On November 8-9, 2007, UgaBYTES organized the Fourth East Africa Telecentre Leaders Forum. The theme of this event was Social Enterprise and telecentre sustainability. The first part of this blog deals about the address provided by Bob Lyazi, Fund Manager for the Rural Communications Development Fund (which is managed by the Uganda Communications Commission - UCC), who provided some insightful information about telecentre sustainability challenges in Uganda.
UCC, through its Rural Community Development Fund (RCDF) plans to use an entrepreneurial/franchise model to set up 1 telecentre in every district (82 in total) in Uganda by the end of 2007. RCDF selects the area and entrepreneur for the telecentre, contributes 50% of the setup costs, and provides a menu of services that the telecentre can implement. The telecentre operator does not need to pay back the set-up costs contributed by RCDF as long as the telecentre remains open for more than five years.
There aren’t many challenges outside of money that cause telecentres to close down, so sustainability is closely related to money.
Environmental challenges:
- Low levels of literacy
- Lack of ICT integration every every-day community activities (no appropriate technologies for rural areas – e.g., cell phones loaded with many features)
- Lack of appropriate content: this relates to both form (need more icons, pictures, etc.) and language (content is not localized
- Power supply: country suffers from frequent power outages and generators are often not cost effective.
- Connectivity: costs remain very high and the service is unreliable (and telecentres do not compensated for down time).
Opportunities:
- New market: rural ICT is a relatively new market, in which there’s still little competition. Many telecentres are the first ones to set up shop in a community, giving them a first mover advantage.
- Government incentives: through RCDF the government helps to set up telecentres. Furthermore, tax breaks are afforded to telecentres.
- Macroeconomic trends: the country is growing, lifting incomes and increasing the demand for ICT.
- Backbone networks: Africa-wide drive to set up a backbone network. One will be implemented in Uganda within two years. This will drive costs down and connectivity speeds up.
- Partners: there exists a host of ICT4D partners (NGOs, multilateral agencies, etc.) in the region.
Management of challenges
- More services: telecentres now realize that they need to introduce value added services that go beyond ICT and that focus on information. Telecentres are also increasing sharing their facilities to decrease costs and increase traffic. For example, telecentres share facilities with bookshops, stationery shops, and foreign exchange bureaus.
- Social integration: the community needs to be involved in the development of the telecentre.
- Forums: these serve to exchange experiences and knowledge and to assist telecentres to grow their activities.
- Top-down approach: UCC has found its top-down approach successful for setting up and growing telecentres. The approach is to set up a telecentre in the most developed town in one area. Once the telecentre is successful there, adjoining towns will want their own and new telecentres will spread.
- Extension services: teleentres can go beyond their premises. For example one telecentre takes its computers to a school for a two-week period, then rotates to another school for another two weeks.
- Economies of scale: having one organization manage 2-3 telecentres is more efficient than one stand-alone telecentre.
- Appropriate technologies: innovations such as the Invedeo computer provide low-power equipment that is appropriate for the East Africa environment.
- Promotion of appropriate content: UCC observes children’s content needs and then develops it.
Recommendations:
Bob Lyazi recommended that telecentres be committed to service quality. That means demanding quality from suppliers and service providers (for example, by measuring, documenting, and reporting internet speeds) and providing quality service to users.
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