From pilot syndrome to upscaling ICT initiatives: The grassroots perspective

Reported by Bidisha Pillai, Digital Opportunity Channel Manager, from Geneva. Most ICT initiatives till date have been in the form of pilot projects that have worked well in a small community.  To upscale this to the national level would need not only excellent planning, but also support from a wide range of players. OneWorld South Asia organized a Panel Discussion "From Pilot Syndrome to Up scaling ICT initiatives - the Grassroots Perspective" at PrepCom 3 on 28th September in this context.  The discussion was opened by Tracey Naughton, a development communication consultant working in the field for over twenty years. She shared the example of three ICT based development initiatives in southern Africa, which were based on three different partnership models, government with community, private sector with community and community with a donor organisation. The first two examples failed because the programmes did not connect with the end users or the grassroots communities in the first place. There was a complete absence of needs assessment and capacity building.  The last project was based on the initiative being taken from the community who linked up with a donor organisation. This was the only successful programme because it started off as a development centre providing vocational training and then further moved on to integrate ICTs in their programme. It was a completely bottom up approach which ensured the success of the project. Basudev, a grassroots community worker from Nepal, then shared his experience of running a community library in his village. The model there too was completely community based and started off as an initiative by the villagers themselves. The library has activities ranging from promoting education, health awareness, awareness about environment protection, gender equality, skill training, computer training and livelihood opportunities. The library is also an access point for the open knowledge network, which promotes the collation and sharing of local content in local languages. The programme is based on the requirements of the villagers and run by the villagers to improve the quality of their lives. The community has also been able to develop a multi stakeholder partnership by engaging with NGOs and the government who support their initiative. Basu laid emphasis on the fact that an information society should focus on the development needs of the people and aim to address those issues as a priority. He hoped his model would serve as a good example to the policy makers at WSIS. Prof Subbaiah Arunachalam, Trustee, OneWorld South Asia, shared his experience of Indian ICT based initiatives similar to those being run by Basu in Nepal. He showcased an initiative that is currently on in India, which is looking at taking similar knowledge centres to every village in India by the year 2007, thereby up scaling ICT based development initiatives. It is based on the premise of how science and technology, or information and communication technologies could be used for poverty alleviation, better education, gender equality and improved livelihood options. The manner in which this is being implemented is once again the community based model, where in the first instance the people were asked to identify their problems and information needs.  Based on this, information is provided to them and they are then provided the training to enable them to access and use that information to their advantage. The key focus is on the people and their needs and technology is being looked at only as an enabler in the entire mission. It is therefore evident that an information society cannot exist in a vaccum and needs to be formed with the objective of furthering development goals that would ultimately have a positive and long lasting effect on the lives of people. It would need to further recognize the importance of multi stakeholder partnerships, involving governments, civil society organisations, private enterprise and most importantly the grassroots communities who need to own the process to ensure sustainability.

User comments

 Printable version