ICTs@IDRC

The International Development Research Centre (IDRC) was one of the first development agencies to embrace information and communications technologies (ICTs) as a key means for development and poverty alleviation. With established programs such as Acacia in Africa, Pan Asia Networking in Asia, and Pan Americas in Latin America, IDRC has a breadth of experience on the impact of ICTs on the lives of people in the developing world. This experience is reflected in IDRC's leading role in international initiatives such as the Institute for Connectivity in the Americas, Connectivity Africa, and the G8 Digital Opportunity Task Force.

IDRC IN AFRICA

IDRC has two main initiatives to support ICTs for development in Africa. For many years, IDRC’s Acacia: Communities and the Information Society in Africa Program Initiative has helped communities in sub-Saharan Africa use ICTs to meet their own social and economic development. More recently, the G8 Africa Action Plan has focused on three areas that are crucial to development through ICTs: national e-strategies and policy frameworks, including ePol-NET; connectivity and the use and development of local content; and helping African entrepreneurs.

At the G8 Summit in Kananaskis (2002), Prime Minister Chrétien announced a $500 million aid package - the Canada Fund for Africa - to support the G8 Africa Action Plan and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). The Canada Fund for Africa is providing $12 million for the implementation of Connectivity Africa to apply Canadian expertise in applying ICTs to education, health, and community development. Connectivity Africa has four components:

• innovation in the use of ICTs;
• African regional ICT futures;
• research and development in African ICTs; and
• partnership and convergence.

IDRC is implementing Connectivity Africa in partnership with the Economic Commission for Africa within the framework of the African Information Society Initiative (AISI). The initiative works closely with IDRC's Acacia program and other ICT initiatives focused on Africa.

Acacia: Communities and the Information Society in Africa

Acacia is IDRC's ground-breaking program to demonstrate how sub-Saharan communities can benefit from ICTs for their social and economic development. It has a research and policy focus, while Connectivity Africa emphasizes technology and innovation.

Many Acacia projects demonstrate that communities in Africa with greater access to ICTs are able to generate and sustain economic growth. In Timbuktu, for example, a community telecentre connects the town of 25,000 people to the rest of the world through Internet, email, telephone, fax, and radio. In Angola, a new satellite connection is ensuring that vital information is exchanged among nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) helping to rebuild the country after years of war. In another project, nomadic herders track their wandering cattle herds with cell phones and Global Positioning Systems.

Launched in 1997, Acacia has invested more than $40 million in research, demonstration, and evaluation projects on key ICT issues. These include how ICTs can be used to reduce poverty, policies to bridge the digital divide, and the development of local content and knowledge. (www.idrc.ca/acacia)

Some examples:

Acacia- Information to get a fair market price
In Senegal, Mr Cheikh Ba can use his knowledge of world market prices to more than double the price he receives from intermediaries for his grapefruit.

With his cell phone, he checks the market prices for produce twice a week. Using wireless technology, he dials into a database of current prices compiled by Manobi, a mobile and Internet services operator. “If I did not have the Manobi system, he says, “I would certainly have accepted a bargain price in fear that the buyer would leave and leave me stuck with my produce.”

Research shows that food producers using this service have seen their incomes increase by an average of 15%. http://www.manobi.net

Acacia - One-stop business shop
In Uganda, women make up more than 45% of small-scale entrepreneurs. They are using the Women’s Information Resource and Electronic Service (WIRES) as a “one-stop shop” to find information on markets, prices, good agricultural practices, and support and advisory services.

Based in Kampala and linked to two rural telecentres, WIRES provides information that has been gathered from electronic and print sources and then repackaged in easy-to-use databases in local languages. With this information, women in Uganda are able to hone their entrepreneurial skills, expand their enterprises, and boost their family's incomes.

Acacia - Student ICT business
In Inhambane, Mozambique, Momed Cadir has set up a community ICT access centre within his school. Students use the centre for free while walk-in users from the community pay for services.

The students and teachers have started small projects such as designing Web sites and recycling and repairing computers. In addition to developing ICT skills, these projects bring revenue to the centre. As a result, the centre is well on its way to sustainability.

Acacia - Go with the global flow
“Computer tools and access to the Internet are not superfluous to the poor,” says Modou Diouf of ENDA Tiers Monde, a nongovernmental organization in Senegal. He adds that, in an age of globalization, poor countries must go with the flow by taking advantage of networks that link them with the rest of the world.

As a result of ENDA Tiers Monde’s work with Acacia, a series of “community resource sites” now provides training and Internet access to those living in the most difficult neighbourhoods in and around Dakar.

The project has helped transform a grassroots economy to make the social and technological innovations of local groups more visible.

IDRC IN THE AMERICAS

At the 2001 Summit of the Americas in Quebec City, hemispheric leaders issued a Statement on Connecting the Americas. In addition to leading the discussion on ICTs and development in the Americas, Canada made a commitment to establish the Institute for Connectivity in the Americas (ICA).

Incubated at IDRC, ICA has been given seed funding to build on the success and experience of the Connecting Canadians Strategy and Canada’s international and ICT programs. By promoting ICTs for development in Latin America and the Caribbean, ICA strives to connect the Americas through knowledge creation and capacity building. The Institute helps forge partnerships and co-funds projects. By connecting the people of the Americas, the ICA hopes to strengthen democracy, create prosperity, and help realize the region’s human potential.

The Institute supports projects in three core areas:

• E-Strategies B case studies, profiles of successful projects, and policy studies;
• Knowledge Network – virtual collaboration networks, awards, and seminars and events; and
• Innovation and Demonstration – strategic regional projects and small grants.

ICA is helping to open high-speed university networks and to provide Wi-Fi wireless links to connect computer centres in the favelas (slums) near Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. E-Link Americas, an ambitious effort to give universal Internet access to remote and marginalized communities through wireless is now under development. ICA partners include the Government of Canada, IDRC, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Organization of American States, and the World Bank. (www.ICAmericas.net)

ICA works closely with IDRC’s Pan Americas project, which supports research on the social uses and impact of ICTs for development in Latin America and the Caribbean. The project strengthens the capacity of civil society organizations to understand the implications of ICTs for development, and to participate more effectively and influence policymaking in the region. PAN Americas fosters collaborative approaches to research and learning, and promotes sensitivity to gender issues. (www.idrc.ca/pan)

Some examples:

ICA - Laptop warrior against human rights abuse
For the past 39 years, Colombia has been plagued by civil war, with its attendant human rights abuses. A 23-year old Paez Indian, Vilma Almendra, uses ICTs as an antidote to violence against Indigenous peoples. Almendra coordinates the community information service, or telecentre, in the town of Santander de Quilichao in southwest Colombia.

The telecentre lists and denounces human rights abuses, particularly killings and abductions, and brings them to national and international attention. Many Paez have used the Internet to circulate pictures of friends and relatives who have gone missing after armed attacks on towns and villages. “We have succeeded in reaching international audiences,” says Ms Almendra, “something we weren't able to do before we set up the telecentre. We can now communicate with the media, donor agencies, and human rights and environmental organizations.”

ICTs are also helping Paez and other indigenous communities to push ahead with their own social and economic development, including education, health, land management, legal protection, and monitoring legislation.

Pan Americas - An Internet home for NGOs
In Brazil, Rede de informaçnoes para o terceiro setor (RITS) works to help civil society organizations use ICTs on such issues as human rights, education, the environment, and health.

RITS disseminates a weekly e-zine of news from nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and its Web site hosts a virtual research centre on Brazilian civil society. RITS also provides Web site hosting, email access, and Intranet services for hundreds of organizations.

RITS believes that if NGOs invest in the Internet, they will be better equipped to address the needs of their clients, often among the poorest of the population. (www.rits.org.br/) 

IDRC IN ASIA-PACIFIC

Pan Asia Networking

Established in 1994, Pan Asia Networking (PAN) is the oldest of IDRC’s current ICT program initiatives. PAN’s early support helped organizations use ICTs for communications and networking and for developing Web-based tools and applications. It also helped establish the first Internet services in Bhutan, Cambodia, Laos, Mongolia, and Viet Nam.

Today, the program emphasizes applied research related to community uses of ICTs, particularly those practices that lead to more equitable access, and policies to encourage public and private sector investment in ICTs. This includes such things as piloting village information centres, researching open source software, and promoting local language content on the Internet. Another priority is to examine innovative ICT applications for developing countries in areas such as e-commerce, distance learning, and health.

PAN programing takes into account Asia’s diverse mix of economies. It directs support to least developed countries to build their capacity to participate in the new economy. At a broader level, PAN encourages networking and collaboration by the growing community of ICT pioneers in the region. In 2003, one such collaboration involving IDRC, the UNDP’s Asia-Pacific Development Program, Orbicom, and Southbound, resulted in the publication of Digital Review of Asia Pacific, covering 27 economies.

PAN also helps its partners contribute their research results to the policymaking process of various Asia Pacific economies. (www.idrc.ca/pan)

Some examples:

Pan Asia - People power through WiFi
Dr Onno Purbo regularly attracts hundreds of people to his seminars in Indonesia on how to build community-based ICT networks through Wireless Fidelity (WiFi). The author of more than 40 books, Dr Purbo posts all his “how-to” technical information on the Web, free for anyone to download.

“I don’t believe in equipment power; I believe in people power” says the self-described ICT evangelist.

The decade-old grassroots technology movement has resulted in more than four million Indonesian Internet users, 2500 WiFi outdoor installations, 2000 cyber cafés, and more than 1500 schools connected to the Internet. Dr Purbo is currently on sabbatical at IDRC.

Pan Asia - From the Net to the Loudspeaker to You
At a temple in Veerampattinam, loudspeakers have been erected among the statues. They are one innovative way that a project by the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation uses traditional and new technologies to provide information that empowers villagers.

The loudspeakers broadcast weather forecasts, downloaded from the Internet, that are potentially life-saving for local fishermen. Other information includes agricultural techniques, market prices, government programs, and local bus schedules.

The centre shows how the delivery of relevant information contributes to rural development. “As a single intervention, information and knowledge empowerment can give a quantum leap in terms of improving the security of livelihoods,” says Professor Swaminathan.

IDRC IN THE WORLD

Bellanet

The Bellanet Secretariat promotes and facilitates collaboration within the international development community, especially through the use of ICTs. It delivers its program through three program lines:

• Online Communities;
• Knowledge Sharing; and
• Open Development.

Bellanet encourages the use of online dialogues to support development collaboration, and to promote better knowledge-sharing to help organizations learn from one another’s experience. Bellanet is also exploring the potential for Free/Libre and Open Source Software, Open Standards for equitable and sustainable information sharing, and Open Content to encourage the wide distribution of information without compromising the intellectual property rights of its creators.

Bellanet has established regional operations in Latin America and the Caribbean and in Asia through strategic partnerships with like-minded local organizations. These mark an important step toward using ICTs to promote development in the South.

Bellanet is governed by a steering committee representing its core funders: the Canadian International Development Agency, the Royal Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, and Canada’s International Development Research Centre, which hosts its head office in Ottawa. www.bellanet.org

An example:

Bellanet: Dgroups B, an online meeting place
Dialogue. It’s one of the most important elements of collaboration –  and one of the simplest. Dgroups allow for virtual dialogue through a common platform that is simple, noncommercial, respectful of privacy, and targeted to low bandwidth users in the South. The interface is available in English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese.

Established and supported by Bellanet and its partners, Dgroups is now the online home of the world’s largest collection of development-oriented groups and communities. Members range from those discussing ICT policy in Jamaica to the Virtual Parliament of the Americas, an initiative to help parliamentarians communicate and work together on hemispheric issues.

2003-11-18