Local Content Development for improving rural access to telecommunications services

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Permalink Reply by Rae Rivera-Casas on January 20, 2010 at 9:08pm

Hi, Abubaker.

Yes, I believe that in any community project, a needs assessment activity should be implemented so that developmental interventions (such as creating local development in this case) will be based on local culture, knowledge, and experience. Consultation among key stakeholders in the community and later on, with the other project partners, will enable you to gather more community support on, social acceptability for, and manage expectations about the initiative. There will be greater ownership when the community and project partners feel that they have contributed in the project planning and design stage.

Needs assessment activities may or may not be in-depth, depending on your time table and budget. I suggest that you look into several methods that NGOs and other grassroots intervention groups use such as the Rapid Appraisal Method, participatory rapid appraisal, focus group discussions, or even just simple consultation meetings with the stakeholders.

I also agree with one of our co-discussants here when he said that you can just "harvest" the existing content available, instead of spending time on developing new ones. But in using existing content, may I suggest that you spend resources on validating the usefulness of the information and content to the community. After validation, you may need to spend a bit of time for language translation or subtitles. There is a wealth of digital content available in communities around the world but you'll just have to be able to decipher which ones are applicable to your community.

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Permalink Reply by RANABIR DAS on January 21, 2010 at 12:43am

Yes, that is the right way. The PPP Model. We are doing it in India under the eGovernance banner of the Central Govt.

We are Private partner to 6 states and have manadated to set 30000 telecenters of common service centers.

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Permalink Reply by Abubaker Ntambi on January 25, 2010 at 12:45am

Hullo Ranabir, you were right. the PPP model or approach to community interventions is the way to go as sustainability of such projects is assured. im however also interested exactly in knowing how the telecenters will be sustained and managed. we have telecenter sustainability issues in uganda and so the discussion around this would help us improve our interventions. How about community-buy-in issues regarding telecenters? im looking forward to your discussion around these and many other issues.

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Permalink Reply by gunadasa rathnayaka on January 20, 2010 at 9:06am

yes I will try my best.I have been examples how to developing local content projects.can you like to know something about nenasala(knowledge center) ICT IS an increasingly powerful tool for participating in global markets promoting political accountability improving the delivery of basic services and development opportunities .nenasala (knowledge center) vision is harness ict as a leader for economic and social advancement of ict to vary citizen to every business to the engines the way government .
come visit please www.nenasal.lk

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Permalink Reply by Abubaker Ntambi on January 25, 2010 at 12:39am

Hullo Gunadasa, the idea of nenasal is great. please share with me and the group more detail about how it works. for sometime now, i have been thinking of how we could implement knowledge centers in communities in uganda and this could add value and ideas and also grow the discussion to what we are currently thinking about. has the nenasala idea been tested and or implemented already? if yes, what have been some of the key challenges and benefits that the intervention has brough about? for instance, does th eidea pose some managerial and or operational challenges?

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Permalink Reply by MJR David on January 20, 2010 at 4:39pm

Dear Colleagues

I would like to introduce our little initiative from Sri Lanka, its www.telradio.org .Its a effort to develop local content using Digital stories.

The model is to to develop local knowledge pools that could be local and global at the same time -the digital story telling is being fasilitatedby a number of cross current interactions such as workshops, meetings, live internet radio etc.

A number of community groups in Sri Lanka are working with telradio
Pls tell us what you think .

mjrdavid@gmail.com

Regards
MJR David

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Permalink Reply by Abubaker Ntambi on January 25, 2010 at 12:33am

Hi David, thanks for sharing with the group about the idea of Telradio. I actually went to the Telradio site and learned more about the intervention but my interest is knowing whether this intervention can be scalled up to cover the whole nation/country. Is the idea of Telradio managed by the state or by an NGO? how is content solicited and collated for instance? David please expound on the idea. its a great idea that i would like to know more about.

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Permalink Reply by Francis Mwathi on January 21, 2010 at 5:10am

Hallo Ntambi.The strength of new (ICTs) such as the Internet is the way they can help unlock distant expertise, knowledge and markets. In a rough estimate, there are more than 2000 languages on the African continent, but one can access articles written in less than 2% of the languages. What happens to the knowledge, experience, and culture of the rest?
•If ICTs are to be used as an empowerment tool they need to;
•Be conveyors of locally relevant messages and information.
•Provide opportunities for local people to interact and communicate with each other, expressing their own ideas, knowledge and culture in their own languages.
But challenges faced in Local content creation is the fact that. New media are being developed and implemented in ways that follow and reinforce prevailing structures of power and influence. Again access to and control over information is central to positive change, especially for rural communities. So although developmental goals like meeting the basic needs and addressing the lower status of rural communities are still top priorities in Africa, there is a need to focus on new but cheaper technologies.
This can be tackled by working with the community in ways that result in local ownership of the content as well as the processes to express it. Avoid being top down and benefit only the educated people in the community. The steps taken to ensure this are as follows:
•Engage community leaders first and to a larger group of community representatives that include all sections of the community. Men, women, youth, etc.
•Discuss the concept of knowledge and information with the community and emphasize the fact that it should not only be produced by experts, but is a product of human creation controlled by the historical, cultural and social conditions that users bring to bear on it.
•Communities elect their own steering committee that would oversee the development of the process and ensure balanced representation across gender, age and education levels

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Permalink Reply by Abubaker Ntambi on January 25, 2010 at 12:26am

Dear Mwathi, i am so previllaged to have heard from you. your contribution to the debate is owesome and i like the way you approached it. I was however also interested in you sharing with us all the experience in your country and how local content development is being developed, delivered and/or strengthened. For instance, what specific interventions have been applied that you could perharps share with the group or what is being planned and how this works. Looking forward to sharing with you and the rest of the colleagues on this soon

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Permalink Reply by Jim McKirdy on January 22, 2010 at 10:08am

Dear Abubaker, We have developed a disaster communications system for disasters in the United States. Some of the unique features of this system is that they work when other forms of communications has failed like land lines, cell phones and Sat Comm type products. This system is designed around covering the United States so that every organization involved in the recovery would be able to communicate during and after the disaster. The very best feature of the system is there is no money charges for air time unlike cell phone charges. Also the small hand held units uses solar chargers so this makes our system sustainable and very reliable. This could be the answer that you are looking into.

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Permalink Reply by Abubaker Ntambi on January 25, 2010 at 12:18am

Dear Jim, Many thanks for your solution. actually we held a regional disaster workshop in Uganda recently (comprising of stakeholders from east africa, europe and asia) whose main focus was to interest key stakeholders in the communications industry in developing a national disaster communications center, a center that could be used in coordinating national disaster responses. The system you developed for the U.S. is exactly what stakeholders mainly deliberated on. the ability of the feature of using solar energy among other additions is a great idea that would go along way in addressing the poverty aspect of most families, households in uganda. I would like to know, however, whether your ystem is already being implemented in the U.S and if yes what challenges, benefits and/or experiences it has presented to you. im looking forward to furthering this with you soon.

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Permalink Reply by Masahudu M. Marhey on January 22, 2010 at 2:00pm

I really welcome your idea and all must contribute to this discussion. In Ghana for instance, the government is living no stone unturned to improved access of telecommunication the rural folk by creating E-containers in every village where the people can access the prices of their farm products in the larger market. Developing local content should embrace all the stakeholders in the local communities so that no one would be left out in the quest to improve access to telecommunication.

Mohammed M. Masahudu.

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