My last post included a video interview with Dr Bitange Ndemo, the Permanent Secretary of the Kenyan Govt. ICT Ministry, talking about how why he sees the Local Content as key to our future. But I didn't include a summary of what he said, This excudes those on slow Internet connections since they can't easily view the video. With apologies, here is a summary:
Dr Ndemo talked about how we are now able to collect and store information which in the past has been orally passed from generation to generation. By storing it in a better way we can be able to preserve our knowledge. Dr Ndem is especially interested in engaging young people, particularly those who are unemployed, and training them in the use of modern technologies so they can collect the information.
Dr Bitange Ndemo is the Permanent Secretary to the Kenyan ICT Ministry. He has been spearheading the roll-out of infrastructure and capacity in Kenya to capitalise on the opportunities provided by the new undersea cable providing high-speed Internet access.
Cleopa Otieno and Charles Ogada of KenTel (and the Ugunja Community Resource Centre) together with James Nguo of ALIN and Pete Cranston met Dr Ndemo to talk about progress on the Digital Villages programme and the role of Local Content in Kenya's development.
As he explains in this clip, Dr Ndemo is a keen advocate of the key role of local content in Kenya.
In recent times, there has been a sudden surge of interest globally in the generation and use of local and open knowledge and involvement of local communities. Such initiatives in Africa include the Open Knowledge Network, Open Educational Resources, e-Society and the most recent is the Knowledge Networks initiative, which is a UN initiative jointly implemented by the Regional Commissions of the UN with the ESCWA as the lead agency. The African Knowledge Network was launched in Dar Es salaam this July, with the aim of empowering poor and disadvantaged communities through the transformative of existing ICT access points.The working mechanism of this Network will be generation of local content through a Network of community telecentres to a central Web Portal where information/Knowledge can be openly accessed.
Why the sudden interest in local content?
Implementators of Access4Dev projects have progressively realized that without the involvement and participation of local communities, not much has been achieved in way of directly impacting on livelihoods. Having this knowledge/information transformed into something tangible that touches livelihood at the grassroot level, has most times been a challenge. All the knowledge/content generated during project periods, most times remains untapped or inaccessible to the people whose lives it was meant to improve.
Will Web Portals solve this problem?
In Africa, we have to realize that, we are a verbal community. The use of community radios and lately mobile phones can prove this. The growth rate of these two information channels have been so rapid in rural and remote districts, this is so because it cuts across the literacy levels and secondly the use of local language is automatic. Transmission and access to information using these two channels is therefore very common in rural communities.
Another of the approaches that is currently being applied by the Knowledge Networks is the use of Telecentres and Information points at community level. These are being tapped on the assumption that, these information/community information points have been in existence in these communities for a period of time and based on this assumption is that they are actively used by the communities. However the use of Web Portals for content management will prove challenging given the low levels of ICT literacy and poor telecommunication infrastructure. Such initiatives are not bad per se, but have to be critically assessed and explored as the local terrain is not always even in terms of technologically oriented projects.
The next question would be: When will Africa get there?
Answer: We are progressively getting there!!
Janet Achora of WOUGNET sent in this post from their work in the Apac district of Uganda
Local African communities are reserved communities and very protective of their cultures and social norms. In my experience of working with rural communities during the last 20 years, unless a community accepts you, no meaningful engagement will take place.
During one of the disseminations meetings with “Oribcing” women farmers group in Atana Parish, Apac district in Northern Uganda, as is the routine, the women brought out the radio cassette player and placed it in the middle of the circle since we would all sit around it. After much singing and dancing, as a way of welcome we sat down to catch up on the latest events that had been happening in the community. After this brief rapport, the listening session commenced and this time the topic for listening and discussion was “Post harvest handling”
Usually in these meetings, when we can, we go with an agricultural extension worker from either the district agricultural office or from the partner NGOs who are involved in agricultural development. This is done so that the agricultural expert is able to directly respond to the questions raised by the group members after listening to the topic. The topics are normally replays recorded on an audio tape from radio talk shows done weekly by the Kubere Information centre staff.
It is during such interactive sessions that interesting issues come up. Members will normally talk about the traditional methods that they use and ask questions around this, based on what topic the audio recording was about. The agricultural expert is expected to bring in the technical aspect, of the advantages and disadvantages of using such methods, probably bring in new information, like for this case, on handling harvest. Much as the women learn from such sessions, they too contribute their local knowledge, practices and provide insight into issues that sometimes are overlooked by professional agriculturalists. And these sometimes are issues that need further looking into from the agricultural research aspect.
The meetings normally also involve going to look at one of the member’s gardens or to look at either the crop or animals. Sometimes practical demonstrations are held. For example “ How to make composite manure using local materials”
From such experiences, people in communities are more willing to contribute their own content when they are involved and when the information is practical. And one of the methods is to engage in information exchange with them. This process of course involves a lot of time, planning, documentation and both human and financial resources.
Paul Barera is a key figure in the Rwanda Telecentre Movement. He coordinates the Rwanda network and is playing a key role in the forthcoming Africa Knowledge Network. Paul sent a response to our research questionnaire about Local Content activities which I summarise below.
Local Content is critical issue in Rwanda because most of the content currently available is in foreign languages (English and French) while the majority can only understand Kinyarwanda. Very recently some Telecentres have started working on content but with limited resources. Rwanda Telecentre Network, as a leading organisation of Telecentre movement, has some activities at national level to address this issue:
Currently we have 25 operational Telecentres. The aim is have one Telecentre in each District before the end of this year. Our aim is to transform those existing ICT access points into Knowledge Hubs and link them at National Level by Rwanda Content Consortium. So far, participatory research was done in some villages like Nyamata to identify information needs. Also, consultative meetings were organised to assess the possibility of forming the National Content Consortium
We are working with rural communities. Currently, we are still at research level. We are doing participatory research to identify their information needs so we are mobilising resources to start generating and disseminating content. We are using a mix of non-electronic and electronic media including radio, online tools and mobile phones. In the process of disseminating content we plan to use online tools (web portal) and mobile phone. Since mobile has become a tool owned by the majority of people including rural peasants, we consider it as strategic option to collect and disseminate content.
Currently we are working with Rwanda Development Board through Rural and Community Development but eventually we will be working with other organisations including research organisations, NGOs and academia. We discuss this issue with Donors, they understand the role of local content in Development.
Our success criteria are to have an increase of Knowledge centres, to see at least a knowledge centre in each sector (currently we have around 300 Sectors country wide). We want to see experts in various fields linked with rural communities through National Content Consortium.
