Context: Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have the potential to be powerful tools for marginalized communities and individuals to increase their power to learn and to communicate. However, the technology is also currently contributing to the imbalance between rich and poor, powerful and marginalized. The challenge is to find a means to provide ICT access in a constructive way, focusing on the right to communicate and the capacity of people to make strategic choices about the medium of communication most relevant to them and the technology they need and use.
The Reflect approach to adult learning, used by over 300 organisations in 50 countries, offers a potential basis for introducing ICTs in an equitable way, as part of a wider process of self-managed change for the poor and marginalised. Reflect has evolved from an initial focus on literacy to a broader vision of strengthening people’s capacity to communicate. The approach starts with people’s existing knowledge, enabling them to systematise, represent and analyse it in new ways. But experience has shown that in order for people to move out of microanalysis, to contextualise, challenge and extend their knowledge and make connections between the local, national and international, they need improved access to sources of information.
ICTs can play a crucial role in helping Reflect participants
access new information as well as enabling them to better reproduce and disseminate
their own material. Equally, existing Reflect structures and methods offer
a mechanism for introduction of ICTs to people marginalised from digital resources,
with locally appropriate objectives and uses defined through bottom-up processes.
For these reasons, the International Education Unit is proposing to develop
three or four pilot projects to introduce ICTs to existing Reflect structures
in diverse contexts. This paper sets out the bottom-line principles, positions
and vision for such a pilot programme.
Strategic issues
… information
and power: Access to information provides confidence and status.
This is what is behind the potential of ICTs for rights-based development,
but it is also a potential problem. On one hand, the power of ICTs is usually
appropriated by the powerful. Meanwhile those who most need the information
available are often unaware of its existence or importance, and therefore
intermediaries are required to introduce concepts, materials and skills.
A methodology must be developed which allows for this intermediary role to
exist without manipulating or dominating the learning process, and without
reinforcing inequitable power structures. This potential imbalance of access
and control needs to be mediated with powerful accountability mechanisms between
facilitators and groups. Below are some of our initial thoughts about these
issues:
… access: Although the exact details of the level of access and type of technology used will depend on the characteristics of the pilot communities, a simple structure is being proposed which will enable a mixture of group and individual access. This would involve setting up a physical ‘Reflect Communications Centre’ at a central point with computers and other basic audio visual equipment as required, and with security, technical and coordination support.
This Centre would be the venue for an initial intensive
training of Reflect facilitators, and subsequent facilitators meetings and
Reflect circle visits. Members of Reflect circles would also be entitled
to use the centres individually for their own purposes. At some future point
there may be an opportunity to let fee-paying public use the facilities and
for training sessions to be provided to individual users. However,
the aim would be to build the centre around a process which, through its very
focus, engages the most marginalised people locally.
…
roles and accountability: Reflect
facilitators are local people, 40% of whom have never previously been active
in community work. In many cases they represent possible future leaders and
activists – so investment in their own capacity building is in itself important
and not just significant in order to enable them to teach.
The recently completed Global Survey shows that facilitators are motivated principally by the opportunity to contribute something to their community and enhance their own social status. Some express enthusiasm for learning how to teach but few directly talk about their own learning process. One hypothesis of this proposal is that enabling facilitators to access ICTs and develop their own analytical capacities will significantly reinforce their motivation.
The structure described above places the facilitators’ circles as the first point of access to ICTs. This will allow the facilitators to gain skills in using ICTs and interpreting information. Reflect circles will identify the information needed, and the facilitators will access, edit and process it using the technology. Some equipment, in particular audio and visual, will be more mobile and used directly to generate material by Reflect participants.
Accountability structures and relationships must be developed
as part of the introductory process. In particular it must be ensured that
control over the technology does not mean control over the editing process,
as this is where most communication power lies.
… control of the process: This pilot project will evolve through several stages, and different actors will participate, and take lead responsibility, at different stages. This concept paper will be developed through consultation with Reflect practitioners at all levels. Then a research team will lead an initial stage to establish a basic framework outlining objectives, roles and accountability, including guidelines for the development of detailed, site specific plans and objectives.
This second stage will be led by Reflect facilitators’ circles in the pilot locations, with participation of the research team, Reflect circles and local coordinating bodies. It will involve following the guidelines established in stage one to introduce the concepts, identify key issues for basing the use of technology and develop structures and roles for its introduction.
The experiences of introducing and using the technology
will be shared with the research team and analysed to feed back into the original
basic framework as well as the wider debate about development and ICTs.
The role of ActionAid and other funders must be a carefully
negotiated and monitored balance between guidance and support. Initial technical
support will be intense, and questions of sustainability and accountability
should be flexible enough to allow communities to determine the usefulness
of the technologies, not tied to specific targets and objectives.
… the learning process: It
is envisaged that technical equipment will be introduced as tools for facilitating
the communication process, whether that be accessing or producing information.
The key learning will not be the use of the technology but the enhanced ability
to communicate. This means that whatever skills or technologies are promoted
must be embedded in relevance to the user communities in order for the learning
process to be useful and sustainable. The process of developing locally specific
plans for introduction of the equipment will include identification of key
issues and interests onto which the technology can be hooked.
A mixture of media would be considered, and both functions
of accessing new information and documenting local knowledge and information
would be integral. This may take the form of research into issues arising
in Reflect circles, or the creation of a website, newsletter or video documenting
cultural life or traditional knowledge. Simple digital audio recorders and
cameras may be useful assets for recording information in non-textual ways
for documentation
or development.
… networking: The networked nature of ICTs, in particular the Internet and email, provide the potential to link people and their knowledge around issues, whether social, geographical or economic. This can have implications for the physical set-up of ICT systems as well as the methodology for their introduction and use. People will define their own virtual or knowledge communities, but these may be links between social movements, different elements of the same communities, or immigrants and home communities.
The area of ICTs for development is very new and is generating
much interest and excitement. There is currently very little example of best
practice. These pilot projects should be designed and implemented in coherence
with other ActionAid activities and strategies in order to ensure maximum
learning and impact. In particular the documentation of local knowledge and
experience could tie in with moves towards participatory reporting and impact
assessment.
Research and dissemination: The lessons learned from the execution of this proposed pilot programme would be of relevance to a wide community of practitioners, policy-makers and donors seeking to exploit the positive potential of ICTs and narrow the digital divide. Evaluation of the processes and outcomes will be developed through participatory processes, and the work will also be described, analysed and evaluated through academic work. This research will focus on the capacity of Reflect to overcome power inequalities within the use and access to ICTs, and the capacity of ICTs to meaningfully increase the power to communicate of poor and marginalised people.
Further dissemination of lessons and experiences will be
possible through a proposed rolling website, which will document the processes,
and include communications from people involved in all stages and levels of
the work. Work is already ongoing to form strategic partnerships with interested
parties, including existing initiatives, donors, Reflect practitioners, education
rights networks and campaigns and wider ActionAid, to develop this concept
paper into a firmer framework for action.
Timeframe and indicative
budget: The pilot project will run for two years in the field (2002-3),
followed by one year of documenting and disseminating lessons learned (2004).
The costs are estimated to be £75,000 for each of the three or four pilot
projects and £100,000 for overall coordination and research costs.
Next steps: This
concept paper was shared with Reflect practitioners, through the International
Reflect Circle (CIRAC) in May, email networks and Education Action magazine,
and with donors and other interested parties through face-to-face meetings
and email coverage. From this was developed a funding proposal which was
accepted by DfID. Contracts were finally exchanged in November 2002 and the
project began proper in January 2003.
For further information please contact: Hannah Beardon at hannahb@actionaid.org.uk