Scaling Telecenters for Development

A new publication untitled "Making the connection: Scaling Telecenters for development" was recently published through a partnership between the Academy for Educational Development (AED), IDRC's telecenter.org and Microsoft. This book identifies and discusses the most pressing issues facing the global telecenter movement, presents a condensed view of the current state of knowledge with regard to telecenters, and highlights possible paths forward. The publication is of great interest for ICT4D practitioners working in the field of telecenters and public access initiatives. Barbara Fillip from the Academy for Educational Development (AED) and Mark Surman from Telecenters.org, accepted to answer some of our questions in a very complete and extensive interview. The interview comes back on major Telecenters' issues, outputs of the book and finally introduces Telecenter.org and its wiki tool for going further. DGF: 1/ Foreword of the book reminds that, one underlying cause of poverty is the asymmetry of information between the poor and the rich, including the middlemen. Commitment to building a framework for empowerment of the poor must therefore, start with access to information andconnectivity. Why telecenters are still one of the surest way to succeed in reducing the digital divide ? BF: In many parts of the world, access to information is severely constrained by two critical factors: lack of connectivity and the cost of access. The two are very much interrelated. A common access or public access solution such as telecenters facilitates access for the entire community and makes it possible for the costs to be spread across the entire community of users. Once connectivity and costs are addressed, there is still a need to address local capacity. Computers and the Internet are still very much oriented towards literate English language speakers, so there is still a lot to be done to ensure that locally relevant content is available. MS: The other thing to consider is how people learn about new technologies, and ultimately how they figure out what the knowledge society will mean in their lives. Telecentres offer a social space for this kind of learning. There are others to learn from, and to get inspired by. This is very powerful as people are more likely to come up with interesting ways to innovate and map technologies onto their own lives when they are doing so with the support of friends and neighbours. DGF: 2/ At a local level, when we look at initiatives sharing access to information and connectivity, we observe an extremely wide range of different contexts and models. I am particularly thinking about private for profit initiatives versus non for profit initiatives depending on funders and local/national authorities. Is there one definition of what we call a "telecenter" ? BF: Telecenters come in different shapes, sizes, and sub-categories. I’m not sure that trying to get global consensus on one definition is necessary. I’d like to think that the term “telecenter” encompasses a broad range of locally relevant models for providing access to computers and connectivity. I think the common denominator is the concept of “public access”, as opposed to individual, household or private access solutions. MS: Yes, 'public access' ... and also the idea that this access is meant to have some kind of social benefit. DGF: 3/ During past decades ICT for Development practitioners have been working hard on Telecenters ' models and issues. One of the most central issue is to draw sustainable models for telecenters. From my understanding, it is also the central theme of your book (especially part II). Can you share with us the themes on which mainly depends the sustainability of a telecenter ? BF: Sustainability is indeed a central theme of the book and has been a central issue in the discourse around telecenters for a significant amount of time now. It’s a central issue for all development initiatives and particularly important in donor circles. I think we might want to try to move beyond this “sustainability” discourse because it has been so polluted by rhetoric. I don’t know that we want telecenters to be a permanent fixture of communities. What we should really be aiming for is continuity of access and continuous improvements both in terms of the quality and quantity of relevant information, but also improvements in terms of affordability and equity of access. In the end, the telecenter may become obsolete and it would have been a very useful transitional solution. Right now, however, sustainability is inextricably linked with scale. I’d argue that sustainability isn’t the main theme of the book, it’s an underlying theme. The main theme of the book is “scaling up”. You might argue that there’s little point in scaling up if the small scale initiatives haven’t proven to be sustainable. However, you might also argue that telecenters are rarely sustainable as independent entities struggling in isolation but they can be sustainable as part of a broader network of telecenters. That’s where the telecenter ecosystem comes in. MS: Totally right. The sustainability only comes when telecentres are hooked into the broader ecosystem through networks. Practically, that means that they have relationships with people who have services that they want to offer through these telecentres – government services, banking, health care, entertainment, education. These services drive use and demand, which ultimately is what makes anything sustainable. Networks normally offer offer support and learning, which help with sustainability as well. DGF: 4/ Local contexts of implementation are always very different. We have all heard about successes and failures in creating telecenters. Taking the example of the African continent, in northern countries (Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt) the connectivity has progressed a lot, the number of telecenters is important and the context is competitive where else in central and southern countries, managers are more facing infrastructure and cost of connectivity constrains. What are the major outputs of your book to this regard ? BF: The fact that there are so many different models and approaches is partially a reflection of the different regional, national and local realities. There is no one-size-fits all telecenter or telecenter model. We’ve tried to reflect that in the book by staying away from a step-by-step how-to handbook. We don’t want anyone to pick up the book and think that they’re going to find THE recipe for success, scale and sustainability. Instead, what we’ve tried to do is highlight what we think are the core issues that anyone interested in the deployment of telecenters should be aware of. That’s also why we’ve used a lot of case studies. They illustrate different approaches and different local contexts. They’re not there as best practices that can or should serve as models for replication. They’re in the book as illustrations of experiences from which important lessons can be learned. That being said, we also wanted the book to be of practical use and to provide some guidance for users. At the end of most chapters, there are two sections that are meant to encourage readers to go further, reflect on their own situation and identify their own next steps. “Make it your own” encourages the reader to ask themselves key questions. It’s really about applying key lessons of the chapter to their own country and their own context. “Analyzing your situation” takes it one step further and provides the beginning of a decision-making framework. DGF: 5/ What are the regions of the world experiencing the most important difficulties ? BF: I’m not sure it makes a lot of sense to talk in terms of regions or even countries. The challenges increase as you get further and further away from urban centers, whatever the region or country of the world. MS: I am not sure I completely agree here. We are definitely seeing difficulties in Africa that are more extreme that elsewhere. This has a lot to do with regressive telecom policies and the very high cost of connectivity. Telecentre activists work hard to overcome this and sustain this centres, but it is hard. Also, I am not sure it is all about rural. There are still huge challenges in urban communities, as telecentres are not just focused on access but also on social inclusion. DGF: Do we have some successful models of telecenters for all contexts ? BF: The book presents a wide range of case studies illustrating “successful” telecenters. You can’t just pick up pieces from all these successful telecenters and design one model that can be replicated everywhere. What you can do, however, is extract key concepts, identify the core pieces of the puzzle. Then it’s a matter of interpreting these concepts and adapting them to local contexts. Let me give you an example. We make it clear in the book that appropriate services and content are a key component of success for telecenters. That’s the broad concept. We go deeper than that by providing examples of the types of services and content that have proven successful in different contexts. However, we cannot suggest a specific list of services or content that would guarantee success in all contexts. You need to understand local contexts and the local demand for information and communication services to be able to dentify the right mix of services and content that are going to 1) serve the needs of the local population; and 2) ensure the telecenter’s sustainability. DGF: Question 7: If I want to start my own experience tomorrow and build a telecenter self-sufficient, serving the local community and based on a social entrepreneurship model, shall I succeed ? BF: It depends. The first piece of advice would be “don’t try to do it alone.” The independent entrepreneur model may be sustainable in some environments – in urban environments in particular – but it’s really difficult to imagine a country that would manage to provide access on a nationwide basis one individual entrepreneur at a time. You can still have a national scale effort that relies on individual entrepreneurs but they should probably be part of a network and have access to common services and support. MS: Yes, I totally agree. Working together with others in a network is a much bigger success factor, whether you are talking about government telecentres, something run by an NGO or a centre run by a social entrepreneur. However, I do think we need to look at social entrepreneurship as an important concept. It allows us to look at both the economic sustainability and the social impact as part of a single picture. For telecentres to have meaning, you need both sides of this equation. DGF: What makes the difference with your publication is the impressive amount of case studies and stories from the ground. How did you manage that ? BF: The case studies presented in the book are a combination of projects and activities that AED, telecentre.org and Microsoft’s Unlimited Potential program have been involved in, combined with existing well-documented case studies published on the web. We tried to maintain some geographic diversity in the case studies but each of them was selected primarily because it illustrated a specific point. That’s why they are interspersed throughout the text. They would not have worked as an appendix or a separate section of the book. DGF: telecentre.org is known as the widest network of telecenters from around the world. Can you shortly introduce where is the project today? What are your main activities? MS: telecentre.org is not so much a network as a broad community or umbrella that connects organizations committed to increasing the impact and sustainability of telecentres. One piece of this is help nurture national telecentre networks where ever possible. There are networks that are formally affiliated with telecentre.org over a dozen countries. These are in places as small as Sri Lanka and Mozambique and as big as India and Chile. It's very diverse. Also, there informal relationships with networks in about 20 more countries. The telecentre.org includes NGOs and companies around the world committed supporting the telecentre movement. DGF: How many members are taking benefit from this network and what are the main services offered? MS: telecentre.org is touch many thousands of telecentres around the world, but only indirectly through these national networks and partners. The services offered by these organizations vary from place to place. However, some common offerings include helpdesks, training programs, online services, connections to outside service providers. These network services help make telecentres more sustainable. Also, many telecentre.org partners offer services to each other. For example, there are partners offering business planning or information services to networks within the community. So, there is a lot of mutual reliance and peer support amongst these organizations. DGF: Telecentre.org released an online Wiki version of this publication. What is the objective ? Does that mean I can connect online and share my own experience in building a telecenter, or propose organizational models and self-sufficient activities (for example) ? BF: A book is a representation of knowledge that is fixed in time. While the web version of the book and the CD version make it more portable and accessible around the world, it’s still fixed in time. I can’t go back and add text or correct anything. Knowledge, however, is always evolving. I see the wiki as providing too benefits that complement the book: First, it allows for more perspectives to be heard. The book has two many authors and benefited from a lot of feedback but it’s still a limited perspective. The wiki allows the broader telecenter community to contribute. Second, the wiki is a way of recording changing in our knowledge, adding case studies, correcting facts. Source: dgCommunities

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