ICTs for Development in Africa

This edition of The Soul Beat focuses on the role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in development in Africa. It looks at a selection of projects, project evaluations, strategic thinking documents and materials from our network that deal with the role of ICTs in education, women's development and economic development in Africa. The newsletter also looks at the issue of building ICT infrastructure in Africa and the role of the media in promoting ICTs for development on the continent.

ICTs in Education


1. Towards a Strategy on Developing African Teacher Capabilities in the Use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT)

SchoolNet Africa

This study aims to be an examination of teacher training in ICTs in African countries at both the pre-service and inservice levels. The report identifies and lists ICT courses and programmes available to African teachers in Africa, some of which are evaluated in more detail in order to highlight the obstacles and challenges to ICT integration in teacher training in Africa. Based on these the report also includes some recommendations for the integration of ICT by and for African teachers.

2. Managing ICTs in South African Schools: A Guide for School Principals

by Maryla Bialobrzeska and Susan Cohen

The purpose of this guide is to give principals and senior school management information on using and managing ICT resources so that they can provide leadership in their schools. The guide also considers some implications of the use of computers and related resources for teaching and learning and takes into consideration pedagogic issues surrounding the integration of computers into the curriculum.

3. Building ICT4D Capacity in and by African Universities

Universities and community telecenters can be considered as similar as they both include the generation, storage and diffusion of knowledge and information. Yet, in most developing countries where telecenters strive to be demand-driven, universities are seldom perceived as relevant to telecenter's sustainability. Focusing especially on Africa and using the nomenclature of the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), this paper examines the mutual benefits that universities and telecenters could gain from a stronger relationship, and lays out the kinds of steps that might be taken to build a partnership. The paper challenges the perception that "universities are irrelevant" and describes a comprehensive ICT development initiative that includes teaching, research and outreach.

4. ICT and Literacy: who benefits?

This report is intended to provide readers with a comprehensive description of the context of the Commonwealth of Learning Literacy Project (COLLIT), the experience of implementing it, an analysis of the outcomes and the insights gained. It aims to help practitioners in their planning of future ICT applications in the context of community-level literacy development, and add to the general literature concerning the use of ICTs in the provision of literacy and non-formal education.

Also see:

A Review of Good Practice in ICT and Special Educational Needs for Africa

Impact Assessment of a School-Based Information And Communication Technology Centre in Binga District, Zimbabwe

ICTs and women


5. The Role of Information and Communication Technologies in the Development of African Women

by Jennifer Radloff

This paper sets out to look at the question of ICTs in relation to women's development in Africa. The paper aims to highlight key issues and challenges faced by women in Africa, provides examples of good practice and includes recommendations to civil society organisations on how to create an enabling environment for women to access and use ICTs for development. The document gives an understanding of the gender dimensions of the information society, the conditions of access and policies, and explores the potential ICTs have in boosting the economic, political and social empowerment of women, and the promotion of gender equality.

6. Gender Research in Africa into ICTs for Empowerment (GRACE) - Africa

GRACE is a research programme working in 12 African countries that aims to bring together African researchers to study ICTs and women's empowerment. Through this research, GRACE hopes to influence debates on gender and ICTs and on national and provincial policies. The GRACE initiative is a 2 year project managed by the Association for Progressive Communications Women's Networking Programme (APC WNSP).

Contact Jenny Radloff jenny@apcwomen.org OR africa@apcwomen.org

7. Gender and ICTs for Development: A Global Source Book

This book is a collection of case studies about women and their communities in developing countries, including Ghana and Sierra Leone, and looks at how they have been influenced by ICTs. The book acknowledges that women experience discrimination in the information society but considers the fact that women, even resource-poor and non-literate women and their organisations are aware of the power of information technologies and communication processes and, if given the opportunity to do so, will use them to advance their basic needs and strategic interests.

8. Kalomo Bwacha Women ICT Club - Zambia

Since 2004, the women of Kalomo district, some 400 kilometres South of Lusaka have been using new technologies to gain social and economic benefits. These women under the Kalomo Bwacha Women’s Women Information Communication Technology (ICT) Club, are using the only resource centre in the district to improve other women's money making activities by using the internet to market their produce. In turn, this helps to increase their money base and therefore, the circulation of money in the district.

Contact Annemiek van Schie aschie@iicd.org OR information@iicd.org

Also see:

Gender Evaluation Methodology (GEM) for Internet & ICTs: Manual for gender-focused evaluation of ICT projects

ICTs and economic development

9. Building Digital Opportunities (BDO) Programme: Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and Poverty Reduction in Sub Saharan Africa

Focusing on activities in Mali, Uganda and Zambia, this study examines progress in fulfilling the BDO programme's global objective to ensure that ICTs contribute to the achievement of the 8 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and 17 Millennium Development Targets. The findings of the study show a pro poor effectiveness of the BDO effort who provide ICT-focused support for to development and poverty reduction. The BDO achievements demonstrate that ICTs can contribute significantly to poverty reduction in all three dimensions of empowerment, opportunity and security, and to an attainment of the Multilateral Development Goals (MDGs).

10. Enterprise Across the Digital Divide: Information Systems and Rural Microenterprise in Botswana

This paper explores the role of information and information-handling technologies in rural micro enterprises (MSEs). Through a case study of rural MSEs in Botswana's economically poorest areas in 1999, the researchers identified social networks as the primary information system among poor rural entrepreneurs. These networks are informal, and highly localised information systems and while effective in many ways, these systems can also be constrained and very insular. Greater access to shared telephone services is proposed as a strategy for breaking this insularity and ICTs are considered as playing a supplementary role but would need to be based in intermediary organisations that can provide complementary inputs of finance, skills, knowledge, and other resources.

11. Evaluation Report on the Reflect ICTs Project

This 32-page document provides an evaluation of the Department for International Development (DFID)-funded project Reflect ICTs, which is being carried out by ActionAid International (AAI) and local partners in Burundi, India, and Uganda. As part of this project, ICTs are being introduced to existing community-based discussion circles ("Reflect circles"), as part of an effort to enhance the capacity of people to make strategic choices about the media of communication that they have identified as most relevant to their specific needs. The evaluators found that in India and Uganda, for example, the project supported the building of good teamwork and stronger partnerships. The report also identifies some weaknesses, such as shortcomings in action research and progress reporting at country level, implementation, the building up of video documenting capacity at community level, administrative communication and controls, and exposure of communities to modern ICTs.

12. Regional Agricultural Information Network (RAIN) - Eastern and Central Africa (ECA)

RAIN is a network of agricultural information organisations and professionals in 10 countries in eastern and central Africa (ECA): Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. The network promotes sustainable management of client-oriented agricultural information throughout the region. RAIN is a project of the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA).

Contact Dorothy Mukhebi d.mukhebi@asareca.org OR rain@asareca.org

Also see:

Up-Scaling Pro-poor ICT-Policies and Practices

First Mile Project - Tanzania

Mainstreaming ICTs: Africa Lives the Information Society

Building ICT Infrastructure in Africa

13. Bootstraps, slingshots and angels: Engaging the private sector in Africa - the CATIA experience

For nearly three years the Catalysing Access to ICTs in Africa programme (CATIA) has worked towards strengthening the context for the adoption and use of ICTs in Africa. The programme has been set up with nine components, each with its particular advocacy aim, in countries as diverse as Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Senegal. As components have found, the private sector is crucial to the success of their interventions. This paper documents CATIA's experience in engaging the private sector and looks at successes and challenges the programme has had over the past two-and-a-half years.

14. Strategies for Increased Internet Growth

A Call for a Paradigm Shift to Stimulate Internet Growth Through Content

This is a Position Paper commissioned by African Internet Service Provider's Association (AfrISPA) Board to explore and advocate for strategies that will enable African stakeholders to generate and host sufficient content on the internet to serve the needs of the African society. The view is that access to this content will generate increased internet traffic and spawn the necessary infrastructure. The Paper advocates that decision makers in Africa introduce measures to create the necessary infrastructure and support models to generate African content in the internet.

15. I-Network - Uganda

The Information Network (I-Network) Uganda is a national network of individuals and organisations (drawn from the private sector, government and civil society) that provides a platform for sharing knowledge and forming partnerships around the use of ICT to address development challenges.

Contact Vincent Waiswa vincent@aitecafrica.com OR admin@i-network.or.ug

Also see:


Creating and Sustaining ICT Projects in Mozambique

Media and ICTs in Africa

16. 'Spits and Spurts' ICT Advocacy and the Media in Africa

The Catalysing Access to ICTs in Africa (CATIA) Experience

This report, commissioned by Catalysing Access to ICTs in Africa (CATIA), a three year programme funded by the Department for International Development in collaboration with other donors, looks at the role of the media as active catalysts for change in the field of ICT in Africa. Working across the continent on key ICT issues such as low-cost wireless technology, affordable computing, ICT policy, local content and capacity development, the CATIA experience shows that multi-stakeholder partnerships - which include the media - can be instrumental in developing an influential presence in a developing ICT environment.

17. Why calls in Africa cost: The need for VSATs

Panos Media Toolkit on ICTs – no.2

This briefing is the second in a series of short briefing documents for journalists on different aspects of ICTs and the 'information society'. According to the brief, there is not much public pressure being put on governments to change their policies, because few people – including journalists – understand the technologies or the difference they could make to development. Nor do they understand the role of law and policy in making the technologies available. But public demand – supported by media – could force governments to speed up change.

18. African Media and ICT4D: Documentary Evidence

A baseline study on the state of media reporting on ICTand information society issues in Africa

2003

Compiled for the Economic Commission for Africa by Roland Stanbridge and Maria Ljunggren
This study is aimed at encouraging journalism and media coverage of ICTs and Information Society issues. It reviews the coverage of ICT issues in African media, identifies areas of weakness and proposes, amongst other things, ICT training for journalists , ICT reporting awards and the creation of an information society debate journal.

EVENTS

19. Bridging the North-South Divide in Scholarly Communication on Africa. Threats and Opportunities in the Digital Era

Leiden, The Netherlands (Sep 6-8 2006)

20. CIDC2006 Conference: Community Informatics for Developing Countries - Understanding and organising for a participatory future information society
Cape Town, South Africa (Aug 31-Sep 02 2006)

21. Highway Africa @10: Celebration, Reflections & Future Directions

Grahamstown, South Africa (Sep 11-15 2006)

22. Wireless Broadband East Africa Forum: Technologies and Strategies to Evolve Optimised Networks)

Nairobi, Kenya (Nov 29- Dec 1 2006)

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The Soul Beat seeks to cover the full range of communication for development activities. Inclusion of an item does not imply endorsement or support by The Partners.

Please send material for The Soul Beat to the Editor - Anja Venth aventh@comminit.com