Final Report ACP ICT Program 20jan 2005

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Final Report:Feasibility Study for Information Society

Program in ACP Countries

www.trigrammic.com

Cape Town Office Phone/Fax +27 21 790 1327 Pretoria Office Phone/Fax +27 12 361 4334P O Box 26138 P O Box 72267Hout Bay 7872 South Africa Lynnwood Ridge 0040 South [email protected] [email protected]

Final Report

Feasibility Study foranInformation Society Program for theAfrican, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP)Countries

(Grant Agreement # 1237)

20 January 2005

Project Leaders:

Tina JamesKate Wild

Team Members:

Lishan AdamBoubakar Barry

Stephen EsselaarValerie GordonTaholo Kami

Yacine KhelladiVidya KissoonJonathan MillerDavid Souter
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS..........................................................................................iTHE PROJECT TEAM..........................................................................................iiiLIST OF ACRONYMS...........................................................................................ixEXECUTIVE SUMMARY.........................................................................................x

A. Introduction and Objectives..........................................................................xB. The Development Challenges.......................................................................xiiiC. The Proposed ACP ICT Program ...................................................................xiii

C1. Program Focus ...................................................................................xiiiC2. Program Components............................................................................xivC3. Program Outputs and Outcomes................................................................xvC4. Program Activities................................................................................xvC5. Target Beneficiaries..............................................................................xv

1. Introduction................................................................................................12. Factors Influencing the Design of the EUs ICT Program for the ACP Countries................2

2.1 The Development Context ..........................................................................22.2 Capturing the Lessons for ICT Programs...........................................................32.3 Capturing Lessons for ICT Projects and Applications...........................................5

2.3.1 ICT and Gender...................................................................................52.3.2 Policy and Regulation..........................................................................62.3.3 ICTs, Economic Growth and Poverty.........................................................72.3.4 Sectoral Applications of ICT...................................................................72.3.5 Broad Lessons ..................................................................................10

2.4 The EU and ICT for Development Programs.....................................................103. Identifying the Problems and Opportunities: Findings from the Regional Research..........124. Statement of the Problem..............................................................................17

4.1 Challenges.............................................................................................18

4.2 Opportunities for the EU Strategic choices....................................................215. Program Philosophy and Objectives ..................................................................23

5.1 Overall Philosophy..................................................................................235.2 Overall Program Objective and Purpose.........................................................245.3 Target Beneficiaries ................................................................................255.4 Outputs and Outcomes of the Program...........................................................265.5 Assumptions and Risks...............................................................................26

6. Program Components ...................................................................................277. Program Activities: the Capacity Building Approach...............................................318. Program Governance and Management...............................................................32

8.1 Overall Mechanism...................................................................................328.2 Management Mechanism............................................................................328.3 Management Role and Costs........................................................................348.4 Allocation of Funds..................................................................................348.5 Selection of Management Agent(s)................................................................378.6 Selection of Implementing Agents ................................................................388.7 Selection of Projects...............................................................................398.8 Timetable for Disbursement of Funds............................................................408.9 Program Coherence..................................................................................41

9. Monitoring and Evaluation..............................................................................41

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ANNEXES

Annex I: Current Donor-funded ICT Programs in OECD and EU Countries I-III: 1

Annex II: Organizations and Specialized Agencies of theUnited Nations and Other Leading Sectoral Partners I-III: 6

Annex III: The Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) I-III: 12

Regional Reports:

Annex IV: Regional Report Africa IV: 1A. Regional Report: East Africa IV: 7B. Regional Report: West and Central Africa IV: 43

C. Regional Report: Southern Africa IV: 62

D. List of Contacts in Africa IV: 86

Annex V: Regional Report Caribbean V: 1

Annex VI: Regional Report Pacific VI: 1

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THE PROJECT TEAM

Lishan Adam

An international development consultant based in Addis Ababa and specializing in ICT fordevelopment with a focus on Africa. He is Associate Professor of Information Science at theUniversity of Stellenbosch, South Africa. Early experience was gained at the United NationsEconomic Commission for Africa in Addis Ababa, where he spent 14 years as programmer,trainer and network manager. He was one of the pioneer "bridge builders" who brought lowcost connectivity to Africa in the early 1990s. From 1993-1996 he was project officer ofcapacity building for Electronic Communications in Africa (CABECA), where he helped toestablish the first electronic communications nodes in 24 African countries. From 1996-2002 hewas regional advisor on information technology policy and connectivity where he implementedthe African Information Society Initiative and provided advice on ICT applications anddevelopment of national and sectoral ICT policies and strategies (including e-learning and e-health) to over 25 countries in Africa.

His recent professional experience (January 2003 to the present) is as a Consultant on NationalE-learning Strategy for the Government of Botswana for the utilization of the EuropeanDevelopment Fund. Lishan contributes to the component of the CATIA program funded by theDepartment of International Development, UK, for facilitating Low Cost Access to Satelliteand Wireless technologies for Internet Access Opportunities Across Africa. He is a HewlettFellow on ICT at the Centre for International Development and Conflict Management,University of Maryland, where he researches Internet diffusion and International Cooperation.He is a member of Research ICT Africa! (RIA) network where he is involved in research ontelecommunication sector performance and tele-access. He is also a member of the ICT andGlobal Governance Network Social Science Research Council (US), where he is responsible forresearch on national policies, global governance and trans-national civil society.

Boubakar Barry

Boubakar Barry is presently acting as Director of the Computer Center and IT Director of CheikhAnta Diop University. He is involved in several activities related to ICT in Senegal and otherAfrican countries. He is Senegals focal point for the Regional Information Society Network forAfrica (RINAF) and team leader of the Low Cost Hardware and Software Working Group. Asexecutive administrator, he managed several initiatives and projects on ICT in Senegal andAfrica, in co-operation with international institutions like UNESCO and CTA (Technical Centrefor Agricultural and Rural Co-operation). Mr. Barry led in the last 10 years several regionaltraining workshops on ICT as course director and was national coordinator of Senegals TeacherTraining Network. He is involved in research activities on Computer Networks and WirelessTelecommunications.

Steve Esselaar

Currently employed as a researcher at the LINK Centre at the University of the Witwaterrand,Johannesburg, South Africa, which does research into the telecommunications and ICTregulatory and policy environment in Africa. This has entailed specific research on theregulatory and policy obstacles to increased telecomms investment in Africa. In particular,LINK is developing public policy models that can be used by African regulators to develop ICTmarkets. Currently coordinator for a continent-wide research initiative called the E-Access &Usage Index. This focuses on the demand side of ICTs in contrast to the supply-side only

analyses typical of most research in Africa.

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Steve completed an MBA in 2001, with a dissertation titled, The Strategic Impact of Voice overInternet Protocol on South African Telecommunications Operators. After completing hisstudies, he took up the position of Sales Director at Spitz, a high street fashion retailer. Thecompany had just been bought out of liquidation and was looking for a high growth strategy toregain its market position. In addition, with fellow board members, a stronger focus on theblack market was developed, laying the foundations for strong growth in the forthcomingfinancial year.

Valerie Gordon

Valerie Gordon is National Coordinator for the Jamaica Sustainable Development Network Ltd.In this capacity she coordinates, promotes and manages the JSDN Ltds programs which aregeared toward enhancing the capacity of the Jamaican public to use Information andCommunication Technologies (ICTs) to support sustainable development. Part of JSDNsmandate is to establish and support ICT enabled community access centers and communityinformation networks. JSDN operates through strategic partnerships which ensure knowledgesharing, optimum resource use and the availability of appropriate ICT tools for community

groups.

In addition to her management responsibilities with JSDN Valerie has carried out numerousconsulting assignments for international donors. She is presently serving as CommunityDevelopment Expert on an ICT4D Project under the overall responsibility of IICD and theGovernment of Jamaica/GOJ. She provides advice on systems to facilitate enhancedfunctionality of ICT tools related to networking, collaboration and partnerships among groups;gathers tools, information and resources to support community action; and identifies thecontext within which communities do business and develop as engines of national growth.

Valerie has recently completed, for UNESCO, a participatory evaluation of the ContainerProject, a community based mobile telecenter facility which provides a self-directed, open ICT

learning space to facilitate creative expression and skill building among marginalized ruralyouth.

Other consultancies for IICD, UNESCO and the World Bank have involved evaluation of an e-governance project, the preparation and assessment of project proposals and a review ofCaribbean options in the context of the Global Knowledge Partnership.

Prior to joining JSDN Valerie was Environmental Advisor and Green Fund Coordinator in theCIDA Canadian Cooperation Office in Jamaica. She was responsible for the design, developmentand management CIDAs Environmental Program in Jamaica and Belize.

Tina James

An information and communications technology (ICT) specialist with more than twenty yearsexperience in various aspects of ICTs in Africa. Short and long-term contracts undertaken todate have drawn on a wide range of expertise in the management of multidisciplinary projects,strategic planning, program design, facilitation of participative processes at community andcorporate level, and an in-depth understanding of ICT-related activities in the sub-region. Hasmanaged several large, multidisciplinary projects in both the ICT and environmentalmanagement arena. These include a recently initiated seven-country ICT policy project inAfrica (team leader), a publication on information policy in Southern Africa(www.apc.org/books/ictpolsa/), baseline studies for the CIDA-supported South African ITindustry strategy (SAITIS); preparatory papers on ICTs for youth and education in Africa, for the

Economic Commission for Africa's (ECA) post-African Development Forum Summit; and a studyon regional and national ICT policy support for Southern African countries. Additional expertise

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includes research on gender and ICTs, gender surveys in the Maputo Corridor, communitytelecentres, universal access, and the use of ICTs to support entrepreneurs in developingcountries.

As Senior Advisor to the Canadian International Development Research Centre's AcaciaProgram, which addressed the use of ICTs by disadvantaged, rural communities in sub-SaharanAfrica, was responsible for project development and implementation as well as support forstrategic planning activities. Was appointed by the South African Department of Arts, Culture,Science and Technology to serve on the ICT working group for the national Foresight initiative,which developed a technology strategy for ICTs. Served a two-year term on the ECA's AfricanTechnical Advisory Committee for the African Information Society Initiative (AISI). Hasoperated as an independent consultant since 1997, prior to which she held various managementpositions at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in South Africa. Pioneeredthe ICT for Development Program at the CSIR. Recently formed a partnership with JonathanMiller and Philip Esselaar to form Trigrammic.

Taholo Kami

Taholo Kami has been active in the ICT arena in the Pacific since 1997, prior to which hecompleted his MBA (with an e-commerce emphasis) in the United States on a FulbrightScholarship. His activities in the Pacific are far ranging: from assistance to large-scale farmingprojects in Tonga and a number of other SMME activities, to involvement in strategic ICTdevelopment projects. Taholo has extensive experience in training and capacity building examples include courses in e-commerce, financial management, IT for Pacific Island decisionmakers, national biodiversity strategies, sustainable development. In addition he hasdevelopment a number of Websites, the Pacific ICT portal and the SIDnet network. The latterinvolved the establishment of a sustainable development network serving 42 island memberstates. He has been involved in a number of strategic consulting activities such as being thestrategy advisor to the 2003 PNG Council of Churches General Assembly, and team member in

the FWC Education five-year plan (2004 2009). His business experience has included theestablishment of a number of enterprises he is presently the Director of Eco Consult Pacific(Suva)

Yacine Khelladi

Yacine Khelladi is an economist and international consultant based in the Dominican Republic.He specializes in: project design, management and evaluation in the field of ICTs (Informationand Communication Technologies) and Sustainable Development. Areas of competency includenational ICT policies, capacity development, social impact monitoring and evaluation,telecenters, culture, identity and community empowerment, sustainable and communitytourism, e-commerce, knowledge networking and organic agriculture.

Presently he is Coordinator of Fundacin Taiguey, a small NGO dedicated to theimplementation of appropriate technologies and participative methodologies for communitydevelopment in the Dominican Republic; and Manager of El Tiznao, an experimental organicfarm in the south of the Dominican Republic.

He has undertaken a wide variety of consulting assignments, including, for example: ICT expert and Team Leaderfor afeasibility study on The future of the ICT regulatory

and institutional framework and establishment and development of the InformationSociety in the Caribbean.

Community Outreach Specialist in the context of technical assistance to the

Government of Jamaica for an IDB funded ICT project.

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Diagnostic and Design of Community (Eco)tourism Development Plan for the Lakes Areaboth sides of the Dominican-Haitian border for the bi-national "TransborderEnvironmental Program", a project implemented by The Ministry of Agriculture of Haitiand the Ministry of Environment of the Dominican Republic.

Setting up the Caribbean ICT stakeholders Virtual Community (CIVIC) and Coordination

its Thematic Working Groups for the development a Regional ICT action plan for theInstitute for Connectivity in the Americas (ICA). General coordinator for the organization of the first ICT Caribbean Regional

Consultation - Barbados October 18-30 2002 for the Institute for the Connectivity in TheAmericas (ICA.

Vidyaratha Kissoon

Vidyaratha Kissoon has had experience with project management in the private sector inGuyana and more recently in working on projects related to ICT use in the public sector inGuyana. This work is a part of the Sustainable Development Networking Program (SDNP)initiative. The activities, which have been worked on include collaboration with government

and non-governmental stakeholders to raise awareness of ICT benefits, and to examine ways ofaccessing ICT resources and managing them. This has included working with partners todevelop Websites, training plans for staff, policy and management awareness. He also remainspart of the Caribbean ICT community, sharing information and knowledge with the group.Other areas of work include collaboration with civil society groups in Guyana in their own useof ICTs whether as tools for dissemination of information, earning income or to improveadministrative efficiencies.

There is an interest in promoting social cohesion in Guyana and a new initiative athttp://www.sdnp.org.gy/csoc is a prototype of information sharing. The SDNP initiative hasbeen consolidated into an NGO called DevNet, which is currently implementing a planningphase for a Guyana Country Gateway.

Jonathan Miller

Thirty years in the ICT sector, first in research and management positions in IT and OperationsResearch in the manufacturing and oil industries, and then for many years on the faculty of theUCT Graduate School of Business, teaching and conducting research in the ICT sector. Author of40-50 refereed and professional publications. With Philip Esselaar formed Miller, Esselaar andAssociates in 1998. Recent assignments include work on the South African Electronic CommerceGreen Paper, a study into research support for the ICT policy process in the SADC region,drafting an ICT Policy for Namibia, ICT surveys in Rwanda, Tanzania and Mozambique,contributing to the ECA Post-ADF99 process and working with the Medical Research Council on

the design and development of an HIV/AIDS web portal. Played a volunteer role in majornational projects, including the Foresight long range scenario planning study for informationand communications technologies and the development of a national policy for the IT industry(SAITIS). After being conference facilitator for the British Council sponsored internationalconference on Building Information Community in Africa in 1999, Jonathan was contracted totake on a major BICA outcome and founded CentraTEL (www.centratel.com), an NGOcommitted to supporting the worldwide multi-purpose telecentre community. This in turn ledto the production and wide distribution of a CD with information for operators, governmentagencies etc. He chairs the Board of the International Computer Driving Licence (ICDL)Foundation, an NGO delivering international certification of basic computer skills to SouthAfrican learners and is on the Board of the Cape IT Initiative (CITI), an NGO committed tobuilding an ICT cluster in the Western Cape. Jonathan gained his PhD on the subject of

Information Systems Effectiveness. He is the immediate past President of the Computer Societyof South Africa (CSSA) and a Past President of the Operations Research Society of SA. Jonathan

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was elected Computer Person of the Year by the CSSA, Western Cape, in 1994 and became aFellow of the CSSA in 1999.

David Souter

Twelve years experience in ICT sector, eight in ICTs and development issues; academic andprevious work experience in international development. Now consultant and academicspecializing in the relationship between ICTs and social and economic development. CurrentlyVisiting Professor in Communications at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland, and co-director of Masters Program in Communications Management (for developing country studentssponsored by UK government and Vodafone Foundation through Chevening Scholarships).Formed consultancy ict Development Associates ltd in 2003. Recent and current projectsinclude work for JICA and OECD on the relationship between ICT investment and economicgrowth, for DFID and its partners as component advisor in two components of the CATIAprogram, for CTO on relationship between ICT access and rural livelihoods, for UgandaCommunications Commission on impact of Rural Communications Development Fund. As ChiefExecutive Officer of Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO), 1995-2003, led

CTOs reconstruction from telecoms sector partnership to international ICT agency, workingclosely with global ICT bodies, regional associations, national governments, ICT businesses andcivil society organisations in Africa, Caribbean and Pacific regions of the Commonwealth.Designed and managed capacity-building programs for CTO and in DFIDs Building DigitalOpportunities program (2001-2004), and undertook individual CTO consultancy projects in manycountries and regions during that time. Member of UN ICT Task Force Working Group 1 and ofEuropean Commission Advisory Group on ICTs and Development. Member of editorialcommittee of info journal and guest editor of its issue on WSIS (forthcoming). Prior experienceincludes D.Phil. in African history; four years as development policy advisor to the UK LabourParty and five years as head of research for the UK National Communications Union

Kate Wild

Kate Wild has more than thirty years of experience in the broad area of information anddevelopment. She joined IDRC in 1970 as one of the early members of its ground-breakinginformation sciences division. Her work then focused mainly on bibliographic informationsystems and their role in building resources for decision-making in developing countries. In1979 she joined the International Labour Office where she was responsible for leading thedevelopment of the International Labour Information System and eventually for managing theILOs computer systems, statistics and library and documentation activities. Kate rejoinedIDRC in 1995 in its Regional Office for Southern Africa in Johannesburg. There she was IDRCsrepresentative on the National Telecommunications Policy Project and was instrumental in theinitial design of IDRCs Acacia program in support of the use of ICTs for communityempowerment in Africa. She has also been associated with the UN Economic Commission forAfrica as coordinator of its inaugural African Development Forum on the challenge to Africa ofglobalization and the information society and with the Mozambique Acacia Advisory Committeeas it defined the basic elements of a national ICT policy for the country.

In 2002 Kate returned to Canada and is now an independent consultant based in Torontoworking on a variety of international projects in the area of information and communication fordevelopment.

Recent consulting assignments have included: leadership of the Global Digital OpportunityInitiatives project to finalize Mozambiques National ICT Policy Implementation Strategy;advice to the Ottawa-based Micronutrient Initiative to strengthen the effectiveness of its

information, communication and capacity building strategies; discussion papers for the UnitedNations Information and Communication Technology Task Force on e-strategies and the

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achievement of the Millennium Development Goals; participation in the KPMG team developingthe initial phase of the CATIA project.

Earlier advisory experience included a number of evaluation assignments including for UNDPsSDNP program, UNESCOs IT program and the International Bureaus for Educations informationinitiatives.

Kate has wide experience of conceptualizing, evaluating and managing information projects innational and international environments. Over the years she has contributed to many reportsand publications in the broad area of information, communications and development.

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LIST OF ACRONYMS

ACP African, Caribbean and Pacific countriesADB Asian Development BankAKC Atos KPMG Consulting

BDO Building Digital OpportunitiesCD-ROM Compact Disk - Read Only MemoryCIP Country Indicative ProgramCROP Council of Regional Organizations of the PacificCSO Civil Society OrganizationDOI Digital Opportunity InitiativeECOSOC Economic and Social CouncilEDF European Development FundEC European CommissionEU European UnionGIS Geographic Information SystemsGPS Global Positioning Systems

ICT Information and Communication TechnologyICT4D Information and Communication Technology for DevelopmentIDRC International Development Research Centre (Canada)IT Information TechnologyMDG Millennium Development GoalsNGO Non-Governmental OrganizationNIP National Indicative ProgramsOECD Organization for Economic Co-operation and DevelopmentOJEC Official Journal of the European CommunitiesPMU Program Management UnitPRSP Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper

RIP Regional Indicative ProgramsSADC South African Development CommunitySDC Swiss Agency for Development CooperationSDNP Sustainable Development Network ProgramSIDA Swedish International Development AgencySMME Small, Medium and Micro EnterprisesSMS Short Messaging SystemsTB TuberculosisUNDP United Nations Development ProgramUNTFFM United Nations Task Force on Financing MechanismsUSAID United States Agency for International DevelopmentUSP University of the South Pacific

UWI University of the West IndiesVSAT Very Small Aperture TerminalWSIS World Summit on the Information SocietyWTO World Trade Organization

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

A. Introduction and Objectives

The European Commission (EC) intends to include within the European Development Fund a

program to support the mainstreaming of ICTs into development planning and implementation.Mainstreaming implies shifting the locus of decision-making on investment in ICTs from the ICTsector to mainstream development actors and institutions. To achieve this objective, the EUcontracted infoDev to undertake a feasibility study in the ACP countries and to develop afinancial proposal for presentation to the EU and the ACP secretariat. InfoDev in turncontracted Trigrammic to carry out this work. The consultant team consisted of a network ofconsultants based in Africa (Senegal, Ethiopia, South Africa), the Caribbean (Guyana, Jamaica,the Dominican Republic), and the Pacific (Tonga). Two international development consultantsfrom Canada and the UK also formed part of the team.

The study was based on extensive desk research and a process of consultation in the ACPcountries, with key players in the ICT arena as well as with a number of sectoral experts andICT specialists working within international organizations. Concepts, ideas, possibilities andassumptions for the proposed ACP ICT program were tested with those consulted as well aswithin the consultant team. The emphasis was on finding niches where the ACP ICT programcould provide leverage, and where it could support or create synergies with existing or plannedinitiatives. An interview framework was designed to guide the activities in the various regions.In addition, e-mail and telephone discussions were pursued in selected countries where visitscould not be carried out. The desktop research covered most countries in the regions, allowinga broader perspective to be gained. Separate regional reports were produced, with Africa splitinto three separate studies - West and Central Africa; East Africa; and Southern Africa. Theresults of both the desk research and the consultations were used to identify ongoing areas ofactivity, gaps and areas of opportunity. These results were used to shape the proposed ACP ICT

program.

The results of this study were presented at a workshop held in Brussels on December 14, 2004.Suggestions were received from the EU, the ACP Secretariat and participants who wereselected mainly from donor agencies, the UN and regional organizations. This version of thereport reflects the discussion at the workshop and the consultant teams reaction to it. Thereport and financial proposal, and the accompanying annexes, present the views of theTrigrammic team on the priority needs identified and on how the new proposed program - theACP ICT program should be designed and implemented to address these needs. The EuropeanCommission will make the final determination about the design of the Program.The proposed new program aims to finance meaningful ICT for development initiatives within

the current EDF 9 (2002-2007) and to build capacity to more effectively leverage funding fromEDF 10 and other bilateral and multi-lateral sources to carry out integrated projects andprograms.

The purpose, goal and objectives of the ACP ICT program are set out below.

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THE PROGRAM APPROACHCapacity building

Mainly at level of public service but processes involve stakeholders from privatesector, academia and civil society; capacity building will be in the context of

planning e.g. capacity building across ACP countries - e-strategies and nationalplans and the production of integrated strategies and manageable

implementation plans; main target audience: officials from ministries of financeand planning and sectoral ministries; capacity building within focus sectors key

decision makers exposed to ICT tools design iterative, integrated strategy

PROGRAM INSTRUMENTSLearning networks; training curricula, training materials, training tools;

documentation of best practice; model applications; action research; policyanalysis; indicators

OBJECTIVESTo support closer integration between development planning (national and

sectoral plans and Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs)) and ICTplanning (e-strategies, ICT policies and telecommunications policy)

To build the capacity of development actors in ACP countries to implementthe integration process at national, sectoral and local development levels,and to more effectively leverage funding from EDF 10 and other bilateraland multi-lateral sources to carry out integrated projects and programs

To strengthen the enabling environment for the ICT small business sector

THE GOALMainstream ICTs into national and sectoral policy and planning

(agriculture and rural development, health, education, ICT business)

THE PURPOSEStrengthen the capacity of development initiatives to reduce poverty and

support achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).


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Taken together activities developed within this framework should lead to significant increasesin the design and implementation of demand-driven ICT applications and the introduction ofservices that meet specific development goals.

The program clearly will not exist in a vacuum. Its chances for success will be greater if itresponds to current development thinking as framed by the MDGs and it builds upon lessonslearned during the last decade of ICT for development experience. The ACP ICT program mustnot only respond to lessons learned from recent development experience but must avoidduplication of programs funded by other donors.

B. The Development Challenges

The potential of ICTs in development is widely proclaimed but poorly understood. As a resultthere is a mismatch between the rhetoric of international statements and national e-strategies, and practical achievements on the ground, in particular in relation to povertyreduction. Policy and programs are often developed on the basis of assumptions rather thanresearch. While there are many examples of successful application of ICTs, their

appropriateness in any given context needs to be proved.

Successful ICT for development programs face a number of challenges which were identifiedthrough the teams consultation process:

Little integration between strategies and programs aimed at expanding information andcommunication technologies and skills and broader development strategies andprograms;

A high reliance on donor funding for ICT activities which may encourage donordependency;

Minimal prioritization within existing e-strategies and ICT policies, also often a

reflection of reliance on donors for funding; Limited human and institutional capacity and the consequent inability of countries to

absorb more resources for ICT initiatives; Weak linkages between policy, strategy and implementation; Unrealistic targets due to lack of integrated resource planning and project management

across sectoral and ICT implementation strategies; Tensions between economic and social goals which result in a tendency to work more in

urban than rural areas and on technical rather than social solutions;

Reluctance to recognize the key role of women in reducing poverty and moving towardsachievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs);

The pace of technological change which may make technical solutions obsolete evenbefore funding decisions are made;

Policy barriers to the establishment of small ICT businesses; and the Difficulties of measuring the impact of ICT initiatives on development outcomes.

C. The Proposed ACP ICT Program

C1. Program Focus

Under the proposed program, funds will be made available and proposals sought for theimplementation of building activities aimed at exploiting the enabling features of ICTs withinmainstream capacity development planning and decision-making. The emphasis will be oninvolving non- ICT development players (in finance and planning, agriculture and ruraldevelopment, health and education) in decisions on whether and how to apply ICT to issues of

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national and sectoral development. Mainstreaming implies shifting the main locus of decision-making on ICT investment from the ICT sector to mainstream development actors.

Main beneficiaries of the capacity building programs will be public servants at national andlocal levels but, since the context for capacity building will be development planningprocesses, private sector and civil society actors will also be involved. Capacity buildingprograms can be single or multi-country. Demand should originate with local institutions orgroups of such institutions from different countries.

C2. Program Components

The program will target proposals that build capacity: To integrate ICTs in national planning, including national poverty reduction strategies; To integrate ICTs in sectoral planning in particular in: agriculture, food security, natural

resource management, and rural development; education; and health; and Address barriers to the ICT small business sector.

The consultant team recommends that the available funds be sub-divided into threecomponent areas, as follows:

1. National planning;2. Sectoral planning;3. ICT small business sector.

National planning is the mechanism which addresses broad poverty reduction and economicgrowth issues and allocates funds interalia to ICT initiatives of national scope. It is importantthat officials responsible at this level understand both the potential and the limitations of ICTas a development tool. All three components will support information sharing and the creationof learning networks both within countries and across ACP countries

The program will stimulate a more demand-driven approach to the design and implementationof ICT programs with demand originating with development actors and local communities.Rather than relying on the ICT sector to drive the definition of ICT strategies, systems andapplications, the program will support the mainstreaming of the information and technologycomponent into the most critical development sectors in order to increase the relevance andvalue of ICT solutions.

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Component 2.

Mainstreaming

ICTs into

Sectoral

Planning

Component 3.

Supporting ICT

Small Business

Component1.

Mainstreaming

ICTs into

National

Planning and

PRSPS

Mainstreaming ICTs into National andSectoral Planning


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Local small business is key because it is potentially the best instrument for creating locallyrelevant products and services based on both technology and content or information.

C3. Program Outputs and Outcomes

In line with the overall goal of the program to build capacity to exploit the enabling features ofICTs within mainstream development planning and decision- making, the program will deliver:

i) Effective and inclusive policy and program development processes that open upopportunities for local community leadership as well as the national planningcommunity to explore the potential and limitations of ICT systems and tools in thecontext of their own problems and goals.

ii) Sectoral strategies that draw on relevant ICT strategies and tools.iii) Sectoral analysis of national e-strategies to focus resources on high-value achievable

goals and targets, integrated with national and sectoral development strategies.iv) An enabling environment for small ICT entrepreneurs to participate more fully in ICT

for development initiatives.

These outputs will enhance the capacity of policy-makers, program managers and practitioners including those in the mainstream development sectors - agriculture, health and education to identify aspects of their work amenable to cost-effective ICT support and develop strategiesto improve the quality of project and program delivery. This will lead to better targeting of ICTresources and more effective outcomes in areas directly related to poverty reduction. Inaddition, small ICT business stands to gain from efforts to strengthen the enabling environmentfor entrepreneurship and from the creation of new opportunities in the mainstreamdevelopment sectors identified above.

C4. Program Activities

The key to achieving the results noted above is to bridge the gap of understanding andobjectives between the mainstream development sectors and the ICT sector. This will beachieved through initiatives aimed at building capacity to integrate ICTs into broad nationalplanning exercises and into sectoral planning in the agriculture, health and education sectors.Initiatives will incorporate action research and policy analysis components as required. Most ofthe program budget (80%) will be invested in national and sectoral planning activities.

In the case of the ICT small business sector, a small proportion of the funds will be madeavailable (10%) and proposals sought for:

i) Analysis of existing policies to identify blockages inhibiting the growth

of ICT entrepreneurs.ii) Removal of policy constraints that limit the establishment and growth of

small ICT businesses.iii) Helping small ICT entrepreneurs to recognize ICT opportunities within other sectors.iv) Engaging small ICT entrepreneurs in dialogue with national and sectoral planners to

identify and implement ICT applications and systems to address national developmentpriorities.

C5. Target Beneficiaries

The long-term beneficiaries of the national and sectoral planning components of the programare the poor communities who will benefit from more integrated policies and more relevantICT applications. To make that happen will require programs targeted at a range of policy

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makers, program implementers, practitioners and community leaders in traditionaldevelopment sectors who, along with their ICT colleagues, will be immediate beneficiaries ofthe programs proposed. The program assumes that beneficiaries at all levels will be found inboth governmental and non-governmental stakeholders.

The component of the program aimed at improving the enabling climate for small ICTbusinesses will benefit small-scale entrepreneurs seeking opportunities in the ICT sector andtheir clients.

Within governments, particular Ministries that are likely to be targeted will include: Planningand Finance for Component 1; Ministries of Agriculture, Rural Development, Education andHealth for Component 2; and Component 3 will involve close interaction with the Ministryresponsible for Industry and Trade.

C6. Program Management Structures and Governance

While there are clear advantages in assigning management responsibility to organizations with

technical understanding of the development sectors in which proposals are sought, there arealso advantages in terms of program consistency and administrative burden in assigning a singleagency. Management of the Program will be devolved by the European Commission to onemanagement agent managing all the program components. The management agent will beresponsible for the selection of implementing agents.

The EuropeAid Cooperation Office of the European Commission will establish a panel to assistin the evaluation of proposals to act as management agent. This panel will includerepresentation from the ACP Secretariat and external advisors with expertise in the selectedsectoral areas (agriculture and rural development, health and education) and in the applicationof ICTs in development.

Following selection of the management agents, the panel will continue to act as an advisorycommittee to support the work of the EuropeAid office and management agents for the

duration of the Program. It will review management reports on implementation of the Program

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ImplementingAgents

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ACP Secretariat

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submitted by the management agents, with particular attention to results of the monitoringand evaluation component.

C7. Costs

The total budget available for the ACP ICT Program is 20million over a period of four years(2005-2009). This budget is sub-divided into three separate budget components, within each ofwhich resources will be focused on the application of ICTs within a specific developmentsector. The total funding available within each budgetary component of the ACP ICT Program isset out in the following table:

Budget Component BudgetComponent 1: national planning 8mComponent 2: sectoral planning 8mComponent 3: ICT small business sector 2mManagement agent costs (10%) 2mTotal 20m

Maximization of potential synergies between projects will be encouraged, resulting in acoherent program which adds value in its totality to the achievement of program objectivesrather than a mere collection of individual projects.

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1. Introduction

The overall purpose of the proposed ACP ICT program is to strengthen the capacity ofdevelopment initiatives to reduce poverty and support achievement of the MillenniumDevelopment Goals (MDGs). Its goal is to mainstream ICTs into national and sectoral policy and

planning through a shift in the locus of decision-making on ICT investment towardsdevelopment actors and institutions.

This report first examines the broader development context in which the program will beimplemented; it reviews some of the lessons learned from a decade of experience of ICT fordevelopment and situates the proposed program within the framework of EU developmentpolicy (Section 2).

The findings, lessons and problems identified through the regional research are described inSection 3. The program has been designed on the basis of both desk research and extensiveconsultation within the regions that make up the ACP as well as with development and ICTspecialists working within international organizations.

Section 4 draws on the global and regional analyses:

To identify the many dimensions of the problem that need to be addressed; and To propose an opportunity for the EU based on linking ICT efforts firmly into both broad

development and sectoral planning and decision-making processes at all levels fromcommunity to national.

In Sections 5, 6 and 7the opportunity is translated into program terms. Section 5 sketchesoverall program philosophy and objectives, purpose, beneficiaries and outcomes and identifieskey assumptions and risks. The broad goal of the program is to mainstream ICTs into sectoraland national policy and planning. Section 6 describes the components in which the program

will operate: national planning, sectoral strategies (agriculture and rural development,education, health); and the small ICT business sector. It sets out objectives for eachcomponent. Section 7 details the types of activities the program will develop in order toachieve its objectives.

Capacity building is the main program instrument which will be supported by action research,policy analysis and the application and development of appropriate indicators.

Section 8 focuses on all aspects of governance and management and includes proposals forallocating funds and selecting management and implementing agents as well as criteria foridentifying promising project proposals.

The final section proposes a monitoring and evaluation approach.

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2. Factors Influencing the Design of the EUs ICT Program forthe ACP Countries

2.1 The Development Context

When the internet burst onto the development scene few donor agencies had a history ofaddressing information and communication issues as a central component of their developmentprograms. Most were initially cautious in their exploration of the opportunities embedded inthe new technologies. A few organizations led the way in defining programs shaped very muchby their own philosophies. The UNDPs SDNP Sustainable Development Network Program hadits roots in the sustainable environment movement that emerged from the 1992 Rio Summit1;USAIDs Leland Initiative supported connectivity by building strong partnerships between thepublic and private sectors; the Canadian International Development Research Centres (IDRC)Acacia initiative was a multi-faceted program addressing policy, technology, capacity andcontent issues with a strong research focus.

These and other programs seeded much valuable activity on the policy and regulatory frontsand in many application areas. They demonstrated the challenge of uniting the diverse skills ofthe telecommunications, information and development sectors. The approach through most ofthe 90s was essentially experimental, underpinned by the belief that the liberalization of thetelecommunications sector and the empowerment potential of ICTs would overcome the majortraditional constraints on development (infrastructure and institutional and human capacity)and allow countries to move quickly into an era of greater prosperity. The keyword wasleapfrogging. As the decade progressed more and more donors joined the ICT for developmentbandwagon and governments were encouraged to reform their telecommunication sectors andintroduce independent regulation.

The end of the decade brought the promise of greater resources for information societyinitiatives in developing countries from the G8 countries, following commitments made at their2000 Okinawa Summit. On the wave of the technology boom the wide-ranging G8 DigitalOpportunities Task Force was created. It began its work as the boom receded and there werecalls for more sober assessments of the potential of ICTs. A positive result of the excitement ofthe 90s was the involvement of stakeholders from civil society and the private sector in ICT fordevelopment debates. The United Nations ICT Task Force, for example, through its multi-stakeholder membership, has added valuable perspectives to the attempts now underway tocapture lessons from a decade of experience and identify fruitful avenues for futureexploration. A more negative consequence of the enthusiasm was perhaps a tendency toexaggerate the benefits that ICTs could bring and draw attention away from persistentconstraints on development.

The beginning of the new Millennium saw the first session of the UNs Economic and SocialCouncil (ECOSOC) dedicated to exploiting the potential of ICTs for development giving thewhole gamut of information and communication for development issues a higher internationalprofile than ever before. And it saw the General Assembly endorse the MDGs time boundmeasurable targets calling for progress towards poverty, gender equity, education, health,sustainable environment and development partnership goals within a fifteen-year time frame.Achievement of the MDGs will increasingly provide the yardstick against which all developmentefforts including ICT for development programs will be judged. While there was reference inthe MDGs to the broad benefits that could accrue from use of the new information andcommunication technologies, work on global development issues and global ICT issues waspursued largely on parallel tracks with little integration between the processes. This mirrors

1 One interesting offshoot of SDNP is SIDSNet The Small Islands Development Network which looked at the potentialof internet technologies to overcome the isolation of small island states particularly in the Pacific.

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globally the situation that the consultant team has identified in its discussions at the countrylevel.

The heightened political awareness of the role that ICTs could play in integrating countries in,or excluding them from, the emerging global information society and economy led to theconvening of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva in December 2003.A follow up session in Tunis in 2005 provides an opportunity to transform the principles thatemerged from the Geneva discussions into visible results by, in the view of the EU, respondingto the challenge to make ICT available and affordable and to spread access to applications.2

One important outcome of the Summit was the creation of a task force to review the adequacyof existing financing mechanisms to meet the ICT for development challenge. UNDP took thelead on the Task Force in collaboration with the World Bank, the UN Department of Economicand Social Affairs and other key organizations.

The basic objective of the Task Force3 was to identify sustainable ways to ensure thecontinuation of current trends and innovative approaches to accelerate the use and availability

of ICT resources to a wider range of developing countries and to a broader sub-set of thepopulation in individual countries.

It therefore casts its findings and conclusions within a broad economic, social and politicalcontext.

Although the Task Force report was published only in December 2004 and there was littleopportunity for exchange of ideas between the Task Force and the consulting team responsiblefor this ACP ICT study, there is broad consistency of findings with respect to the implications ofthe dynamic nature of the ICT sector, the need to establish ICT within a supportivedevelopment policy environment and the integration of ICT into broad national developmentand poverty reduction strategies. In particular the UNTFFM report reinforces the importance of

capacity building particularly within the public sector which is the main emphasis of therecommendations of the ACP ICT study. The UNTFFM also pinpoints lack of capacity incountries and in donor organizations as a barrier to the preparation and approval of effectiveICT programs.

The EU program proposed here responds to a strong set of imperatives within the TaskForce report as well as to the other challenges identified above that have emerged throughthe last few years of international debate on ICTs and development. It will expandopportunities for partnership between the worlds of development policy and practice andthe ICT sector and support the integration of ICT into national and sectoral planningthrough the development of collaborative capacity building models that ideally will extendto the level of local decision-making.

2.2 Capturing the Lessons for ICT Programs

2 Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the European Economic and SocialCommittee and the Committee of the Regions Towards a Global Partnership in the Information Society:Translating the Geneva principles not action Brussels 13.07.2004 COM (2004) 480 final

3 The Report of the Task Force on Financial Mechanisms for ICT for Development: A review oftrends and an analysis of gaps and promising practices, December 22, 2004

http://www.itu.int/wsis/tffm/index.html

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By the end of the nineties it had become clear that ICT projects were not delivering theexpected development benefits. While there continued to be significant interest in exploringthe potential of ICTs for development, organizations driving the global ICT agenda began toreview initial experiences and look for firmer conceptual foundations for their programs.

The Digital Opportunity Initiative (DOI) report, Creating a Development Dynamic4, was one ofthe first systematic attempts to capture lessons from a decade of ICT for development work.The DOI report tackled the issue of whether ICT is a tool best suited to economic or to socialdevelopment and argued that both economic and social development benefit would derivemore from investment in ICT as an enabler of development in other sectors than investment inthe ICT sector itself.

This conclusion was reinforced by debates in a series of fora organized by the World Bank,OECD and UNDP in 2001 and 2003.5 While some still argued the importance of connectivity asan empowerment tool, discussions reflected an increased emphasis on the value of integratingICTs as an instrument within broader national development processes, in particular thosedesigned to address the MDGs through Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs). In practice

however there appears to have been little interaction between those developing ICT or e-strategies and those engaged in PRSP processes making the link between the different worldsof development and new technologies has proved difficult.

Building on a growing consensus, a report prepared for the World Banks InfoDev program 6

highlighted the need for more rigorous analysis of the constraints placed on the lives of poorpeople by lack of ICTs and called for greater strategic focus on change agents in thecommunities where projects are located. It concluded that ICTs could only contributeeffectively to development and poverty reduction as tools of broader strategies and programsfor building opportunity and empowering the poor. As with earlier assessments the conclusionwas that the importance of ICTs in the context of development derives from their role as toolsto further the achievement of development goals.

The result of this series of reviews of early ICT for development programs has been anemphasis within donor agencies on attempts to mainstream ICTs into key developmentsectors, in which the aim is to promote the achievement of sectoral development goals ratherthan goals defined in terms of distribution of and access to telephones and the internet.7

Education, health, enterprise development and government receive particular attention, butthere has been relatively little emphasis on agriculture or rural development. This interest inmainstreaming ICTs, and in particular in trying to establish the impact of ICTs on theachievement of the MDGs, has spawned work on new ICT indicators. In Africa Scan ICT a jointprogram of UNECA, IDRC, NORAD and the EU is working to build national capacity to collectand manage key information needed to support growing investment in ICTs and transitiontowards an information society within the region. 8 Internationally, the UN ICT Task Force9

(through its ICT Indicators and MDG Mapping Working Party) is leading the effort to defineindicators that identify the contribution ICT can make to each MDG. Significant challengesremain with respect to building consensus on agreed approaches and operationalizing the

4 Creating a Development Dynamic Final Report of the Digital Opportunity Initiative July 2001, Accenture, MarkleFoundation, UNDP

5 Reports of Joint OECD, UN, UNDP, World Bank Forums in response to the G8 Dot Force: Digital Opportunities forPoverty Reduction (March 2001); and Integrating ICT in Development Programs (March 2003)

6 Information and Communication Technologies, Poverty and Development: Learning from Experience A backgroundpaper for the InfoDev Annual Symposium, December 9-10 2003, Kerry McNamara

7 OECD Development Assistance Committee Donor ICT Strategies Matrix 2003 Edition, December 2003

8 www.uneca.org/aisi/scanict.htm

9 www.unicttaskforce.org

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proposed indicators. Measuring the impact of ICTs on development outcomes and thusidentifying mainstreaming best practice will continue to be an important aspect of ICT fordevelopment work for many years. New and essentially experimental approaches tomeasurement will be needed. The increased focus on specifying the contribution of ICTs toconcrete sectoral development goals increases also the requirement for mutual understandingbetween development practitioners and ICT specialists in the search for measurable andreplicable solutions to real problems.

Review of experience has also led to a consensus that the sustainability of developmentinitiatives depends on local human and institutional capacity, along with local commitment to,and ownership of, programs. It is impossible to deliver the benefits of development programs -whether the specific benefits relate to health, education, agriculture or other sectors on along-term basis, through programs designed and funded from the outside. Capacity constraintsneed to be addressed from the perspective of individuals and institutions and of broader needsfor social cohesion.10

For ICT programs this means that they should, inter alia:

Facilitate access in formats and languages that are locally understood; Foster voluntary learning, with accent on acquisition rather than on transfer; Not be imposed from outside but develop within the context of skills and understanding

existing in the context in which they are applied; Respond to explicitly stated and clearly understood needs of users; Be locally managed and owned.

2.3 Capturing Lessons for ICT Projects and Applications

While the broad reviews cited above have led to a shift in the focus and direction of ICT fordevelopment programs lessons have also been learned from more targeted research andanalysis.

2.3.1 ICT and Gender

ICT and gender cuts across all other ICT work.

The World Bank recently commissioned a study to examine the extent to which genderconsiderations were incorporated into Bank-supported ICT policy projects11 addressingtelecommunications infrastructure, the social aspects of ICTs (freedom of information, pricing,privacy, security) and applications areas (education, health, tourism, labor, industry). Littleevidence was found that gender concerns had been taken into account.

The study concluded that if gender was largely invisible at the policy level it was unlikely to bedealt with at the implementation stage. The message of the World Bank study is that e-policiesand strategies that do not focus on the gender issue are not gender neutral in theirimplementation they tend to reinforce existing social and economic structures which inhibitthe full participation of women, as the following example demonstrates.

10 Stephen Browne, UNDP; ICTs and Poverty Reduction: two conceptual approaches in A Dialogue on ICTs andPoverty: The Harvard Forum, 2003, www.idrc.ca

11 Nancy Hafkin et al, Engendering ICT: Ensuring Gender Equality in ICT for Development, Draft for World Bank, 2003

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In arguing in favour of ICT programs that take account of the gender dimension, the importanceof gender equity to the achievement of the MDGs needs to be emphasized more than it is atpresent.

2.3.2 Policy and Regulation

Investment in Infrastructure

Access to basic ICTs (especially telephony and internet) and the opportunity to use manyICT applications require infrastructure, in particular telecommunications networkinfrastructure. This is expensive, but technological change (notably modern wirelessnetworks) has greatly reduced costs and made network deployment commercially viable inmost environments, even those characterized by low incomes. Development agencies,including the World Bank and bilateral agencies, have accordingly withdrawn frominfrastructure investment, though this is still an appropriate area of investment formultilateral development banks such as the Asian Development Bank (ADB) or quasi-developmental finance houses such as Actis (formerly the Commonwealth Development

Corporation).

The Promotionof Access

Development agencies have continued to play a part in promoting access to ICTs with theaim of making at least basic voice telephony more widely available, both geographicallyand within poor and disadvantaged groups. Interventions of this kind include: support forthe development of universal access strategies and other enabling environment changes,policy interventions to promote diversity in service provision (e.g. liberalization ofbroadcast radio and of VSAT use), promotion of telecenters, etc. Such interventions areconcerned with ICTs per se and the empowerment opportunities they create for citizensrather than with the application of ICTs in development. There is a significant debate

about the relative merits of different ICTs in this context (broadcast radio versus telephonyversus internet) but also a growing consensus that benefit can be gained by combining themto strengthen local voices and increase local access to information.

Interventions in the Policy and Regulatory Framework: an Enabling Environment forICT Access and DeploymentActivities in this area have included extensive promotion of the liberalization/privatizationmodel of telecommunications restructuring and support for the introduction of independenttelecommunications regulation, in the belief that this form of restructuring will leverageprivate sector funding to extend ICT networks. It has been particularly popular with

development agencies as it is relatively cheap and easy to implement, leading to significantoversupply in some areas.

Support for policy development has extended beyond the telecommunications sector to thewider area of information and communication technologies with the rapid expansion ofwork on ICT policies and e-strategies. These build on the restructuring of thetelecommunications sector and attempt to exploit the social as well as the economicbenefits of the information society. Because they are often externally funded exercises, e-strategies may fail to establish real national priorities but respond rather to opportunitiesfor donor support.

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2.3.3 ICTs, Economic Growth and Poverty

The macro-level case for ICT for development rests on the thesis that ICTs promoteproductivity and economic growth and enhance the social and economic welfare of individuals

and communities. This is difficult to prove firstly because of the lack in research of a standarddefinition of ICTs and secondly because it is not easy to disentangle the impact of investmentin ICTs from other investments. Recent OECD work12 (echoed by work within the World Bank13)shows that a connection can be demonstrated in industrial and more developed countries, butthat it is highly dependent on network externalities (and so on the initial scale of connectivity)and on complementary factors (such as the availability of an educated workforce, openeconomic structures capable of supporting innovation, capital for investment, and propensityto adaptation in business practice). These network externalities and complementary factorsare substantially less evident in the poorer developing countries, which suggests that morecaution should be applied to prevailing assumptions that ICT investment will necessarily lead toeconomic growth.

The demand for a stronger poverty and MDG focus in ICT programs will be accompanied by arequirement for more effective measurement of impact. There is anecdotal evidence of thesuccess of some community access or telecenter initiatives particularly those managed by theprivate sector in creating income opportunities in rural areas 14 but an evidence based link ismore problematic. The same is true for programs that promote ICT tools to support small-scaleentrepreneurs. Information describing project results has tended to be more promotional thananalytical15; the variety of ICT initiatives and the link between them and differentdimensions of poverty are sufficiently complex that we simply do not know whether thedigital revolution has reduced or exacerbated poverty overall or for specific groups of poorpeople. Better understanding of causal pathways and more precise data are needed.16

2.3.4 Sectoral Applications of ICT

ICTs and Education

The education sector has always been eager to apply new technologies to the learningenterprise. Internet connectivity in northern schools has grown quickly. In the South it wasconceived as a way not only of delivering cost effective education but also of building skills inthe broader community and empowering girls.17 Programs have been mounted within countries(SchoolNet Namibia), regionally (SchoolNet Africa) and globally (the E-Schools initiativesupported by the UN ICT Task Force). Evidence of impact on educational outcomes is scarce.Experience to-date suggests a need for long term studies integrated within schoolconnectivity programs - to assess changes in educational outcomes and the ability of students

to find opportunities for employment, business development or further education.

12 OECD, DAC Network on Poverty Reduction - ICT and Economic Growth in Developing Countries,DCD/DAC/POVNET(2004)6

13 Contribution of ICT to Growth, Global ICT Department, The World Bank Group, June 2003

14 Tlcenters au Sngal, http://ariane.mpl.ird.fr/textes/enjeux/g-zongo/g-zongo.htm

15 Akhtar Badshah, Conclusion, in Connected for Development, ICT kiosks and sustainablility, ICT Task Force Series 4,p225

16

Marty Chen, Harvard University, WIEGO; Has the Digital Revolution Reduced Poverty or Exacerbated it? in ADialogue on ICTs and Poverty: The Harvard Forum, 2003. www.idrc.ca

17 www.world-links.org/aidsweb/

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With the expansion of connectivity at all education levels come:

Demands for new approaches to teacher training; Demands for more participative, research-based learning approaches;

The need for expanded bandwidth to support collaborative research, data exchange and

networking; and Sustainability challenges related to the cost of connectivity and of replacement

computers.

These and other issues indicate that school connectivity must be seen as part of a totaleducation strategy and not as an intervention that can be isolated from mainstreameducational planning and financing.

ICTs and Government e-Governance

The use of information technology within government is important not only as a way ofimproving efficiency and service delivery but also for the increased transparency that it can

introduce into government decision-making and the additional channels it can offer forcommunication between citizens and the different levels of government. 18 Government can bea role model for good citizenship. There is a long history of donor support to thecomputerization of government processes to improve efficiency and accountability but theinternet introduces a new dimension of communication between citizen and government andenhanced service delivery opportunities.

But e-governance is complex; it involves the redesign of back-office processes that supportservice delivery and often cut across different government departments. One recent studysuggests partial or total failure rates of e-Government projects of 85%. 19 Fortunately it alsooffers a diagnosis and steps that can be taken to overcome major design and implementationproblems. The gaps between objectives and outcome result often from the limited knowledgeon the part of all those involved of the total picture (bureaucrats dont understand systems andtechnology; IT systems experts dont understand government). The gaps need to be measuredand reduced by building greater understanding across implementation and design teams.

E-governance applications often progress through a number of phases A recent Handbookpublished by InfoDev and the Center for Democracy and Technology identifies three:

Publish which provides access to government information without the requirement totravel to government offices or negotiate with officials;

Interact which offers citizens the opportunity to communicate with theirrepresentatives and comment on government processes; and

Transact which allows users to conduct business on-line.

All phases require planning, resources, political will and more active citizenship; byproceeding step by step it may be possible to obtain more positive results than those citedabove if civil servants and ICT specialists can communicate effectively with each other toidentify problems and design solutions.

18

E-government an e-primer UNDP 200319 Richard Heeks, Most eGovernment-for-Development Projects Fail: How Can Risks be Reduced? IDPM, University

of Manchester, UK, 2003 http://idpm.man.ac.uk/publications/wp/igov/igov_wp14.shtml

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ICTs, Agriculture, Rural Development and the Management of Natural Resources

Given the overwhelmingly rural nature of most poor countries this sector has provokedrelatively little interest on the part of the ICT community.

International efforts have focused on access to information and the provision of internet accessto rural development projects.20 This has been paralleled in some cases by the development ofweb sites in national agricultural and fisheries departments and research institutions butthere are few ICT-based programs that target the rural poor and the extension workers chargedwith providing them with information support and advice.

Geographic information systems (GIS) are powerful tools for the management of naturalresources. They rely on increasingly detailed satellite imagery to map resources, populationsand physical infrastructure. Mapping is often a prerequisite for the establishment of ownershipthrough land registries or other tools. While this process may be politically fraught, onceownership has been assigned it can provide the means through which communities andindividuals can access the additional resources required to underpin new development

initiatives.

While spatial systems are useful for micro-level planning they also have regional applicationand may be particularly useful in disaster response (drought, floods), which often crossnational borders.

ICTs and Health

While there have been experiments with sophisticated tools for remote diagnosis in poorcountries these have been difficult to sustain because of high connectivity costs and problemsof maintenance. Within rural health care circles there tends to be more interest incommunications (telephones and e-mail) for the exchange of information and advice, than on

telemedicine based on more sophisticated technologies that are difficult to maintain and of useto only a handful of highly trained professionals.

Many relevant ICT applications in health have focused on linking practitioners in developingcountries to international information sources and expertise through internet connections, e-mail lists, CD-ROMs and, increasingly, hand held computers. While clearly of benefit, theeffectiveness of these initiatives may have been limited by the imbalance between informationderived from developed and developing countries in the global medical knowledge base.Traditional medical practice and local knowledge of the pharmaceutical properties of plants isnot well represented. Nor is information that could be used to address major public healthproblems by providing support to health practitioners particularly in rural areas. In particularthere is little evidence of a sustained effort to identify ways in which ICTs can be deployed inthe fight against HIV/AIDS, the major public health challenge in many ACP countries.21

That there are innovative and cost effective health initiatives in developing countries iswitnessed by the forthcoming issue of the British Medical Journal that will focus its November13, 2004 issue on developing country interventions that show promise for the developed world.Ways can be found with ICT support to ensure that such information is also communicated tothose who can apply it in the developing countries.

20www.fao.org/waicent, www.enrap.org

21 An exception is the joint UNDP/Microsoft Southern Africa Capacity Initiative (SACI) which seeks learning centerapplications that can help offset the capacity lost through the AIDS pandemic. SACI is too new to show results yet.

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ICTs and SMMEs

Early approaches to ICT for small business focused on building capacity to incorporateautomation of processes into business planning models designed to serve mainly local markets.The arrival of the internet (and subsequently a variety of e-commerce models) allowed evensmall businesses to think in terms of reaching global markets. E-commerce is growing indeveloping countries including in the small-scale business sector. There is anecdotal evidenceof success in Africa in particular in connection with the marketing of handicrafts and productsand services targeted to the Diaspora. E-commerce growth is not as fast as the overall growthof internet use it is limited by low credit card use, lack of products and services adapted tolocal markets, poor transport and logistics and the cost and quality of internet connectivity. 22

In general, locally conceived, demand-driven initiatives are working probably because theyreflect a concrete understanding of the environment in which they are functioning; externallydriven applications are not.23

2.3.5 Broad Lessons

Overall the experience to-date with ICT applications in development sectors has tended torelatively small experimental projects; experience has demonstrated that:

National e-strategies and national plans and poverty reduction strategies are only veryloosely linked at best;

ICT applications are not well integrated into sectoral strategies and therefore are notalways responsive to the needs of sector policy makers, professionals and practitioners;

They are not embedded in local communities, practices and cultures and thereforerespond only in a limited fashion to the needs of poor communities; and

E-strategy processes have not led to a real prioritization of applications in terms of thedevelopment sectors likely to contribute most future benefit.

2.4 The EU and ICT for Development Programs

The ACP ICT program must not only respond to lessons learned from recent developmentexperience but must also fit with existing EU policies and programs, and key global ICTinitiatives presently underway e.g. UN Task Force on Financial Mechanisms (UNTFFM).

The 2000 Communication on Development Policy(COM(2000)212) established a clear philosophyfor European development policy. It brought greater coherence to EU development aid byspecifying a clear focus on poverty reduction (and, by interpretation, on the MDGs).

It also established clear principles giving ownership of programs to national partners;encouraging greater coherence with EU political, trade and humanitarian policies; and ensuringcomplementarity with the development policies of member-states and with other multilateralagencies.

22 E-Commerce and Development Report 2002, UNCTAD, Geneva, UNCTAD/SDTF/ECB/223 Crocker Snow Jr, Tip-toeing across the Digital Divide, Special Report for the UN ICT Task Force

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Within that broad focus it identified six priority areas:24

Trade and development; Regional integration and cooperation;

Support to macroeconomic policies;

Transport; Food security and sustainable rural development strategies; Institutional capacity building, good governance and the rule of law;

and five crosscutting themes: Good governance, human rights and the rule of law; Gender equality;

Environmental sustainability;

Effect on poverty reduction;

Human and institutional capacity building.

These priority areas and cross-cutting themes address broad development policy. TheCommissions 2001 Communication on ICTs and Development (COM(2001)770) places the role ofinformation and communication technologies (ICTs) within this broad development approach,recognizing that ICTsprovide an important tool for more efficient and effective aid deliveryand that they have a significant impact on social and economic development, including theachievement of the MDGs. In its documentation to the World Summit on the InformationSociety, the European Commission has particularly emphasized four areas of ICT activity: e-health, e-learning, e-governance and e-business.

The EU approach to the role of ICTs in development is consistent with that increasinglyadopted by other bilateral and multilateral donors, including EU member-states. Theirapproach focuses in particular on the application of ICTs in mainstream development sectors,

focusing especially on their potential to support delivery of outcomes in health, education,agriculture and poverty reduction. Alongside this mainstreaming, some developmentagencies have also put significant effort into supporting the development of positive enablingframeworks for ICT, notably through the restructuring of the telecommunications sector andthe development of national ICT policies and strategies.

The European Union has established ICT partnership programs with a number of developingregions in particular the Asia-IT&C Program in the Asia/Pacific region, the @LIS Program inLatin American and the Caribbean, and the EUMEDIS Program in the Mediterranean region.These programs emphasize the building of sector relationships between their regions and theEU. The ACP program under consideration here will complement these regional programs byfocusing on what can be achieved by institutions in ACP countries themselves rather thanthrough their partnerships with EU country institutions.

In seeking to frame a program for the EU the consultant team faced the challenge of applyingthe limited funds available for ICT in EDF 9 strategically to leverage much more substantialfunding in EDF 10 funding that would go beyond a demonstration of the potential of ICTs fordevelopment to deliver an effective ICT contribution to poverty reduction and the achievementof the MDGs across the ACP countries as a whole.

Agriculture, rural development and the environment; education; and health are the sectorswhere expanded, targeted action will be required if progress is to be made on the MDGs. Thesesectors were identified as important areas for increased ICT investment based on their

24 Areas in bold indicate overlaps with the proposed ACP ICT program

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a) Policy and Regulatory Frameworks

Most of the countries in the ACP region are at various stages of developing national ICT policiesand e-strategies; few have however taken cognizance of poverty reduction requirements.Likewise many of the PRSPs have not integrated ICTs into their plans. The result has been adisjuncture between the goals and objectives of thevarious ongoing processes, lack of synchronization andprioritization of overlapping activities, and separatestreaming of sectoral and ICT policy processes, resultingin sub-optimal utilization of human resources and under-exploitation of synergies and commonalities betweenthem. That in turn has resulted in a poor record ofdelivery on well-intentioned policies that could havehelped the poor.

The lack of liberalization of the telecommunicationsmarket continues to be the major priority across the

regions. Exclusivity periods for many monopoly operatorsare ending, regulators have been exposed to capacitybuilding initiatives to strengthen the requirements forindependent regulation, and some privatization has been achieved. The development ofuniversal access policies and strategies is receiving attention as part of the overall ICT policyframeworks. Little of this thinking has however made itself visible in the poverty reductionstrategies of many countries.The continued high level of national telecommunications costs, particularly for those in ruralareas, remains a problem and pricing structures are not always transparent to the user. Theinadequacy of existing universal access policies, the lack of monitoring and reinforcement ofuniversal access obligations where these exist, and the lack of capacity or will to penalizethose who do not deliver on such obligations has resulted in little movement to improve access

to telecommunications for poor and rural communities.

b) Infrastructure

The lack of telecommunications infrastructure is regarded as a priority issue in all ACPcountries. This applies particularly to the availability of connectivity outside urban areas, inremote rural areas and sm

Documents

Final Report ACP ICT Program 20jan 2005