Introduction

Sharing her experiences in ICTs, at the Third Lango Forum organized by Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET) in February 2010, Ms Beatrice Aceng a rural women farmer, observed that many women were afraid to get out of their “comfort zones”. She said “Had I not got on my bicycle and come to Kubere Information Centre, I would have not been exposed to the various opportunities that mobile phones and radios offer. We were two women when we started coming for the computer lessons, later my friend dropped out, but I persisted until I learnt how to use some basic computer packages.” She said ICT has helped her and her group access market using their mobile phones. Almost every member of her group can now use phones comfortably.

Ms Aceng said that in 2008, her group used their mobile phone to link to a buyer in Lira, a neighbouring district and they were able to sell their produce at a good price and got a hefty eight hundred thousand Uganda shillings (approximately USD 400). In that same year, she was asked to come and share her farming experiences on radio as one of the progressive farmers on rearing local goats with a wider audience. She said this was a great opportunity for her and a good experience in using ICTs to share information with other members of the community.

But where is the technology situated?

In most cases, however simple a technological setup is, it is located in an urban setting or in a township setting where the infrastructure can support its set up and use. This then brings in cultural and gender issues of access. The experience in Uganda for instance demonstrates that although telecentres were set by IDRC with gender consideration in mind (IDRC 1987), mainly men used the facilities and as a result, a CD-ROM project was proposed by the International Women’s Tribune Centre (IWTC) in partnership with the International Development Research Centre/Eastern and Southern Africa Office (IDRC/ESAO), Nairobi, and implemented in Uganda by the Uganda National Council of Science and Technology (UNCST) in partnership with non-governmental organizations including the Council for Economic Empower ment of Women in Africa – Uganda Chapter (CEEWA-U), Media One and Uganda Development Services (UDS). The CD-ROM was pioneered in 2001 at three telecentres in the rural areas of Nakaseke and Buwama, and Nabweru in the peri-urban area.

In a research carried out between September 2005 and February 2006, it was found out that with the advent of the CD-ROM project, women accessed new information and ideas on how to improve their businesses, identifying business opportunities and discovering their potential. “As women gathered at the telecentres, they formed new relationships with each other and became more acquainted with the trainers with whom they shared experiences and challenges. Before then, all these women had led individual lives mainly centred on their immediate and extended families. In areas like Nakaseke and Buwama (which are rural), households are as far as 5 kilometres apart. Before and after the training sessions, women could find time to chat and share experiences among themselves. Consequently, new groups (both formal and informal) were formed to continue the relationships established at the telecentres. These included, for example, the Nabweru Revolving Fund, the Twekembe Women’s Group and the Nakaseke Women’s Development Association (NAWODA). These groups were based on self-help principles whereby a pool of resources would be collected to raise money for start-up capital and to boost the existing businesses.”

By providing grassroots women entrepreneurs with information, the CD-ROM project aimed at enhancing their enterprises, thereby empowering them economically. The study revealed that although the women used the information to improve and expand their businesses, most of them could not make significant progress as they spent much of the proceeds on household needs and their children’s welfare. The widowed women, however, illustrated a situation of self-discovery, moving from the status of dependency to that of independent and economically em powered individuals. They used the acquired information to make significant improvements in their businesses, made profits to take care of their families and also contributed positively to the development of their communities.

For the case of Kubere Information Centre in Northern Uganda, it was located strategically at the central market place, so that women could be able to easily access it, whenever they came to the market on market days. However it was still a small number that came directly the centre. Most preferred the information going to them at their localities.Of the range of ICTs available, the computer is least used in rural communities. Instead the mobile telephone and radio have picked up in a very surprising fashion.

Conclusion

One of the greatest areas of concern in development is livelihoods. Most rural women in Africa base their entire livelihood on agriculture. In order to improve their livelihoods, it is important to understand the challenges they face in their farming activities. Although the radio was identified as a very informative medium in regard to agricultural activities, the underlying question is: How effective is the information received on air translated into the ground? How has technology helped in translating this information into improved livelihoods? Do women own radios?

References

Patricia K. Litho : ICTs, empowerment and Women in rural Uganda: A SCOT Perspective. A paper presented at the “to think is to experiment”; SSMAC, Centre for Narrative Research, UEL, 22nd April 2005

WOUGNET 2005: Enhancing Access to Agricultural Information using ICTs – Baseline survey report.

Rural Women’s Voices Project : a Research report on Information needs, Information sources and Health, education, Livelihoods, Good Governance and Gender concerns of Rural women in Apac District. April 2008.

Susan Bakesha, Angela Nakafeero and Dorothy Okello, 2009: ICTs as agents of change: a case of grassroots women entrepreneurs in Uganda IN AFRICAN WOMEN AND ICTs edied by neke Buskens and Anne Webb

With my on-going work in Ghana, I noticed a range of knowledge/innovations by and with our local farmers here in Ghana. Some are very typical/indigenous; others are a mix of indigenous and scientific; and still others are purely scientific. As part of my data collection, I am getting a broad idea of the ranges in the communities and then will explore the role of ICTs in documenting both current and historical innovations for dissemination and for improvement through research.

With regard to exchange of knowledge from these multiple sources, I am talking to researchers, extension officers, local farmers, and other collaborators to understand the current communication modes and patterns. Based on these, I can recommend on what new tools to deploy into the system to facilitate knowledge sharing. At the moment, my result is showing a complex system consisting of -

i) very strong communication network among farmers;

ii) strong communication among extension officers;

iii) relatively weak communication network among researchers;

iv) very weak communication network across these systems.

So the issue of knowledge flow from research to the end users needs to be looked at. On the other hand, I am looking at the possibility of utilizing these same systems in getting farmers local innovations/knowledge back to research as well as disseminating them among other farmers.

It is also interesting to note that, there are other intermediaries within the system that are doing a number of things to get information from one actor to the other in the chain of actors within the sector. However, they don't talk to each other. Librarians are there trying hard to organize and make information accessible to the users; community information centers are also doing their own things; other NGOs and development organizations are also trying to liaise between producers and processors; and then the agricultural extension office remains to be the "white elephant" of knowledge transfer. But the issue is, where do all these intermediaries draw their knowledge packages from in order to make them available to the end user since there is little link - (huge gap) between them, "researchers" and the "local people"?

The situation calls for policy consideration! Researchers, extension workers and almost all other stakeholders I have talked to far in Ghana do value farmers local innovations but there is no national or institutional policies supporting or encouraging the documentation and use of these innovation in their work. Individual initiatives don't have much support and thus dropped eventually. A strong national policy will facilitate the incorporation into curriculum at the undergraduate and graduate levels of our universities at the same time with the various Ministries within the government.

Without national, regional and global policy to support this move, our work will continue to be based on individual initiatives that may start and end. Development organizations need to be driven and guided by national policies on local content for their interventions to have impact.

But the dilemma is that, policy makers also need some evidence in order to support national programs of research into local content. It is therefore time for us to engage the international development community to begin - provide the seed and then we can push it for the national governments to water, and we (the advocates/practitioners) will ensure good cultural practices for a good harvest.

Good luck to you in Brussels - Pete suggest I share this here as well. More will come as I work on the data.

Ben

During this time the Radio station at the heart of the centre has continued to thrive and he has built up the computing resources, earning revenue through access charges and training programmes. Peter established the cost sharing scheme with local institutions for expensive internet bandwidth and invested heavily in solar power. Nakaseke is also branching out into self-sustaining agricultural demonstration schemes such as a small piggery and organic farming methods.

Peter and his team have been engaging directly with the farming community around Nakaseke. Local Content is central to the work of the radio team. In this video Peter and his colleague, Jimmy Ssenabulya describe how they work with local farmers to gather relevant content and share it through the radio. They also confirm how difficult it is to use some external content and how information from trusted sources has greater impact.

CABI promote both externally generated content and Local Content from extension workers, researchers and farmers themselves, especially during their programme of Farmer Field Schools. They capture the content in various forms and re-package it for wider distribution. Jane emphasises the importance of sharing content that is often known only to a small group of people, such as scientists or researchers, that can be of wider use. She uses the example of work around Cassava Brown Streak disease where they gathered material - experiences and practices - from stakeholders including farmers, researchers, and scientists in order to prepare multi-media training materials.

But even these materials aren't used wholesale, for distribution. As Jane says, "people have their own indigenous solutions that have been tried and tested for a long time and they are comfortable using those solutions" And when, in working with livestock specialists in Tanzania, they were distributing their materials extension workers and others pointed out the gaps in the materials and suggested new solutions from their own experiences. So Jane emphasises that, "there is content out there that can be collected and properly organised and disseminated" and which would be more easily used because the source is trusted. Jane suggests we should rise to the challenge of finding, collecting, re-packaging and disseminating Local Content.

Jane then describes their work with other stakeholders on the development of KAINET, Kenya Agricultural Information Network. 'Harvesting' from other collections, KAINET will be a repository of relevant content. KAINET will provide an opportunity to promote and share Kenyan research, research which has been going on, as Jane says, "for over 100 years". Yet many people don't even know what is happening in other research institutes, while KAINET will also be a global resource for people interested in Kenyan research and content.

Information for Development

The objective of this programme is to empower rural communities to make more informed choices for a better livelihood through targeted information generation and exchange. This is achieved through:

• Generation, documentation and exchange of experiences from SAFIRE’s project beneficiaries as widely as possible supported by a range of different information and communication media
• Promotion of use of ICTs as tools for information exchange.
• Documentation of indigenous knowledge and promotion of access to information that is relevant to rural communities’ livelihood situations and Networking

Trainees at a centre

Rural information centres: Six rural information centres with a potential reach of 29,100 people are supported. These are Chimhanda in Rushinga, Nyamaropa in Nyanga, Nyanyadzi in Chimanimani, Mutambara in Chimanimani, Nyamazura in Mutare and Madzivanyika in Masvingo. The support given to the information centres include strengthening the capacity of the information centre management committees to effectively and independently run the information centres, equipping the centres with televisions and DVDs which increase access to information by rural communities as they are both audio and visual thus can be used even by those who cannot read or write, and distributing reading material on various topical issues.

Benefits to community: Computer literacy levels have increased among the communities around the information centres as a total of 1500 people received training in computers. Those that are now computer literate are able to do their own typing, access internet facilities thus broaden their knowledge base on a number of subjects. Three people secured jobs after receiving training from the information centres. Nancy Mataure a beneficiary of the project is now a volunteer worker at Mutambara Information centre where she assists with computer training and managing the information centre

Acceptance of ICTs among grassroots people has increased as a high number of people went through the information centres for different requests that ranged from sharing and gathering information, seeking computer services, documenting local content in local language.

Use of traditional herbs resurfacingThere is now improved health among the communities that are visiting the information centres as there is improved and increased information on medicinal plants uses. Mr. Chingwaru of Mutambara information centre is now offering courses in herb gardening and use in schools and to individual around the information centre. Some people who have tried using the traditional herbs have given testimony to their performance.

While it was the aim of the project to connect the information centres to the internet, none was connected during the year under review because of connectivity challenges. Some of the centres do not have telephone lines, where there are there, the costs are prohibitive and getting connected is very difficult as most of the rural telephones are not direct lines. As such these rural centers work off-line.

Capacity of rural communities to generate and exchange local content strengthened

Towards strengthening the capacity of rural communities to generate and exchange local content, sixteen representatives from the 6 SAFIRE supported information centres and one partner organization- EKOWSA visited the four information centres in Manicaland for information exchange and learning. The participants were trained in basic writing skills. This was aimed at improving the articles produced by communities. Currently the information centers produce local newsletters covering issues on agricultural production (crop and livestock including gardening, and poultry), nutrition (indigenous vegetable recipes, use of herbs) and HIV/AIDS, natural resources conservation (soil and water), group dynamics and development in general were generated for the newsletters. The communities also played a key role as generators of information for documentation on experiences in SAFIRE work and indigenous knowledge. The knowledge has been documented on DVDs, duplicated and shared. Theatre and drama was also used to raise awareness of issues of nutrition and HIV/AIDS. This has been documented for wider circulation.

In summary, Janet describes how for OKN they began to ask the women for stories and information about their lives and ways of working, for other people to hear. At first the women were uneasy, saying 'why would anyone want to listen to us, the stupid ones' (meaning uneducated). The WOUGNET team encouraged the women to recognise the value of their knowledge about farrming, health and other aspects of their lives. They began contributing stories and in the process gained confidence in themselves and their abilities to communicate. As well as entering the information into the OKN system, the stories, ideas and questions were broadcast on the local Community Radio, Radio Apac, as part of the wider WOUGNET programme. This has continued to develop and some of the women are now comfortable talking directly on the Radio.

The UNECA led Africa Knowledge Network (AKN) has aims that in many ways pick up from where OKN left off. Janet is on the Steering Committee and she also describes how she would like to integrate Local Content into the AKN, seeing it as,"the engine that drives the portal". As the African Knowledge Netwoork she believes it is important it shows African content online.

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.

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.

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!!