Challenges for Sustainable Rural Networking in Solomon Islands

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Challenges for Sustainable Rural Networking in
Solomon Islands

• David LeemingPeople First NetworkRural
  Development Volunteers Association
  leeming_at_pipolfastaem.gov.sb
• www.peoplefirst.net.sb

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Country Facts
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The People First Network (PFnet)to promote
and facilitate equitable and sustainable rural
development and peace building by enabling better
information sharing and knowledge building among
and across communities forming the Solomon
Islands
Rural Development Volunteers Association (RDVA)
www.peoplefirst.net.sb
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Objectives
1. Facilitate affordable access
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2. Facilitate rural development and peace-related
information flows among all social groups
3. Facilitate the exchange of information between
communities and stakeholders
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Rural wireless networking in HF band
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Management Committees
Community intermediaries Technical intermediaries
Operators
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10 stations with another 13 scheduled by June 2004
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Applications
Distance education
Sustainable livelihoods
Rural credit solar power communications
Rural business incubator
Farmers networking
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Disaster management
Womens networking
Community consultations i.e. Constitutional
reform Community policing Rights awareness
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Services

• Email community and private accounts
• Searching on the Internet
• News reports
• Sharing information with partners
• Secretarial services

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Internet Centre in Honiara generates revenues to
support the activities
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Rural Development e-Citizen Portal
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Challenges facing the project
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Constraints on connectivity

• Island geography and dispersed population
• Least developed country status
• Limited infrastructure
• High Internet costs (unequal global market)
• Telecom monopoly
• Ethnic conflict

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Problems and solutions affordable connectivity

• Unequal global telecom market
• Effects of monopoly
• 85 of country have no access to telecoms
• VHF, 802.11
• HF band networking

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Pros (of using HF band)

• Simple to install and use
• Robust, reliable
• Very low running costs
• Slow, point to point only
• Vulnerable to d.o.s. caused by spam (becoming
  very aggressive)
• Email only, no direct Internet access

Cons
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Creative management of low bandwidth

• Training of stakeholders in efficient use
• Filters spam, large attachments
• Web for mail systems
• GetWeb (HealthNet)
• www 4 mail (ICTP)
• TEK (MIT)

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Web for mail systems PFnets experience

• GetWeb returns full web pages and assumes an
  generic email client
• WWW4Mail very efficient we use it to get
  specific pages I.e. cyclone weather updates
• Command line syntax, URLs, are like hieroglyphics
  to our rural users
• Users cannot conceptualize web architecture and
  navigation in order to search the Net
• These systems do not build up a local resource

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Desirable user-related features

• TEK has been the most useful
• Simple user interface for searching
• Builds up a local searchable archive
• Remembers requests avoids repetition
• Command language not needed
• Intelligent systems to aid inexperienced users
  choose effective keywords
• Human intermediaries still needed in many
  applications

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Other access-related issues

• Interpretation of content by new users
• Intermediaries useful in specific applications
• Inappropriate and criminal usage
• Particular needs of education and academia
• Case study distance learning trials

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Distance education trials
People First Network University of South Pacific
Centre, Honiara
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Evaluation

• The trials proved the utility of the ICT
• Improved success rates, turnaround and
  student-tutor relationships
• All participants needed training to use the
  low-bandwidth system
• All academic staff should be involved
• Main problem concerned access to reference
  material

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Access to online reference material

• Initially, by referral did not work well
• Web4mail, eJDS etc not used at that time
• Direct searching now possible, but students would
  need help choosing keywords and interpreting
  results
• Quite often academic references were located but
  unobtainable electronically
• Physical libraries are still important to help
  remote students

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Suggestions

• PFnet will evaluate the eJDS system
• More standardised online libraries of academic
  publications
• User-related features
• Searchable CD-Rom libraries with means to
  download updates
• Intelligent search engines (keywords)
• More consideration of low-bandwidth and email
  only access
• A standard for formatting electronic material for
  low bandwidth access?

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Suggestions

• To succeed with WSIS action plan
• Create more equality in the market (Internet
  access costs)
• Otherwise accept subsidies for LDCs
• Humanitarian bandwidth pool?
• Take the spam war to the spammers Internet
  security is a major problem for LDCs
• Consider the special needs of small island
  developing states (SIDS)

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Need to supportNational ICT Strategy Building

• Currently no ICT Strategy in place in S.I.
• Regional ICT Policy Plan (2001)
• Effects
• Lack of focus
• Partners not collaborating no synergy
• Dependant on personalities
• ICT not used widely in Solomon Islands

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ICT Strategy Building workshop

• Held to
• Identify why ICT4D is not use more widely
• Build a consensus on priority objectives
• Provide guiding documentation for ICT strategy
  building

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Outcomes

• Problem and objectives trees constructed using
  OOPP
• Priority objectives clusters identified
• Document published (e.J.o.I.S.D.C)
• Solomon Islands ICT Working Group created as
  national steering council
• Included in e-Pacifika (UNDP)

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Problem Tree 55 problems associated with the use
of ICT in development in Solomon Islands Mapped
onto a corresponding Objectives Tree Objective
clusters identified
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ICT4D strategy Objective clusters
Support National ICT Strategy Building!!!
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End

• www.peoplefirst.net.sb/general/pfnet.htm

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Update and Appropriation
This shows usage by number of emails sent, for
the first PFnet station at Sasamungga (est. Oct
2001)
This shows the revenue trend. Current revenues
are now sufficient to account for all costs
including long term equipment replacement
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Sustainability of revenues
.the trend for the monthly rural station revenue
is upwards in most stations. 4 out of 7 are
already achieving more than the target of SB300
per month, and 3 are reaching almost twice this
value..Other stations need more attention, such
as stronger linkage to specific applications,
awareness and so on. Research is needed to
identify the reasons.
..a F40K research programme is starting on Oct
2003, led by the University of the South Pacific
with UNDP and PFnet as co-researchers, to study
the social impacts and the factors affecting
appropriation. Five rural sites will be studied.
The results will be published in June 2004
Rural stations have no per minute charges. All
revenues go to paying the volunteer operator an
allowance, paper and ink. A small revenue stream
is accumulated and reinvested for long term
equipment replacement costs.
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Reasons for communicating
Family correspondence 2038 Forestry
4 Business and investment 442
Police/Law and order 2 Education
409 Emergency 2 Project / NGO
250 Ordering Supplies / Stocks 249 SAMPLE
SIZE 4547 emails Health / Medical
235 Travel 201 Church 167 Finance and
Banking 157 Other/Unknown 49
Construction 49 School fee 43 Sports
30 Government Administration 18 Lands and
Titles 17 Agriculture 9 Fisheries
6 Women issue 5

These are the results from daily reports sent
from PFnet community stations for 2003. The full
data including user profiles is published on the
PFnet web site at the address below.
www.peoplefirst.net.sb/general/pfnet_stats.htm
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Funding since Oct 2000 (US)

• Government of Japan 140K
• NZAid 125K
• UNDP (direct) 66K
• UNDP (through SIDAPP) 60K
• Government of Britain 60K
• EU supported 4 community stations directly 32K
• Government of R.O.C. 20K
• APDIP 9K
• AusAid supported 1 community directly 8K
• Oxfam 1K