProgramme CoordinatorBangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication (BNNRC)
7. Mrs Gomez, Jemela Anne EscarioManagerCentral Visayas Information Sharing Network (CVISNet) Foundation, Inc.
8. Mr Peter Onyango DanielProject OfficerCommunity Initiatives and Social Support Organization (CISSO)
9. Mr Senfuka SamuelInformation OfficerCouncil for Economic Empowerment of Women of Africa-Uganda chapter (CEEWA-U)
10. Ms Claudia Carolina Pompa SchaererProgram CoordinatorFundacion Paraguaya
Paraguay
11. Ms Mary Mocdeng SagapanDeputy Project ManagerCommunity E-Center ProjectDevelopment Academy of the Philippines
12. Dr G Bhaskara RaoICRISAT
13. Mr K NatarajanExecutive Community EngagementKuppam HP i-community
14. Mr Oluwagbenga Olabisi SesanProgram ManagerLagos Digital Village
15. Mr Ambrose Nkosingizwele ZwaneCoordinatorLubombo Community Multimedia Centre
16. Mr Shaibu ShafiuMarket Access / Micro-finance Program OfficerSocial Enterprise Development Foundation of West Africa
17. Mr John VictorAdult Literacy ProgramTata Consultancy Services
posted by Shafiu Shaibu @ 9:17 AM
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