Bdt: Templates

3.4 User empowerment and co-operation

The capacity of Internet users to produce or exploit local content depends on their know-how, network access and available infrastructure. In this context, the Internet serves not only as a vehicle for production, promotion, dissemination and access, but also as a tool for empowerment of users, and as a means for them to co-operate to increase their visibility on and mastery of the medium. This co-operative approach is particularly important for users in developing countries who are often at an initial disadvantage relative to their counterparts in the industrialized countries.

Virtual communities in which users discuss, co-operatively plan and work, or otherwise relate in cyberspace are particularly important in this context. A virtual community may correspond to a “real” community, in which people interact in face-to-face mode or by traditional media, or may be interlinked solely by electronic means. Different levels of interaction are possible, ranging from textual, audio or video teleconferences to interactive computer simulations which enable members of the community to see, hear, use and even modify the simulated objects in a computer-created world. New tools such as Internet based groupware, allowing for example decentralized document or website management, are making more sophisticated interaction within virtual communities increasingly possible for users in developing countries.

The preceding chapter has shown a wide range of examples of virtual communities active in development related activity, representing a diversity of populations including academics, producers, and minority groups working on applications ranging from education and learning (Learning Networks for African Teachers) or agriculture and rural development (farmers in Mexicali, Mexico) to scientific research (Whole Earth Telescope).

Another example is the WON (Women on the Web)³²⁷ project set up by the Society for International Development with UNESCO support to provide a gender-friendly, multicultural perspective on international communication systems. WON’s first aim is to encourage women to use the Internet, particularly in the South and in marginalized groups in the North. The resultant collective presence is being applied to ensure a gender point of view in the emerging cyberculture, to bring together women and men to explore a transnational women’s movement agenda, and to create a Web based resource for these activities. The main mechanism for communication is a discussion list set up in the mid-1997, bringing together academics, activists and technologists from nearly 40 countries, mainly in the South and from concerned international organizations.

Other user communities co-operate with varying degrees of virtuality in self empowerment and in the development of local content. One interesting model is that of the “public service sector telematics user consortium” which federates the telematics experience and demand of the public sector, civil society, and other not-for-profit development actors to share promotional, training and capacity building, negotiate affordable tariffs with telecommunication operators and ISPs, lobby for appropriate public policies, and when appropriate ensure Internet service provision to the least advantaged sectors of society.

An example of such a public service consortium is developing in Ghana where, despite being one of the most advanced countries in sub-Saharan Africa in the telematics area with a liberalized telecommunication sector and four private ISPs serving an estimated 8000 users, public service sector institutions had not been able to take full advantage of the Internet because of budgetary and physical

access constraints. The Ghana National Committee on Internet Connectivity (GNCIC)³²⁸ – with representatives of universities, government departments and other public service institutions – is working closely with private sector operators and public authorities to improve connectivity and stimulate telematics development in the public service sector, with support from the ITU, UNDP, UNESCO and the World Bank. A national Internet Training Centre was set up in 1997 at the University of Ghana to provide facilities for training in network skills for the public and private sectors. A survey of the telematics situation in the country was conducted to identify the size of the problem and seek solutions to it, and was discussed at a National Conference of public service sector telematics users organized in January 1998. Follow-up activity supported by the World Bank’s infoDev programme has created a pilot national public service telematics backbone network with points of presence providing a pilot Internet service for 100 public service institutions.

Multipurpose Community Telecentres (MCTs), already discussed in some detail in the last chapter under “governance”, may be seen as a natural extension of existing community institutions such as cultural centres or public libraries, empowering local communities, including low-income groups, micro-enterprises, women and youth, to develop and use local content. A fundamental criterion for the success of an MCT is the participation and co-operation of a wide range of local organizations in establishing the facility and in developing content and applications: the private sector, NGOs, the public and also by government at all levels. A MCT is thus distinguished from a “telekiosk” or “public call office” operated strictly as a commercial venture, and from ICT centres set up to serve mainly a single client group (for example, a school system or a government service), although the dividing lines are not always clear in practice. MCTs can also provide facilities for the generation and exchange of community based information and forums for participatory democracy, particularly through interfaces in the vernacular language, and can link to “traditional” community media such as radio for outreach activities.

The integration of information and informatics technologies with mass media facilities, particularly community radio, in a single institution or a partnership, leads to the concept of a community multimedia centre (CMC) which has recently been developed as a programme thrust of the Global Knowledge Partnership under UNESCO “championship”.³²⁹

The MCT/CMC approach, with its three basic functional areas for content development and access, is presented schematically in the diagram below:

Functional scheme for a community multimedia centre (MCT plus community radio)