[Sigifp-l] [Fwd: [gta] FW: [SPAM] [bytesforall_readers] UN-GAID: One more acronym - or a new beginning? (Nalaka Gunawardene reports)]

[Michel J. Menou]

Further to the earlier announcement of the launch of the UN-GAID, a 
reality check from the South.

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From: bytesforall_readers at yahoogroups.com
[mailto:bytesforall_readers at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Frederick
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Subject: [SPAM] [bytesforall_readers] UN-GAID: One more acronym - or a
new beginning? (Nalaka Gunawardene reports)


UN-GAID: One more acronym - or a new beginning?

BYTESFORALL FOCUS: By Nalaka Gunawardene in KL

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia [20 June 2006] The jargon-totting development
community and the gadget-happy technologists are both fond of coining
and bandying acronyms. Few outside their circles can figure out what
these multi-letter assortments stand for.

As these mind bogglers go, the just launched UN-GAID is a
double-whammy: it's an acronym within an acronym. It stands
for United Nations Global Alliance for ICT and Development.
And ICT itself is short-hand for 'information and
communication technologies' -- gadgets and processes that
help move information quickly and efficiently, allowing communications
over vast distances.

The new alliance, inaugurated this week with an international meeting in
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, is a special initiative by the UN Secretary
General. It is meant to link up existing efforts to harness ICTs --
ranging from fixed phones, radio and television to mobile phones,
Internet and satellite communication -- to reduce poverty and improve
lives everywhere.

This shared vision of mobilising gadgets and gizmos to solve real world
problems has given rise to a development subset in recent years known as
ICT for development. Inevitably, it inspired the acronym ICT4D.

Writing a foreword to a UNDP Human Development Report on ICTs in Asia,
Sir Arthur C Clarke -- inventor of the communications satellite --
suggested a more catchy phrase: geek to meek.

Whatever the label, there is no argument on the need to link
up thousands of isolated initiatives littered across the
global South -- if only to prevent the reinvention of the
wheel that seems to happen too often.

But I am not sure if another UN technocracy -- with its multiple layers
of governance and stuck in inter-governmental diplomatic niceties -- is
the right answer. Already, a multitude of UN agencies are trying to
engage ICTs to help generate jobs and incomes, deliver education and
healthcare, and pursue other goals.

     UNESCO, UNDP, ITU, FAO and the UN's regional commissions
     all have ICT programmes of their own. Not to mention
     most key development donors and major multilateral
     banks. Then there is the UN ICT Task Force, launched in
     2001 with a mandate very similar to UN-GAID's (which
     might well succeed the Task Force now).

Civil society had realised the ICTs' problem solving
potential years before these large agencies. NGOs, research institutes
and activist groups were pathfinders in taking the geeks' toys to the
meek. The Association of Progressive Communicators (APC), for example,
linked up social activists and groups by email long before commercial
internet service providers came on the scene.  More recently, the ICT
industry has also started making social investments. At the UN-convened
World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in 2003-2005, these
sectors and players shared a common platform
-- but not necessarily the same vision and mission.

Can UN-GAID connect these disparate initiatives, enhancing or
multiplying their impact? Or might it evolve into another self-serving
bureaucracy, competing with everyone else for limited resources, media
attention and people's time?

We just have to wait and see. We should give it six months to prove its
worth. In the rapidly changing ICT world, that's a long time.

The initial signs are not very promising.

The Kuala Lumpur meeting opened with a high-powered panel on national
ICT strategies for achieving Millennium Development Goals -- the
globally agreed blueprint for reducing poverty and improving lives by
2015. Panel remarks illustrated the development community's current
obsession with putting computers in classrooms and connecting rural
areas to the Internet.

     It took Dr Abdul Wahid Khan, Assistant Director General
     of UNESCO, to bring us down to earth. "The 'C' in ICT
     stands for communication, not computers," he reminded
     everyone. "As far as marginalised communities are
     concerned, it doesn't matter what tool or gadget is
     used. They need to access information and be able to
     express themselves."

Khan said the only personal ICT tool that most marginalised groups can
afford to own individually is the humble transistor radio. Yet most ICT
for development projects ignore this pervasive ICT.

"Don't transplant technologies just for the sake of counting villages or
schools as being connected," Khan urged. "We must invest more resources
in locally generated and relevant content for radio and television that
already have vast outreach."

This point had already been reiterated at the World
Electronic Media Forum that rallied the world's broadcasters
at WSIS in both Geneva and Tunis. As their declaration noted: "The
future is not only 'on-line' .... Especially for the developing
countries, traditional radio and television will continue to be the most
effective way of delivering high quality information on, for example,
healthcare and education, of combating illiteracy, of debating issues of
general interest and of promoting a culture of peace."

     Analog or digital. Wired or wireless. These finer
     distinctions hardly matter to the large sections of the
     human family who are currently not part of the global
     conversation.

If they are serious about strategic use of ICTs, development
practitioners need to take note of this big picture. Tinkering with a
few digital projects (that often stay 'forever pilots') will not
popularise ICTs or solve problems.

Using ICTs for development is, in fact, a subset within the broader area
of integrating ICTs in our societies. No amount of legislation, policy
formulation and slick advertising can accomplish this. ICTs have to
prove their worth, and be accepted as adding value to living and working
conditions of people.

It doesn't take computer science to assess the public utility and
relevance of any ICT. We can begin by asking a few simple questions.

Does the new technology or process:

  Put more food on our tables?
  Add more money in our pockets?
  Make interfacing with government easier?
  Save time and effort involved in commuting?
  Support cultural and personal needs of individuals and groups?
  Finally, is it affordable, user-friendly and widely
  available, with minimum entry level barriers?

One ICT that has rapidly gained public acceptance is the
mobile phone. In most parts of Asia, mobile phones cut across social,
class and economic divides. From being an expensive, elitist gadget when
first introduced, it has become an everyday utility that people use for
a wide range of purposes. Costs have come down as initial monopolies
crumbled.

Interestingly, not a single donor or UN agency invested 'development
aid' in mobile phones -- it was a pure market phenomenon.

It is mostly aid money that sustains a large number of
'small-is-beautiful' type ICT4D initiatives across Africa, Asia Pacific
and Latin America. The tele-centre fever sweeping the developing world
is the latest manifestation. Tax payers in the North keep these numerous
projects on life support, believing the hype that they help the Southern
poor.

But do they, really?

Many such projects -- such as Sri Lanka's much-touted Kotmale internet
browsing by radio -- do more harm than good by distracting funding
agencies, distorting investment priorities and creating an illusion of
accomplishment. They are artificial 'oases' amidst 'deserts of
depravation' that cry out to be irrigated.

For sure, there is a certain seductive allure in images of rural school
children playing with a computer, a Buddhist monk using a mobile phone,
or tribal people trying out a palm-top. These make the development
community believe that they are fixing the world's ills with gadgets.
Besides, they look good on printed posters and brochures that routinely
flood every international meeting, digital media notwithstanding.

     UN-GAID faces a clear choice: indulge in more of the
     same to keep everyone happy, but achieve little -- or
     ask tough questions on ICTs' value addition, and drive
     strategic thinking and smart application. As the new kid
     on the block, UN-GAIDS should not hesitate to call out
     that the long-standing ICT4D `Emperors' have no clothes
     on.

But first, it must dress up quickly and sufficiently.

* * * * * *

Nalaka Gunawardene is writer on ICT and development issues,
and is a contributing author of Digital Review of Asia
Pacific. He heads TVE Asia Pacific, a regional organisation that uses
television, video and new media for development education. The views
expressed in this essay are his own. He can be reached at:
<alien at nalaka.org>








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-- 
=================================================================
Dr. Michel J. Menou
Consultant in ICT policies and Knowledge & Information Management
Adviser of Somos at Telecentros board http://www.tele-centros.org
Member of the founding steering committee of 
Telecenters of the Americas Partnership http://www.tele-centers.net/
B.P. 15
49350 Les Rosiers sur Loire, France
Email: Michel.Menou at wanadoo.fr
Phone: +33 (0)2 41511043
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ciber/peoplemenou.php
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