Coherence
For this project we developed tools and methods to enable poor and marginalised groups to think through their own communication capacity: needs, practices and opportunities. This was partly in response to the type of telecentre projects which are driven by a desire to avail such marginalised communities of new technologies. We are trying to show that any communications or ICT solution needs to be based not just on knowledge of technologies and tools available, but also on the needs, skills and motivations of the 'target' community.
Only recently did I step back and think - how do we design and develop our own communications in our organisations and networks? ActionAid International espouses the right values of participation and equality, but tends to develop communciation products and solutions from the top down. And within CIRAC, the international Reflect network, there has been some misunderstanding and difficulty in working together because not enough recognition has been given to the differences in cultures of communciation within the network. I have therefore been trying to adapt the resource sheets for use within different contexts, including organsiations, networks and other gruops in the North.
Documentation
How do we best spread the information of what we do and the lessons we have learned? There is no point in reporting at length everything we have done, no matter how important we feel it is. We need to think strategically about which are the main practical and constructive findings and who could use them. Decisions have to be made around:
Format: People don't read much, suffer information overload and tend to plough their own, lonely furrow without allowing for/ acting on new information. We need to format and target any lessons/ observations in a way which will be picked up by peers and able to feed into thinking/ planning etc. Perhaps focusing on practical tools and how tos?
Networking relationships: A great need in the field of ICT4D seems to be for coherent and strategic networking. There are networks, but more clarity in how different projects and initiatives relate (conceptually/ geographically etc) would help us to share learning more effectively by targetting more precisely and feeding directly into debates, plans and policy processes. As things stand it is a bit of a lucky dip, whether you make contact with the right person at the right time. A lot of people are expressing interest in developing a kind of map of the field, showing how projects, intiatives and donors overlap and aiding networking of like-minded practitioners. This would go someway to overcoming the overkill problem. Existing sharing tools and networks should be the basis for this, and there is a big role for the donor (in our case DFID) to establish linkages between research projects they fund. More clarity about DFID's objectives in funding this project would contribute to better sharing of knowledge and learning with DFID and the ICT projects they fund, and enable our learning and experience to feed into policy formulation in the area of ICT for development.
Content: What do we focus on?
What would people be most interested in? Where is our strength - what experiences
and lessons do we uniquely have to offer? How honest can we be in the documentation
of our doubts and problems? How can this be contextualised properly to ensure
that it is understood as a learning, rather than a failing?
A really key area of learning in this project so far has been the importance of establishing good partnerships. In our cursory analysis of where top-down projects or technology focused projects fail, it has been the issue of partnerships which has been most notable. For example, the UNDP experience in Orissa seemed to focus largely on developing the goods to deliver, with great capacity at the software and content development level. However, the equally important areas of needs analysis and delivery were weak, relying on the same local government systems which already exploit and marginalise the poorest people. If we were all to be clear about our strengths, whether that be research, technical expertise, policy influence or grassroots experience and legitimacy, then strong effective partnerships could be developed to ensure that ICT projects meet the needs of users.
In our case, we have attached the research project to an existing structure of grassroots popular education and empowerment groups and networks. The responsibilities of the project are different for different partners, with the international coordination team keeping an eye on overall direction, documentation and networking with the ICT for Development field; the pilot teams planning and managing practical work, overseeing planning and decision making, and making national and local linkages; and the facilitators and groups undertaking analysis and feeding into the management and decision making processes. What we are lacking is the technical expertise, and we are relying on making linkages with the private and not-for-profit sector in the pilot countries to buy or beg this element. (Click here to read more about the structure of the project)
... understanding each other's needs: In order to create effective partnerships between these levels, we have had to be very clear on our values and establish from the beginning what it is that each partner hopes to get out of their involvement. This is important if we want to ensure that the project is able to meet all the needs and expectations and not just assume that everybody is happy to see poor people gain greater access to information. At one point in the first year, it seemed to me in the International Coordination that the India pilot were meeting their own needs and assuming that this would satisfy ours. Because their agenda was to provide greater information and communication capacity to the poorest and most marginalised in their area, and they were using Reflect processes to do this, it may have seemed that the objectives were the same. However, mine were to test assumptions about the greater impact of ICT projects planned from the bottom-up, and to develop a model based on these experiences. For this I need to be able to compare across the three pilots, and it is essential that they all follow a similar process. Although this problem was quickly resolved, and was in large part a matter of mis-communication, it did alert me to the importance of developing some kind of memorandum of understanding early in the project planning phase, with indicators linked to it that can be monitored and reviewed.
... good communication: In this vein, one thing that
has been invaluable in the smooth running of this international project has
been the communications
agreement set up at the beginning of the first year. This basically sets
out my expectation and needs from the pilot teams, and encourages them to reciprocate
and deepen this by creating their own versions for their partners. Teams are
expected to send me monthly
updates, which I can then use to compile my own. This not only ensures that
we are all well informed about the progress of each pilot, but the agreement
itself shares responsibility for good communication equally throughout the project
team. It is not my role to be badgering and pleading for a bit of documentation.
The value of information lens to development:
The facilitator training exercise in all three pilots showed up the value of looking at development issues through the lens of information and communication. For facilitators, links between access to information, poverty and vulnerability were clear as soon as this lens was offered. In Uganda, the facilitators recognised their own negative behaviour in terms of hoarding information for their own advantage or out of laziness or shyness. The relationship between power and information is well known, but perhaps the impact of this on ICT for Development projects deserves more exploration and recognition. In Burundi, participants noted the importance of access to reliable, good quality information as a factor in the assessment of people's vulnerability to conflict and emergencies.
We also realised the importance of making explicit the link
between information, access to and value of, and a rights-based approach to
development. The clearer this link is to people, the easier it should be for
linkages to be made between ICT focused projects and other programme and advocacy
work, and for ICTs to be understood as an enabling factor for any project or
campaign. To this end we have developed a short briefing
paper - still in draft form - and are currently thinking about how best
to share it.
ICTs mean different things in different places: It is notoriously difficult to reach agreement on the definition of ICTs in any group of experts/ practitioners. The three project proposals show clearly that the perceived effectiveness of different communication tools depends not just on connectivity and capacity, but also ingrained communication practices, trusted sources of information and expectations.
In Uganda, where there is very pro-ICT government policy, the proposal includes computers (internet/ database/ training), telephones, video and radio. In India, on the other hand, the focus is on oral communication, enhanced by strong accountable relationships and lobbying of information providers and local government. This strategy includes the use of video and radio, theatre and meetings as well as newspapers, newsletters and leaflets. People in Ruyigi (Burundi), suffering severe communication difficulties because of the insecurity, have focused on the potential of video, radio and community newsletters and posters to share information and experiences between villages, feeding in information from the internet and newspapers based in urban centres.
ICTs can only enhance, not create, communication capacity:
Rather than looking at individual ICTs and potential for convergence, it is
more effective for communities to think about designing an information and communication
system, combining appropriate technologies with human capacity and structures
to enhance what already works, or increase equality in existing communication
channels. For example, video or radio could provide a mechanism to bring information
into and share it among a community in an engaging way, in the local language
and without the need for literacy skills. This would require a mix of technology
(internet, telephone, video or radio production, editing and playback facilities)
and human capacity (regularly meeting Reflect groups, networked facilitators,
a central information worker with skills to source relevant information on request
and access to the internet/ cd rom library). Also key to such as system is to
build on existing resources provided by other projects governmental or non-governmental
- ie existing community radio or television stations, web portal or telephone
type information services aimed at the rural poor etc.
There has been a lot of learning over the first year about how to manage an international project, with a bottom-up process but within a research framework dictated from the UK and for which we are accountable to the donor. Much of this problem and our response is covered in the partnership section above. The line between gentle steering and overwhelming local creativity is a difficult one to navigate, but good communication and trust is essential. Also, when expectations and responsibilities are clearly established from the beginning, it is easier to express concerns and clear up misunderstandings.
How much to push important issues and engineer debates: Another aspect of this issue is the question of how much to influence the debates and subjects of analysis. There is a need for a balance between allowing for bottom-up processes to define the projects at local level, where relevant and appropriate issues and processes can be identified, and defining spaces to ensure that certain analyses of power, gender etc are taken into consideration. For example, in creating the generic resource pages, initially I neglected to ensure that issues of power and control of information resources were explicitly covered. When Maria, a Ugandan colleague, made her comments on the draft pages, she pointed out that if these questions are not asked in early stages, participants could end up creating plans for purchasing and managing ICTs which ignore the barriers to access based on gender or age. We cannot assume that these sorts of debates and analyses will take place automatically.
Avoiding manipulation at grassroots level: It is a
real risk that project managers and/or facilitators might act according to pre-existing
expectations (perhaps without being aware of it themselves) to push for a communication
system (or elements of it) of their choice. The depth and legitimacy of participation
hinges on committed individuals or champions who guard the interests and participation
of the poorest. It requires facilitators and managers to question their own
assumptions and attitudes and participants to challenge them. While this is
not as stable a basis for the process as we would like, it does seem to be the
only way of ensuring true effective participation on the ground. If it is the
case that participation relies not on institutional mechanisms but individual
values and commitment, then this needs to be recognised from planning stages
right through the project process.
During their initial training for the Reflect ICTs process, Ugandan facilitators acknowledged that they hoard some information from their circles, due to the same reasons as anyone: ignorance, selfishness, weak memory, bad record-keeping, laziness, jealousy, poor communication, shyness, lack of funds etc. It is important to recognise that information is power and if the most powerful and wealthy corporations want to guard theirs, then those with very small amounts of power will theirs.
Getting bottom-up projects funded: During the planning process for this project there was a very difficult balance to be reached between designing a truly participatory, bottom-up project, and developing a project outline and structure which is well enough defined to attract funding. The structure of the project proposal forms given by DfID made it very difficult to leave processes truly open and key decisions to be made by the people at the heart of the project- the poorest and most marginalised in the pilot areas. This despite the fact that DfID are particularly supportive of participatory project processes.
The proposal required us to define not only the target beneficiaries and objectives, but also the expected outcomes, indicators etc. The problem in our case is that we did not want to define the technologies to be used, and their expected uses, impact etc, but prepare the target beneficiaries to be able to make those choices themselves. There was some confusion about the lack of clarity over technology to be used in our proposal, and in the end the project was split into two phases to satisfy our needs and DfID's proposal structure. In the first phase the capacity building element is strongest, and by the end the three pilot locations have established plans including the type of technology to be purchased, the management structure, expected use and impact and monitoring and evaluation indicators and guidelines. This forms the proposal for the second phase, of establishing ICT resource centres and monitoring their use. (Click here to see the proposals).
This is a workable solution to the problem for now, but the
issue is still very relevant - how can we strike a balance between leaving flexibility
for communities to develop their own projects, and defining enough outline structure
to content potential donors?
Communication needs of poor communities:
Clearly the most basic and fundamental learning from the project has come from the analysis and debate taking place at pilot level. That is, identification of the communication opportunities, limitations and needs of the poor and marginalised people taking part. On this score the most thorough report so far is in the three pilot proposals, although some interesting observations can be drawn out here:
Current communication practices: unsurprisingly radio and personal contact are two of the most accessible and reliable channels of receiving information for groups who are largely illiterate and far from well-connected urban centres. However, even radio is inaccessible to women in some cases, where the man of the house controls the set and what is played on it. Attitudes to the potential of the Internet vary - from India where it is seen as remote and irrelevant to the current realities, to Uganda where it is considered very appealing and appropriate, but currently is not accessible.