26 July 2004
By Royal D Colle
It is refreshing to see an effort in India to bring together a variety of government, NGO and private sector organisations in an attempt to harness for development the potential force of information and communication technologies. In May 2004, the National Alliance for Information and Communication Technologies for Basic Human Needs came into being and immediately set a goal of bringing all of the nation's 600,000 villages into the modern information society by 2007, the 60th anniversary of India's independence.
Information sells
Information kiosks would be a key part of the information infrastructure in rural areas. Despite skeptics who want hard statistics on improvements in poverty levels and other measures of ICT impact, this initiative reflects the confidence in what many of us have seen with our own eyes: the positive changes that can come from timely and relevant information and communication services.
Recently analysed data from three villages in south India indicate that people will pay for information if they perceive it to be valuable to them. While it is not scientifically appropriate to generalise to the whole population, the findings suggest that when they are motivated, there is no significant difference between poor people and others concerning a willingness to pay for information and communication resources. And this leads us to a challenge for the Alliance.
Computers, SMS, wireless loops and telecentres can be important factors in using ICT for such important purposes as meeting the Millennium Development Goals. But getting many in those 600,000 villages to use the kiosks and telecentres is problematic unless they aware of the value of information and what a telecentre is, and understand the potential of these ICTs to improve their lives.
E-kiosks: Governance at doorstep
We know (as do many rural people) that it can cost much less to obtain a land record or birth certificate using an e-government kiosk than travelling to a government office, paying a fee (and a bribe) and returning a second time to pick up a document.
However, focus group research in India reveals that many villagers do not know what a computer or Internet can do for them. Many do not know what a computer or the Internet is. Some among us will say that farmers and villagers know the value of information and they have indigenous knowledge that has guided their lives successfully for years. That is a highly romantic notion of the villager that is not borne out by careful study.
Prepare and involve the communities
From lessons learned in development communication projects, it is clear that people most in need of a specific information or communication service may not necessarily respond to simple service availability. Applying a build it and they will come approach is naïve.
A high priority for all countries hoping to use ICTs to meet the Millennium Development Goals is to carry out a large scale, well-organised campaign to build a society whose people understand and value accurate information that can make a difference in their lives. The National Alliance would contribute again to the ICT movement and to its 2007 target by mobilising a national strategically designed campaign to persuade urban and rural people alike about the value of knowledge, information and communication, and the role people at the grassroots can play in contributing to information databases.
And along the way, what you may see is service providers in health, agriculture, education, the private sector, and the government responding with better services ─ because an informed people will demand it.
About the author:
Royal D Colle is International Professor Emeritus at Cornell University, United States, where he has been a member of the faculty for almost 40 years. He was a project specialist for Ford Foundation to develop an Agricultural Communication Centre at G B Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Uttaranchal, India, and a key consultant for FAO/ICAR Centre for the Advanced Study of Agricultural Communication programme in India. He helped design a telecentre project at the Tamil Nadu University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences funded by IDRC.
Colle has also served as a consultant for international organisations such as the World Bank, World Health Organization, UN Population Fund and USAID. He can be contacted at rdc4@cornell.edu.
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