ICT for Development ICT for Rural Development

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ICT for DevelopmentICT for Rural Development

• ICT4D Lectures 11 and 12
• Tim Unwin

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Outline

• Setting the scene
• Identifying the rural
• The potential of ICTs for rural development
• Constraints
• Potential solutions
• Case studies

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Setting the scene

• Understanding Livelihoods complexity, choices
  and policies in Southern India
• A 20 minute video by Catcher Media for DFID
• Designed to spark discussion about sustainable
  livelihoods approaches
• Resource for development professionals in the
  NGO and Government sectors working at both policy
  and field levels

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Setting the scene

• What are the core messages this video is trying
  to get across?
• What strengths does the video format have in
  delivering these?
• How would you use the video in a learning context
  with
• NGOs?
• Government officials?

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Identifying the rural

• What do we think of when we consider the rural?
• Low density
• Extensive production
• Forestry
• Agriculture
• Generally poor
• Why else would people migrate to towns?
• Backward
• Limited services
• The Urban as dominant and civilised

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Identifying the rural

• How much rural development have you learnt in
  your courses so far?
• An example of bias against the rural!
• Yet almost all the worlds food and raw materials
  come from rural areas
• Michael Lipton (1977) Why Poor People Stay Poor
• Urban bias
• Dominance of interests designed to increase
  unequal terms of trade between urban and rural
  areas and people

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ICTs in rural development

• Potential to
• Provide services to dispersed rural people
• Radio, TV, Internet, Mobile telephony
• Disseminate information more broadly
• Market information
• Agricultural extension services
• Breakdown the urban bias
• But
• Infrastructure is needed
• Costs must be affordable

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Key constraints in rural communication

• Dispersed low density populations
• Therefore high cost of providing services
• Distances
• High transport costs to peripheral regions
• Terrain
• Mountain ranges
• Impassable roads in rainy seasons
• Traditional lack of technological knowledge
• Need for easy to use solutions

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Technological solutions

• Radio can reach everywhere
• Soaps for health and rural development
• Satellites can likewise overcome line of sight
  constraints
• Especially VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal)
• Gilat in Rwanda, Kenya, DRC, Mozambique
• Posta Kenya http//www.gilat.com/Solutions_CaseStu
  dies_Posta.asp
• The WorldSpace solution http//www.worldspace.com/
  about/index.html
• Established in 1990 - satellite radio
• Downloading learning content to rural areas
• Telephony
• Mobiles dramatic impact on communication

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Case studies

• Agricultural Information Systems
• M.S. Swanimathan Research Foundation (India)
• Gilat VSAT solutions in Africa
• African Agricultural Technology Foundation
• Philippines e-Learning for agricultural
  communities
• Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and
  Communication
• HP KNUST Digital Villages

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Internet based agricultural information services

• Internet in the 1990s enabled institutions to be
  both recipients and disseminators of information
• A donor supported information explosion
• But many such schemes failed (IICD, 2003)
• Technology focus
• No clear policy on how the information would be
  acquired
• Portals not information
• Point to sources of information, not the
  information
• Same as asking for milk, and being pointed to a
  cow
• Lack of integrated access

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M.S. Swaminathan Foundation in southern India

• Village knowledge centres for fishing communities
• Dangers of fishing in ignorance of the weather
• Use of satellite imagery
• Disseminate information to whole community
• Women also know, and can give them other tasks!

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M.S. Swaminathan Foundation in southern India

• Village Knowledge Centres
• Particular emphasis on womens education
• Use of solar power for energy
• Women helping rural women
• Initially from 19997 funded by IDRC
• Now plans to roll out across India

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Gilat VSAT in Africa

• DialAw_at_y IP provides Internet access and
  telephony services on a single, low-cost platform
• rural telephony, Internet access and/or distance
  learning in South Africa, Nigeria, Ethiopia,
  Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nambia, Kenya, Angola,
  Uganda, Rwanda and Mozambique
• In South Africa
• The successful application of VSATs in rural
  networks is best illustrated by the Telkom South
  Africa project to implement a 3,000-site
  telephone network to serve tens of thousands of
  rural customers. More than 1,600 VSAT sites were
  successfully deployed in the first two months,
  perhaps the quickest deployment on record. The
  project enabled Telkom SA to carry out its
  Universal Service Obligation (USO) to provide a
  large number of rural sites - largely schools and
  village groceries - with basic telephone service,
  where none had existed.

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Gilat VSAT in Africa

• Ethiopia
• Ethiopia is the site of another VSAT success
  story. Just outside Addis Ababa lies the Sululta
  earth station with its 13-meter antenna. The
  Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation (ETC)
  has installed a network control center there to
  operate its 500-site VSAT network, which is
  spread throughout the country. This network
  replaced outdated analog telephone systems in
  outlying population centers. It provides service
  to more than 50,000 telephone subscribers along
  with broadcasts of Ethiopian television. Each
  site is tailored to the population who is using
  it. The larger sites replace or add to the old
  existing telephone network. Villages of
  approximately 1,000 persons that have shared one
  or two rather unreliable lines have been provided
  with 3-16 new, very reliable lines via their VSAT
  terminal. Phone sets are placed in shops, public
  facilities and some private homes. In larger
  towns, the ETC has purchased brand-new digital
  switches, and the VSAT network allows these
  switches to link more than 250 subscribers. These
  larger sites also receive direct transmission of
  Ethiopia?s national TV, recently upgraded to a
  digital system.
• But who pays the cost?
• Fuelled by donor support (especially USA)

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African Agricultural Technology Foundation

• Creating public-private partnerships
• Striga (witchweed) control in cereals
• Insect resistance maize for Africa
• Pro-Viramin A enhancement in Maize and Rice
• Cowpeas Production
• Production of Bananas and Plantains
• http//www.aftechfound.org/

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Philippines e-Learning for agricultural
communities

• Creation of enterprising rural communities
• Slides from Evelyn Sadsad (NEDA)
• Material in Reading Room
• Emphasising the importance of a viable business
  model
• NEDA Knowledge Emporium (http//www.neda.gov.ph/kn
  owledge-emporium/)

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Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and
Communication

• Amateur radio
• Working with Oxfam since 2000
• To promote use of amateur radio
• Community Radio
• Training people in the use of community radio
  since 2001
• Supporting NGOs
• Advocacy

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HP - KNUST, Ghana

• HPs Digital Village concept
• Collaboration with Kwame Nkrumah University for
  Science and Technology in Kumasi
• And University of Pennsylvania
• Hub in the university
• With spokes in villages
• But serious doubts over sustainability and
  relevance
• Lack of really appropriate content and knowledge
  of best educational uses
• Video

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Conclusions

• Need for a diversity of solutions
• Technologies can indeed overcome many of the
  physical constraints affecting rural areas
• But, need for will of governments to support them
• Is Liptons urban bias still alive and well in
  developing countries?