table of contents · katunga phiri, helen meyer and maurice mate of channel africa; sally...

OneWorld/BDO Case study reports Southern Africa, December 2003 2

Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................................................... 3 INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................................ 4

Background............................................................................................................................................. 4 Methodological principles ...................................................................................................................... 5

CASE STUDIES SOUTHERN AFRICA .................................................................................................... 6 Brief overview case studies Southern Africa ......................................................................................... 6

I Case study Afronet, Lusaka, Zambia ....................................................................................................... 7 Summary Afronet.................................................................................................................................. 13

II Case study eBrain Forum of Zambia, Lusaka, Zambia......................................................................... 15 Summary eBrain Forum........................................................................................................................ 21

III Case study Channel Africa, Johannesburg - South Africa................................................................... 23 Summary Channel Africa...................................................................................................................... 30

IV Case study ItrainOnline- Women'sNet Johannesburg, South Africa ................................................... 32 Summary ItrainOnline- Women'sNet .................................................................................................... 37

V Case study NGOCC , Lusaka, Zambia................................................................................................. 39 Summary NGOCC ............................................................................................................................... 44


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank all the organisations that participated in the ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) case study research in Southern Africa. Without their precious time, energy and honesty the work wouldn't have been of the same quality. The most valuable information cannot be found in documents or on websites; it is in the heads of founders, directors, staff and users of the ICT activities. More specifically I would like to thank Mbinji-Tange Mufalo and Yuyo Nachali-Kambikambi of Afronet; Margree Chilwesa, Charity Mpundu and Mr Mwale of eBrain Forum; Mongameli Jabavu, Sydney Katunga Phiri, Helen Meyer and Maurice Mate of Channel Africa; Sally Shackleton, Natasha Primo and Elizabeth Araujo of Women'sNet and Evarine Mooya and Golden Nachibinga of NGO-CC. I would also like to thank my colleagues of OneWorld Africa for their assistance. A special thanks to Mr Mwala K. Sheba who co-conducted the interviews and revised all case studies, and to APC (Association of Progressive Communication) for the extra interviews with Channel Africa staff. Maartje Op de Coul London, December 2003


INTRODUCTION Background The Building Digital Opportunities (BDO) programme is a package of cross-sectoral initiatives to address key barriers and opportunities for ICTs in achieving development targets. Funded by DFID, DGIS, and SDC, the programme's five key areas of activity are: - Strengthening local capacity in developing countries to address policy and regulatory environments. - Supporting a programme of demand led pilot projects, implemented as part of an ongoing series of stakeholder ICT roundtable processes in selected developing countries. - Supporting information inclusion for the poor through activities on community media and linking old and new ICTs. - A strategic partnership with a global 'development' Internet partner. - Knowledge and research activities in key areas to support the above programme.

The programme has been put together as a partnership involving several participating organisations. They are: - Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (www.cto.int) - International Institute for Communication and Development (www.iicd.org.) - OneWorld International (www.oneworld.net) - Panos (www.panos.org.uk) - World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (www.amarc.org) and of course - DFID (www.dfid.gov.uk) - DGIS (www.os.minbuza.nl) - SDC (www.deza.admin.ch)

As part of the BDO programme, OneWorld International has conducted case studies to help give decision makers a clear understanding of how civil society is actually using information and communications technologies, and what the impact is. Most of the cases studies are about OneWorld partners. They were not selected for being success stories; rather they were likely to help identify the positive and negative impact ICTs have. Around 20 organisations in South Asia, Southern Africa and Central America are profiled. Their activities vary from offering wireless communication equipment to tribal nomads and teaching slum children how to use a computer, to training NGOs how to build a website and online broadcasting of radio programmes. By using the same structure and definitions, the conclusions on impact and sustainability are fairly comparable.


Methodological principles Impact can be quite an ambitious term to work with, so OneWorld International choose to break it down into the elements opportunity, empowerment and security. This terminology is generally used among the BDO partners and also formed the base of the BDO Learning Study (September 2003). It is derived from the "causes of poverty" as described in the World Development Report 2000/2001(http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/wdrpoverty/report/). Definitions:

• Promoting Opportunity: expanding economic opportunity for poor people by stimulating overall growth and by building up their assets and increasing the returns on these assets, through a combination of market and non-market actions.

• Facilitating Empowerment: making state institutions more accountable and responsive to poor people, strengthening the participation of poor people in political processes and local decision making, and removing the social barriers that result from distinctions of gender, ethnicity, race and social status.

• Enhancing Security: reducing poor people's vulnerability to ill health, economic shocks, policy induced dislocations, natural disasters and violence, as well as helping them cope with adverse shocks when they occur.

Apart from impact, sustainability is looked at as well. In most of the cases sustainability is described in terms of finances and human resources. Replicability is addressed as well. One of the conclusions of a partnership survey OneWorld International conducted previous to the case studies (March 2002) was that ICT had mainly increased the internal efficiency of the partners, rather than the external effectiveness. Therefore the case studies consciously try to include the external aspect, knowing that the two levels obviously influence each other. The reports follow roughly the pattern of describing the organisation briefly, describing the ICT activities and finally drawing (modest) conclusions on impact and sustainability. The case studies are based on interviews with people working for the partner-organisation or involved in another way. Where possible representatives of the target group were interviewed as well. The organisation's websites were another important source of information. OneWorld's evaluation manager most of the time co-conducted the case studies with a local consultant. The first round of case studies was conducted in India, Sri Lanka and Nepal in February 2003 in cooperation with Mr. Rahul Nainwal. The second round was in South Africa and Zambia in April 2003 in cooperation with Mr. Mwala K. Sheba. The last round in Costa Rica and El Salvador took place in September 2003 in cooperation with Mrs. Evelyn Zamora from Fundación Acceso. For each region the case studies are printed separately. A concluding synthesis report of all case studies is available separately as well.


CASE STUDIES SOUTHERN AFRICA Brief overview case studies Southern Africa I Afronet (the Inter-African Network for Human Rights and Development) - Lusaka, Zambia Afronet uses a website and e-mail for the dissemination of information and communication with their stakeholders. Internally they have PC's and access to e-mail and internet to make their work more efficient. II eBrain (eBrain Forum of Zambia) - Lusaka, Zambia eBrain is a Zambian platform for information sharing, networking and lobbying in the field of ICT for development. eBrain has a website and a quarterly newsletter and also organizes monthly offline meetings. III Channel Africa - Johannesburg, South Africa Channel Africa broadcasts news from Africa via shortwave, satellite and internet. Current affairs, economics, technology, education, environment, tourism and sport are all covered by Channel Africa. IV Women'sNet- Johannesburg, South Africa Women'sNet offers a support and networking program designed to enable (South) African women to use the internet to find the people, issues, resources and tools needed for women's social activism. V NGO-CC (Non-Governmental Organisation's Co-ordinating Committee) - Lusaka, Zambia NGO-CC is establishing computer centres in the provinces of Zambia in order to give women access to the possibilities the Internet offers.


I Case study Afronet, Lusaka, Zambia By Maartje Op de Coul, OneWorld International Introduction OneWorld is part of the Building Digital Opportunities programme sponsored by the British, Swiss, Dutch and Canadian governments. One of the elements in this programme is an ICT survey that aims "to give decision makers a clear understanding of how civil society is actually using ICT and its impact through a comprehensive study". It was decided that could be done best through a number of case studies on different uses of ICTs. Throughout the different studies "impact" is considered in terms of opportunity, empowerment and security(1). The present study focuses on the use and impact of ICTs by the Inter-African Network for Human Rights and Development (Afronet), an umbrella organisation for human rights in Zambia. Afronet uses a website and e-mail for the dissemination of information and communication with their stakeholders. Internally they have PC's and access to e-mail and internet to make their work more efficient. About Afronet

“Our quarterly magazines are sent the world over. Caribbean, Asia, you name it" Yuyo Nachali-Kambikambi – information officer Afronet

Afronet originated in London as a result of the 1993 Geneva WSSD Conference. At that time one was concerned that African human rights issues were mainly communicated on by non-Africans. Therefore the Afronet secretariat was established in Lusaka, Zambia. As it was meant to be a truly African network, another office was opened in Lagos, Nigeria in 1994/5. However, because of lack of coherence between the two offices, the Lagos office was closed and Afronet effectively covers only Southern Africa. This regional human rights work is coordinated by Sahringon. The aims of Afronet are to network human rights activities and organisations all over Africa and to gather and disseminate information on the enhancement of human rights, accountable government and development in Africa. They further challenge corruption by facilitating programs of empowerment and participation for the purpose of ensuring public accountability at all levels of the African society. Afronet also tries to ensure effective and representative participation of African NGOs before international bodies, institutions and gatherings devoted to human rights and development. The Afronet targetgroup consists of intermediaries like human rights NGOs and lawyers, policemen and academics, but also the general citizenry. They reach their targetgroup through a number of publications such as position papers, human rights reports, the Human Rights Observer and the Southern African Human Rights review. The latter are quarterly magazines and "they are sent the world over. Caribbean, Asia, you name it" says Yuyo Nachali-Kambikambi, the information officer. For more urgent issues Afronet produces human rights alerts and press releases, on average at least two every month. Till September 2002 Afronet also had a Zambian weekly newspaper called the Monitor, one of the few non-governmental newspapers in Zambia. Though the Monitor is officially independent now, Afronet still owns 90% of its shares. Afronet has a yearly budget of around 1 million US dollars of which 50% is dedicated to their regional activities (Sahringon) and 50% for Afronet. Among the donors are NORAD, DANIDA, SIDA, Ireland Aid, USAID, Australia Aid, Norwegian and Danish Church Aid and Hivos. It is so called basket funding, meaning that (almost) all donors put money in one "basket" from which Afronet can fund its activities.


The most important use of ICTs by Afronet is for the purposes of disseminating human rights information (through the Afronet website) and for communication with their constituency (through e-mail). ICTs are also used internally to make the work processes more efficient. Afronet and ICTs – the website

“Afronet is the most famous human rights organisation in Southern Africa now, and I suppose that is because of the website as well”. Yuyo Nachali-Kambikambi

Technicalities Mbinji-Tange Mufalo, the present webmaster and overall ICT responsible within Afronet, is at the same time environmentalist and lecturer at the University of Zambia. His first involvement with the internet dates back to 1992 when he was connected to NASA. By 1996 he had become a webmaster and came to Afronet to sell his product, a website. Afronet contracted him to build the site and till two years ago Mbinji has been responsible for its maintenance. Even when he was studying in Cape Town he proceeded updating the site. Now the updating is partly outsourced. The website is in plain HTML and Mbinji uses Frontpage and Text Editor to modify the content. There are no databases linked to the site. The site needs some reconstruction since updating the content is a tedious process and thus not done regularly. The Afronet site was first hosted with Zamnet, the pioneer Zambian ISP. But from 1999 onwards the site was hosted abroad with OneWorld in the UK, mainly because of security reasons: the Zambian government sometimes tempered with content on the Afronet site that was viewed as critical of the government. Hosting abroad is also a lot better and cheaper; with OneWorld it is even free. The site is mirrored with SANGONeT in South Africa (for usd 25 a month only), which is why they have two different URL’s. "Whenever I upload, the easiest [Oneworld or SANGONeT] will be uploaded first and then it is linked to the other one" explains Mbinji.

Mbinji-Tange Mufalo, webmaster of Afronet Aim and audience The aim of Afronet’s website is to communicate their human rights information to people all over the world. Apart from the quarterly publications, the website is an excellent tool for spreading and archiving Afronet and Sahringon human rights alerts and press statements. But Yuyo explains that to actually realize that, the site needs reconstruction first. Though she would like to see more articles on the site she says “it would be too much to publish them fully on the website; we only pick one or two articles”. Local Zambian people are not the target audience of the site, because most of them do not have access to the internet and sometimes do not understand English. Only those Zambians working on donor projects have access and Mbinji says that in internet cafes mainly foreign sites are viewed. Local sites are mostly visited by Zambians living abroad…For the Zambian constituency the information is therefore still disseminated in print. The people who do visit Afronet’s site, as evidenced from tracers, are mainly academic institutions and students, human rights NGOs, inter-governmental organisations and civil society in general, most of them abroad. Afronet is able to track its audience through an application called Tracer, but the last time Mbinji checked was in 2001. SANGONeT provides web statistics; from OneWorld they have never asked


stats. There are quite a lot of e-mails coming from the site (see next paragraph) and once every two or three months, Mbinji checks search engines to see where Afronet is cited or linked. One of the consequences of the "de-linking" of the Monitor is that their sites are not connected any longer. The Afronet site is now not updated anymore in the same rhythm as the Monitor site, but only once every three months as a minimum, and when need arises. "What used to drive us to update used to be the Monitor. We used to get features from there. We don't have so much content". As a consequence, the traffic to the Afronet site has probably reduced significantly. "Now most of our readers know we produce content only on a quarterly basis. So they know that if they read something new in December, nothing new will come until April". Benefits of the website When asked for the most important benefits the website has brought about, Mbinji mentions the significant cost reduction caused by the fact that they don’t have to send their publications around the world anymore by snail-mail or even courier. The most costly mailings were the ones going outside Africa, where now the majority can access the information through the internet. Another positive effect of Afronet having a website is that it generates many requests from foreign volunteers. Afronet always hosts one or more volunteers at the time for which they only have to arrange accommodation (normally with one of the staff members). Thirdly Mbinji states that because of its website Afronet is much easier to be found by donors and national governors. The latter are important since in many cases the (Zambian) state is the target of their activities and Afronet has quite some influence on them. Yuyo has a somewhat different opinion. She doesn’t see the website as an alternative for print publications and says “most people like hard copy instead of a website”. There is no need for cost reduction, since the publication and dissemination of their quarterly magazines are funded anyway and there is no subscription fee. Promotion and networking are the main assets of the site in her opinion. “Afronet is the most famous human rights organisation in Southern Africa now, and I suppose that is because of the website as well”. On the future reconstructed site she hopes to have online discussion for instance on the current debate on constitutional review. And if Afronet would have a poll on the website, that would make it easier to take their points of view to the government. She would also like to have an archive of all press releases and human rights alerts. Such an archive would save her a lot of time and hassle, because now for every request she physically has to go through all the files to find a specific alert or press release from the past. And "people (in other time zones) don't have to call me at odd hours anymore. The website could make clear our mandate and what our boundaries are, what we can help with and what we cannot help with". However, for all these important reconstructions to take place, there seem to be two major obstacles. One is the workload of Mbinji who has so many responsibilities that it will be hard for him to find time for the longer term reconstruction activities. The other is the decision making process within Afronet where every little change has to be agreed on. In Yuyo's words: "whatever we decide to do with that website will have to come from a meeting". This sounds democratic, but the down side is that it really seems to impede the process and may also temper the urge to reconstruct. Afronet and ICTs – e-mail and newsletter

"Through e-mail we have been able to circulate our press statements and alerts more quickly than faxing and that sort of thing" Yuyo Nachali-Kambikambi

Yuyo is, apart from the publications, also responsible for the first contacts with anyone who has an information request to Afronet. She then either responds herself or passes on the request to a colleague. After her e-mail address was put on the website a lot more e-mails came in. Now she receives about 200 mails (including newsletters) every day asking for information etc. "I am in the office at 7.00 AM just because of e-mail" she says.


Some of the incoming e-mails are an incentive for Afronet to make a human rights alert or a press release. And Yuyo explains that in their turn "through e-mail we have been able to circulate our press statements and alerts more quickly than faxing and that sort of thing". It has made work more easy and the alerts are a lot more timely now". Afronet also has a newsletter through which only the alerts and press releases are spread. They used to have "Sahringon brief" as well. It was bi-weekly, but slowed down considerably because the countries stopped feeding in. It has ended now, but it may be resumed in June or July. The main benefit of e-mail and newsletters - both incoming and outgoing - seems to be the increase of communication and knowledge sharing with Afronet's stakeholders. Moreover, these tools have increased and widened the stakeholders involved in their human rights work. "Now at least we have contacts in strategic places" and "we can now participate in an online campaign of Amnesty International" says Yuyo. Afronet and ICTs – internal use of PC's, LAN and internet

“Access to internet and e-mail has largely expanded the horizon of Afronet staff, thus also improving their expertise and the institution’s networking ability” Mbinji-Tange Mufalo - webmaster Afronet

In 1997 USAID donated a sum of usd 65.000 for 12 workstations, 4 laptops and 2 servers for Afronet. Out of those 12 workstations, 3 are still working and the rest has been replaced. They use an IBM proxy server for the LAN now. All Afronet staff work on a PC with standard Microsoft software. Where needed designing or accounting software is installed as well and all graphics are done in house. An open source browser called Opera is available, "it's much faster in terms of downloading and it is free". Mbinji is aware of the advantages of open source: "now we need new computers because Bill Gates keeps changing his platforms. But Afronet's capacity is too small to switch to open source and the skills of staff are not sufficient". There is a dedicated ICT budget for upgrades, but if replacement of equipment is needed they have to submit a proposal to a donor. All workstations have internet access through a wireless radiolink connection provided by the Zambian ISP UUNet. The cost of connection in 2001 was usd 3000 and the monthly fee is usd 1000. At that time they did a cost-benefit analysis that concluded that a leased line with a modem would be cheaper. Unfortunately that solution only lasted a month till it broke down. VSAT (connectivity through satellite) is available in Zambia but it is very expensive to submit an application to the Communications Authority. The wireless connection Afronet has now is far from ideal; a possible explanation being that UUNet has moved its access points and is now already taking two months to redirect all dishes of its customers... Though all Afronet staff members have access to the internet, Mbinji has decided to limit browsing time; only between 9-11 and 15-17 people are allowed to surf the internet. There is no limitation on e-mail. Mbinji says "people abuse internet access; it takes people away from their regular work. There was a riot, but if you ask them what they are doing on the internet they won't tell". He also monitors which sites his colleagues are viewing. If we ask for privacy or ethic considerations, especially in a human rights organisation, one of Mbinji's arguments is "in Zambia pornography is illegal, that's also why we are monitoring. UUNet can terminate the contract if they find out". Mbinji and intern Charity are also responsible for ICT skills training of the staff. Mbinji himself takes advantage to build his own skills whenever free courses are offered, such as OneWorld webdevelopment training, or foreign interns as they come in. Afronet sometimes builds a site for a partner for free or for a very low fee. Mbinji states that all hardware and software have been good investments. The most important benefits on an internal level are the fact that because of the LAN the work is done a lot more efficiently. And secondly, access to internet and e-mail has largely expanded the horizon of Afronet staff, thus also improving their expertise and the institution’s networking ability. The only negative effect is the distracting effect of access to the internet.


Impact and sustainability

It seems reasonable to conclude that the impact of the use of ICTs by Afronet mostly empowers them directly and their constituency indirectly because their rights are better fought for.

Impact In the case of Afronet it seems to make sense to divide conclusions on impact of the use of ICTs in direct and indirect impact. Direct beneficiaries of the website, newsletter and e-mail facilities of Afronet are civil society organisations, academics and donors with internet access. The majority of them are located outside Zambia, but a considerable amount of them are probably Zambians. Other direct beneficiaries are the staff members of Afronet. Thanks to ICT facilities they can work more efficiently and exchange views with a wider range of people with a human rights interest. Besides, the website attracts volunteers and donors and (at least in theory) costs can be saved on mailing and courier costs as well. The overall emerging picture is that more effective external communication, exchange and promotion and internal efficiency, indirectly benefit the local community, though that is very hard to measure. One must assume that people whose rights are violated are helped by a quick and efficient communication of alerts and press releases. Their rights are lobbied and advocated for a lot more effectively through internet and e-mail. Alerts also reach (international) decision makers a lot easier and campaigns can include a lot more people. It seems reasonable to conclude that the impact of the use of ICTs by Afronet mostly empowers them directly and their constituency indirectly because their rights are better fought for. In situations with extreme human rights violations, security of the targetgroup might be enhanced as well, but it goes beyond the scope of this study to draw such conclusions. Sustainability Financially Afronet is hugely dependent on donor support; the general mentality seems to be that "if we need money for anything, we just write a motivation and a justification for our donors". At least until recently this seemed to work out fine and thus the need for to income generating activities is low. Afronet is tied to contracts with donors as even permission is needed to charge for its subscriptions. "Because it is free a lot of magazines probably go to wrong or old addresses, but that is very hard to check if people don't have to pay", says Yuyo. On the other hand, Mbinji seems to be very much aware of the importance of income generation and cost reduction and with his ICT activities he tries to save money. He considered establishing an internet cafe, but decided against it because of the workload. Despite the "threat" of one day not receiving the same amount of donor funding anymore, in the short term donors still seem to be willing to invest in Afronet. Proof of this seems to be the Monitor being on the verge of financial collapse after its de-linking from Afronet. Before (and to a certain extent still) the Monitor could benefit from all the relatively wealthy facilities of Afronet. In terms of human resources there is a huge dependency as well: a lot of work is concentrated on people like Mbinji and Yuyo. It is no exaggeration to state that without Mbinji and his enormous commitment, Afronet would be a lot more backward in terms of ICTs. Even when he was away for a period and knowing that he is webmaster, ICT trainer, responsible for the equipment, researcher and lecturer at the university at the same time, Afronet hasn't thought of maybe also hiring or training someone else to diminish the workload. It seems likely that if some day Mbinji chooses to change direction, the ICT part of Afronet falls apart.


Conclusions

Despite the website and the computers it seems Afronet as a body hasn't yet decided to innovate and to fully use the possibilities of ICTs

Afronet benefits a lot from the application of different kinds of ICTs: their website and internet access, e-mail and newsletters and their LAN and PC's. For a human rights organisation like Afronet international lobby, advocacy, campaigning, networking, communication and information exchange are crucial success factors. It goes without saying that ICT is an important tool for all those activities. The only limitation being that internet access in Zambia is still quite problematic and costly. Therefore only part of Afronet's stakeholders/targetgroup benefits directly from their ICT activities. But all people we spoke to say that the investments done definitely pay back. The foreign volunteers, improved contacts with donors, increased contacts with likeminded organisations around the world, timely alerts and wider and cheaper distribution of their material, are the most important values added. Having said this, it is surprising that Afronet management seems to put so little money and effort in ICTs. The website needs urgent reconstruction and hasn't been updated for a while as a consequence. To save costs, Afronet could send part of their publications as pdf attachments or publish them on the website instead of expensive mailings. A good newsletter, discussion forum and opinion poll would make a lot of sense and keep the site active. Hardware needs upgrading and internet connection is poor. Despite the website and the computers it seems Afronet as a body hasn't yet decided to innovate and to fully use the possibilities of ICTs. Otherwise decisions on reconstructing the website, maybe cutting down the hard copies of publications, training and hiring more staff etc wouldn't take so long. For the time being resources seem less of a problem than management support. Unfortunately lack of management support is often an obstacle for people wanting to use ICTs to enhance impact. This is particularly sad in a situation like Afronet's, where so many achievements have already been made and so many possibilities lie ahead. Footnotes (1) According to the Worldbank World Development Report 2000/2001, http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/wdrpoverty/report/ Resources "Afronet on the internet. Demystifying the Conceptual, the Maintained and the Expectations of Being on the Internet", Mbinji-Tange Mufalo, April 1999. http://www.afronet.org.za or http://www.oneworld.net/afronet/ http://www.monitor.co.zm/


Summary Afronet

“Afronet is the most famous human rights organisation in Southern Africa now, and I suppose that is because of the website as well”. Yuyo Nachali-Kambikambi – information officer Afronet

Afronet originated as a result of the 1993 Geneva WSSD Conference. The aims of Afronet are to network human rights activities and organisations all over Africa and to gather and disseminate information on the enhancement of human rights, accountable government and development in Africa. The Afronet targetgroup consists of intermediaries like human rights NGOs and lawyers, policemen and academics, but also the general citizenry. They reach their targetgroup through a number of publications such the Human Rights Observer. For more urgent issues Afronet produces human rights alerts and press releases. The Monitor, one of the few non-governmental newspapers in Zambia, used to be part of Afronet as well, but they have recently “de-linked”. Afronet has a yearly budget of around 1 million US dollars covered by a wide range of donor agencies. Afronet and ICTs – the website The aim of Afronet’s website is to communicate their human rights information to people all over the world. The people who visit Afronet’s site, as evidenced from tracers, are mainly academic institutions and students, human rights NGOs, inter-governmental organisations and civil society in general, most of them abroad. One of the consequences of the de-linking of the Monitor is that their sites are not connected any longer and the incentive to update the site has diminished. The site also needs some reconstruction to make updating less of a tedious process. The site was first hosted with Zamnet, but from 1999 onwards it was hosted abroad with OneWorld in the UK, mainly because of security reasons: the Zambian government sometimes tempered with content on the Afronet site that was viewed as critical of the government. When asked for the most important benefits the website has brought about, webmaster Mbinji mentions the significant cost reduction caused by the fact that they don’t have to send their publications around the world anymore by snail-mail or even courier. Another positive effect is that it generates many requests from foreign volunteers. Thirdly Mbinji states that because of its website Afronet is much easier to be found by donors and national governors. Yuyo, the information officer, doesn’t see the website as an alternative for print publications; promotion and networking are the main assets of the site in her opinion. “Afronet is the most famous human rights organisation in Southern Africa now, and I suppose that is because of the website as well”. The website has a lot of promises for future use, but needs reconstruction first. However, one obstacle for that is the workload of Mbinji and the other is the slow decision making process within Afronet: "whatever we decide to do with that website will have to come from a meeting". Afronet and ICTs – e-mail and newsletter Yuyo is responsible for the first contacts with anyone who has an information request to Afronet. After her e-mail address was put on the website a lot more e-mails came in, about 200 a day. “E-mail has made work more easy and the alerts are a lot more timely now". The main benefit of e-mail and newsletters seems to be the increase of communication and knowledge sharing with Afronet's stakeholders. Moreover, these tools have increased and widened the stakeholders involved in their human rights work. Afronet and ICTs – internal use of PC's, LAN and internet All Afronet staff has access to a (donated) PC and to the internet through an open source browser (Opera) and wireless connection. However staff is only allowed to surf the internet between 9-11 and 15-17, because "people abuse internet access; it takes people away from their regular work." Use of


e-mail is not limited. Mbinji states that all hardware and software have been good investments. The most important benefits on an internal level are the fact that because of the LAN the work is done a lot more efficiently. And secondly, access to internet and e-mail has largely expanded the horizon of Afronet staff, thus also improving their expertise and the institution’s networking ability. Impact and sustainability In the case of Afronet it makes sense to divide conclusions on impact of ICTs in direct and indirect impact. Direct beneficiaries are civil society organisations, academics and donors with internet access. The majority of them are located outside Zambia, but a considerable amount of them are probably Zambians. Other direct beneficiaries are the staff members of Afronet. Thanks to ICT facilities they can work more efficiently and exchange views with a wider range of people with a human rights interest. Besides, the website attracts volunteers and donors and (at least in theory) costs can be saved on mailing costs. The emerging picture is that more effective external communication, exchange and promotion and internal efficiency, indirectly benefit the local community, though that is very hard to measure. One must assume that people whose rights are violated are helped by a quick and efficient communication of alerts and press releases. It seems reasonable to conclude that the impact of the use of ICTs by Afronet mostly empowers them directly and their constituency indirectly because their rights are better fought for. In situations with extreme human rights violations, security of the targetgroup might be enhanced as well, but it goes beyond the scope of this study to draw such conclusions. Financially Afronet is hugely dependent on donor support which seems to work out fine for the time being. But Afronet is tied to the contracts with donors as even permission is needed to charge for a subscription fee to their magazines. In terms of human resources there is a huge dependency as well: a lot of work is concentrated on people like Mbinji and Yuyo. It seems likely that if some day Mbinji chooses to change direction, the ICT part of Afronet falls apart. Conclusions For a human rights organisation like Afronet international lobby, advocacy, campaigning, networking, communication and information exchange are crucial success factors. It goes without saying that ICT is an important tool for all those activities. The foreign volunteers, improved contacts with donors, increased contacts with likeminded organisations around the world, timely alerts and wider and cheaper distribution of their material, are the most important values added. Having said this, it is surprising that Afronet management seems to put so little money and effort in ICTs. The website needs urgent reconstruction and hasn't been updated for a while as a consequence. A good newsletter, discussion forum and opinion poll would make a lot of sense and keep the site active. Hardware needs upgrading and internet connection is poor. Despite the website and the computers it seems Afronet as a body hasn't yet decided to innovate and to fully use the possibilities of ICTs. This is particularly sad in a situation like Afronet's, where so many achievements have already been made and so many possibilities lie ahead.


II Case study eBrain Forum of Zambia, Lusaka, Zambia By Maartje Op de Coul, OneWorld International Introduction OneWorld is part of the Building Digital Opportunities programme sponsored by the British, Swiss, Dutch and Canadian governments. One of the elements in this programme is an ICT survey that aims "to give decision makers a clear understanding of how civil society is actually using ICT and its impact through a comprehensive study". It was decided that could be done best through a number of case studies on different uses of ICTs. Throughout the different studies "impact" is considered in terms of opportunity, empowerment and security(1). The present study focuses on the use and impact of ICTs by eBrain Forum of Zambia, a Zambian platform for information sharing, networking and lobbying in the field of ICT for development. eBrain Forum has a website and a quarterly newsletter and also organizes monthly offline meetings to reach its goals. About eBrain Forum

”The first objective of eBrain Forum is to try to build a body of knowledge for people concerned with ICT for development“ Mr Margree Chilwesa - coordinator of eBrain Forum

“To set up an organisation to promote increased use and awareness of ICTs in this country, to get it on top of the development agenda of Zambia”. That is the agenda of eBrain Forum, explains Mr Mwale, the chairperson and one of the founding members of the forum. He works for the Examination Council of Zambia, an autonomous body within the Ministry of Education. The idea to form eBrain Forum was born in 2001 at an IICD(2) workshop in Uganda on ICT policy formulation exchanges between the Ugandan and Zambian Ministries of Education. eBrain Forum was also inspired by the G8 Digital Opportunity Task Force (DOT Force) that tries to identify ways in which the digital revolution can benefit all the world’s people especially the poorest and most marginalized groups. In the course of 2002 several preparatory meetings took place, in which IICD played a significant role. eBrain Forum started its programme of activities around August and the website was launched in December. In January 2003 a 5 year actual strategic paper came about that has been approved but still has to be finalized. The first objective of eBrain Forum is to try to build a body of knowledge for people concerned with ICT for development, says Mr Margree Chilwesa, coordinator of eBrain Forum and member of the Management Team. The other two are to influence the national (ICT) policy formulation process and to start a national local information network. eBrain Forum is a membership organisation with different membership options: individual, institutional and affiliate (for international and multilateral organisations). It is an amalgamation that connects private sector, government and NGOs, which is in line with IICD's multi-stakeholder approach. As of recently all new members have to pay a fee; the old ones have to renew their membership and start paying as well. Fees are ranging from 25.000 Kwacha (5 usd) a year for students to 2.000.000 Kwacha (400 usd) for affiliate members. In April 2003 eBrain Forum counted 86 members. When asked for the targetgroup of eBrain Forum Mr Chilwesa stressed that not the members are the target group, but Zambians in general. In the end their activities should lead to Zambians using ICTs effectively and efficiently. eBrain Forum has currently one full time staff member: Ms Charity Mpundu who is the programmes officer. A technical person is expected to be hired by June 2003. The Management Team (MT) is the


policy making body of eBrain Forum and counts 9 members. The MT is not just overseeing, but has implementation responsibilities as well. eBrain Forum has three chapters: one in Lusaka (in the building of the Zambia Postal Services), one in Kitwe (Copperbelt) and one in the Southern province. The 3 year budget is usd 275.000 and for 2003 it is 108.000 of which by April only 30.000 was secured (23.000 from IICD). eBrain Forum focuses on Zambia, though they also play a role in CINSA, the Community Information Network for Southern Africa and in fact Charity is actually hired by CINSA. But Mr Chilwesa first wants to find out what works and what not in Zambia before expanding to the region. Having said that, it is important to note that eBrain Forum is active in different African networks on ICT for development. Mr Chilwesa has attended workshops in Ghana, Tanzania and Mali. eBrain Forum is also IICD's IN (Information Networking) partner in Zambia. It is IICD’s intention to promote the use of ICT by establishing IN networks in the different countries. Through these networks there is a wide exchange of knowledge about all kinds of issues related to ICT and the civil society.

Mr Margree Chilwesa, coordinator of eBrain Forum at his desk in the building of the Zambia Postal Services eBrain Forum activities

“The MP’s are very interested in the topic [ICT for development], especially during election time” Mr Mwale – chairperson eBrain Forum

To achieve its aims eBrain Forum has started a number of online and offline activities. Online there is the website (www.ebrain.org.zm), a quarterly newsletter and a discussion group (dgroup). Offline activities are monthly meetings and lobby and advocacy activities. Online The aim of the eBrain Forum website is "to promote information and knowledge sharing and networking in issues relating to ICTs for development among individuals and institutions using ICT for development." The site is maintained by one of the founding members, Patricia Lumba from OneWorld Africa, who started constructing it in June 2002. An upgrade was made in April this year


with the help of an independent person for the interactive features - namely the online application form, and a database. These haven't yet been linked to the site. The target group is individuals and organizations practicing ICT for development. It is also for those interested in ICTs, and have an influence in its implementation, and delivery, such as policy makers, ISPs, regulatory telecommunication bodies, mostly in Zambia, but also beyond. But Patricia states that "the site still needs to be promoted, and more content included. Only members know about it, but it should be non-members as well. Marketing and promotion is part of the strategy." Recently a counter has been placed on it to enable the forum to monitor how many people visit the website. eBrain Forum members are the content providers for the site. However Patricia explains that "E Brain is in the process of drawing up a maintenance strategy where more members will be a part of it's maintenance and content building process". Charity is responsible for maintaining the membership database (in Excel) that might be published on the website as well. The newsletter is disseminated by mail and print on a quarterly basis and has about 250 subscribers. It is also published on the site. An editorial team of two people with a journalistic background is responsible for the content. The dgroup was only launched in April 2003 but already has 44 subscribers. In early May it was used as a discussion space after a workshop on "Education and ICTs in Zambia". The most important reason for starting it is to make eBrain Forum all inclusive of people with interest in ICTs for development. Now there are some perceptions of eBrain Forum being a "closed shop" and they want to change it. Monthly meetings Among the most important activities of eBrain Forum are the monthly knowledge sharing meetings where a specific theme related to ICT for development is addressed. Every month another MT member is responsible to pick a theme, do some research and invite speakers. Because of their different professional backgrounds, the topics and thus the participants differ each month. “When I organize it, there a mostly government people; with OneWorld there are more NGOs” explains Mr Mwale. The meetings are open for members and other interested people and advertising happens through mailinglists, press and targeted house to house dissemination of leaflets. Mr Chilwesa estimates that every month about 20-30 people attend from government, NGOs and private sector. The sessions are always very lively and Mr Mwale thinks they are successful because some people come back more than once. “They even ask for a specific institution to present. When we had invited an ISP, they wanted them to come back another time” he says. He refers to a session where dial-up connections were the theme and eBrain Forum had invited Zamtel (Zambia’s backbone ISP operator), some users and the Zambian Communications Authority to present their case. “The aim was to try to come up with partnership solutions” comments Mr. Chilwesa. Another interesting example was a meeting organised by Mr Mwale in September 2002. It targeted Members of the Zambian Parliament and aimed to sensitize them on the possible uses of ICTs in their respective constituencies. He explains how “the MP’s are very interested in the topic, especially during election time. The election results are disseminated through ICTs like radio and accompanied by graphs and maps on TV. eBrain Forum tries to convince them that even beyond elections MP’s can use ICTs to work with their constituencies in rural areas.” To specify how, Mr Mwale gave the MP's an example where the government planned for a 25% fuel tax. Farmers with access to the internet calculated fuel costs and passed on their analysis to MP’s who lobbied and in the end achieved a reduction to 15%. Another concrete example has to do with market prices. “There is an imbalance in cost price between the rural and urban areas. Farmers sell their maize at 8.000 K whereas on the market in Lusaka it costs 38.000 K. Information centres could help, but there are not many. Community radio stations have started to disseminate prices, but that is always one-way communication”.


The meeting with the MP’s was so successful that they invited eBrain Forum to come to Parliament and explain ICT possibilities to other MP’s. When asked if that has already been realized, Mr Mwale replies “we don't have the resources to do that. We are investigating now how to do it substantially”. One of the problems is that the MP’s were demanding to be paid allowances in accordance with their parliamentary privileges which eBrain Forum can't afford… Lobby and advocacy In order to get ICTs on top of the Zambian development agenda, the people involved in eBrain Forum are active networkers with different government bodies. When there is a function, government officials are invited as guests of honour. “We have a routine to meet with government people. We start with the ones we know; quite a number already”. Main purpose is for ICTs to become part of their planning process and also to warn them for possible dangers. The main players they have to deal with are the Ministry of Transport and Communication and the Cabinet Office. The results up to the present (April 2003) are mixed. The officials addressed are receptive for the subject matter eBrain Forum offers and they have attended the meetings they were invited for. “Government is willing to support, there is an indication for opening” says Mr Mwale. On the other hand, there is a tendency within government bodies to only refer to equipment when talking about ICTs. When there is some equipment in the budget they are already satisfied. Also they start applying ICTs mainly in financial departments. A promising indicator is the increased number of government job advertisements for people with IT skills in the last 3 months. Alongside sensitisation, eBrain Forum would like to be involved in policy formulation as well. But a lot more interaction, meetings and demonstrations are needed before that next step can be taken. Another group eBrain Forum tries to influence are international donors and investors. After the strategic plan is finalized, eBrain Forum plans to organize a meeting for international donors with offices in Lusaka to have a look at their ICT programmes and offer help. As to the private sector Mr Chilwesa is an important lobbying person since he used to work for a private company. He explains that "there is a lot of fear in the middle management for computers. A recent paper that was presented at the launch of the Copperbelt Chapter revealed that only about 28% of marketing managers were familiar with computers, 50% didn't want to use computers and the remainder had no idea. These managers are the primary vehicles through which decision making is initiated.“ If they themselves can't use the tools effectively it becomes extremely difficult for eBrain Forum to influence them and win their support." But if for instance a construction company would like to start automating, eBrain Forum could link them up with the right institutions. Impact

It seems the offline activities of eBrain Forum are more successful than the online ones. All people involved in eBrain Forum spoken to, stress the fact that it is too early to draw any conclusions on the impact of the platform. "For now one can't say we have broken the chains of the digital divide" says Mr Chilwesa. First they have to establish a ground; make themselves known. No monitoring and evaluation tools are in place yet, that’s the last of the seven steps planned for in the strategic paper. They do assume however that what they offer is appreciated from the fact that participants of the monthly meetings are enthusiastic and membership and newsletter subscriptions are growing. In November 2002 eBrain Forum and IICD organised a Round Table on ICTs and sustainable livelihood. All the organisations that have attended are now preparing proposals, which is considered a positive indicator. eBrain Forum would like to do a baseline study of the ICT situation in Zambia to measure availability of different ICTs, use, awareness, main players etc. This would also enable them to better measure their own results and impact. The latter seems to be no luxury if eBrain Forum is to show that their


networking with the government actually leads to more attention and funds for ICTs on Zambia's development agenda. When we take into consideration the different ‘ingredients’ of impact: opportunity, empowerment and security, it is not only hard to make a statement because of the recent start of the initiative. Those elements apply mainly to the local community, the eventual but indirect target group of eBrain Forum. The government, private sector and donors are the direct target group. By influencing them eBrain Forum hopes they will put ICTs on their agendas and thus promote opportunity, facilitate empowerment and enhance security. If eBrain Forum succeeds to encourage the government to use ICTs, empowerment will take place above all, because state institutions will become more accountable, transparent and responsive. It seems the offline activities of eBrain Forum are more successful than the online ones. In a country like Zambia where connectivity is still expensive for the average person and contacts are very important, lobby and advocacy seems most successful through face to face contacts. Sustainability

“If the related organisations would be more committed and would contribute more (money and resources), chances for survival would increase” Tjalling Vonk - IICD

It is early for conclusions about sustainability too. For one thing eBrain Forum seems quite aware of the risk of financial vulnerability when depending on grants. The forum prefers to have some kind of business model and they also like to see themselves as service providers. They get for instance a 10% overhead for the Information Networking services they offer to IICD. But it is doubtful whether that leads to independence, especially since IICD has been more or less the only funder. One hope is that members are going to pay for their membership which should make eBrain Forum a little more independent. It is obviously a problem that only about 30% of the budget for 2003 is covered as yet. eBrain Forum started without human and financial resources but at the stage they are in now, eBrain Forum first wants to have enough money before implementing any extra activities. That is a pity; maybe they could start off with little or no money to get things going. It is hard to judge though, because they have to take into account existing realities. Such as members of MP wanting more information but hanging on to their parliamentary privileges… But it is not only a “money matter” says Tjalling Vonk of IICD. If the related organisations would be more committed and would contribute more (money and resources), chances for survival would increase. Then eBrain Forum would move towards being a real network organisation, supported by a broad group of stakeholders. As far as human resources are concerned, eBrain Forum is small and not many salaries need to be paid. Sustainability is an issue though, because the (unpaid) MT takes up a lot of implementing responsibilities while in fact they are meant to be a policy making body. Mr Chilwesa seems quite successful in delegating tasks to the MT "volunteers" and simply has no budget for extra staff. However, since all MT members have regular jobs elsewhere, one should wonder if this model is sustainable in the long run. The combination of policy making and implementing responsibilities of the MT is an issue as well in terms of governance. So is the lack of a body overseeing the MT. Conclusion To have a platform like eBrain Forum in place in Zambia seems to be essential. The use of ICTs for development is still low which makes awareness building, lobby and advocacy etc important. Since the government is very controlling in Zambia, it is an obvious choice for eBrain Forum to target


influencing it. One may assume that their multi-stakeholder approach enhances the chances of success. There are some issues though in the way eBrain Forum plays this important role. One is the fact that eBrain Forum doesn't have a monitoring and evaluation system in place yet and thus can't measure if their approach is or will be successful. Another thing is the dependency on IICD and the long way to sustainability. Lastly there is the governance issue of the unpaid MT having a lot of implementing responsibilities and the absence of an overseeing body. Footnotes (1) According to the Worldbank World Development Report 2000/2001, http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/wdrpoverty/report/ (2) International Institute for Communication and Development – http://www.iicd.org


Summary eBrain Forum

If eBrain Forum succeeds to encourage the government to use ICTs, empowerment will take place above all, because state institutions will become more accountable, transparent and responsive.

“To set up an organisation to promote increased use and awareness of ICTs in this country, to get it on top of the development agenda of Zambia”. That is the agenda of eBrain Forum, explains Mr Mwale, the chairperson and one of the founding members of the forum. The idea for eBrain was born in 2001 at an IICD (International Institute for Communication and Development) and eBrain Forum started its programme of activities around August 2002. eBrain Forum is a membership organisation and an amalgamation that connects private sector, government and NGOs. As of recently all new members have to pay a fee; the old ones have to renew their membership and start paying as well. eBrain Forum has currently one full time staff member. The Management Team (MT) counts 9 members and is the policy making body, but has implementation responsibilities as well. The 3 year budget is usd 275.000 and for 2003 it is 108.000 of which by April only 30.000 was secured (23.000 from IICD). eBrain Forum activities Online The aim of the eBrain Forum website (www.ebrain.org.zm) is "to promote information and knowledge sharing and networking in issues relating to ICTs for development among individuals and institutions using ICT for development.".The target group is individuals and organizations practicing ICT for development, policy makers, ISPs and regulatory telecommunication bodies. But the site still needs to be promoted, and more content included. The newsletter is disseminated by mail and print on a quarterly basis and has about 250 subscribers. It is also published on the site. An editorial team of two people with a journalistic background is responsible for the content. The dgroup was only launched in April 2003 but already has 44 subscribers. In early May it was used as a discussion space after a workshop on "Education and ICTs in Zambia". The most important reason for starting it is to make eBrain Forum all inclusive of people with interest in ICTs for development. Monthly offline meetings Among the most important activities of eBrain Forum are the monthly knowledge sharing meetings where a specific theme related to ICT for development is addressed. Every month another MT member is responsible to pick a theme, do some research and invite speakers. Because of their different professional backgrounds, the topics and thus the participants differ each month. Mr Chilwesa, the coordinator of eBrain Forum, estimates that every month about 20-30 people attend from government, NGOs and private sector. The sessions are always very lively and Mr Mwale thinks they are successful because some people come back more than once. One interesting meeting targeted Members of the Zambian Parliament to sensitize them on the possible uses of ICTs in their respective constituencies. eBrain Forum tries to convince them that even beyond elections MP’s can use ICTs to work with their constituencies in rural areas. The meeting with the MP’s was so successful that they invited eBrain Forum to come to Parliament and explain ICT possibilities to other MP’s. But one of the problems is that the MP’s were demanding to be paid allowances in accordance with their parliamentary privileges… Lobby and advocacy In order to get ICTs on top of the Zambian development agenda, the people involved in eBrain Forum are active networkers with different government bodies. The results up to the present (April 2003) are mixed. The officials addressed are receptive for the subject matter but at the same time there is a tendency to only refer to equipment when talking about ICTs. Another group eBrain Forum tries to influence are international donors and the private sector. Mr Chilwesa is an important lobbying person since he used to work for a private company. He explains


that "there is a lot of fear in the middle management for computers. If they themselves can't use the tools effectively it becomes extremely difficult for eBrain Forum to influence them”. Impact and Sustainability eBrain Forum stresses the fact that it is too early to draw any conclusions on the impact of the platform and no monitoring and evaluation tools are in place yet. They do assume however that what they offer is appreciated from the fact that participants of the monthly meetings are enthusiastic and membership and newsletter subscriptions are growing. When we take into consideration the different ‘ingredients’ of impact: opportunity, empowerment and security, it is not only hard to make a statement because of the recent start of the initiative. Those elements apply mainly to the local community, the eventual but indirect target group of eBrain Forum. The government, private sector and donors are the direct target group. If eBrain Forum succeeds to encourage the government to use ICTs, empowerment will take place above all, because state institutions will become more accountable, transparent and responsive. It is early for conclusions about sustainability too. It is obviously a problem that only about 30% of the budget for 2003 is covered as yet and IICD is the only substantial supporter. But it is not only a “money matter” says Tjalling Vonk of IICD. If the related organisations would be more committed and would contribute more (money and resources), chances for survival would increase. As far as human resources are concerned sustainability is an issue despite the little salaries to pay. The (unpaid) MT takes up a lot of implementing responsibilities while in fact they are meant to be a policy making body. The combination of policy making and implementing responsibilities of the MT is an issue as well in terms of governance. Conclusion To have a platform like eBrain Forum in place in Zambia seems to be essential. The use of ICTs for development is still low which makes awareness building, lobby and advocacy etc important. Since the government is very controlling in Zambia, it is an obvious choice for eBrain Forum to target influencing it. One may assume that their multi-stakeholder approach enhances the chances of success. There are some issues though in the way eBrain Forum plays this important role. One is the fact that eBrain Forum doesn't have a monitoring and evaluation system in place yet and thus can't measure if their approach is or will be successful. Another thing is the dependency on IICD and the long way to sustainability. Lastly there is the governance issue of the unpaid MT having a lot of implementing responsibilities.


III Case study Channel Africa, Johannesburg - South Africa By Maartje Op de Coul, OneWorld International and the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) Introduction OneWorld is part of the Building Digital Opportunities programme sponsored by the British, Swiss and Dutch governments. One of the elements in this programme is an ICT survey that aims "to give decision makers a clear understanding of how civil society is actually using ICT and its impact through a comprehensive study". It was decided that could be done best through a number of case studies on different uses of ICTs. Throughout the different studies "impact" is considered in terms of opportunity, empowerment and security(1). The present study focuses on the use and impact of ICTs by an Africa wide radio channel called Channel Africa that broadcasts news from Africa via shortwave, satellite and internet. The study examines the use of ICTs in general and also looks at the (potential) effects of the membership of Channel Africa of OneWorld Radio. OneWorld Radio is an online platform where radio stations, NGOs and individuals can exchange radio programmes. About Channel Africa

Channel Africa has a news service that is broadcast live twice a day in English, French and Portuguese.

"Channel Africa in Johannesburg provides unbiased and reliable coverage from and about the African continent: news, current affairs, economics, technology, education, environment, tourism and sport are all covered by Channel Africa." This is how Channel Africa is presented on one of the channels they can be listened on: World Radio Network (http://www.wrn.org/). Channel Africa's history goes back to 1964 when it was a government owned radio station. The then Radio RSA was meant to be an external service with the aim to promote the South African government's point of view. In 1988 it became Channel Africa, a PanAfrican news distributor, independent from the government. It's focus is now not only on South Africa, but on the whole continent, with the vision to "promote Africa to the world and enhance world understanding". Channel Africa has a news service that is broadcast live twice a day in English, French and Portuguese. Besides that there is a number of pre-recorded programmes in three more languages (Swahili, Chinyanja and Silozi), mostly on actualities, development and African culture. The programmes breathe a strong Africa awareness through many African music clips and titles like "Africa's destiny" and "Africa perspective". On their website Channel Africa also proudly claims to be "free of (...) foreign interpretations". All programmes are produced in Johannesburg, by a staff of around 65 people. Channel Africa doesn't have reporters based in other countries, but approximately 60% of staff is non South-African (from Benin, Malawi, Namibia and many from West-Africa). Mr Mongameli Jabavu, the partnership manager, explains that there is an implicit policy to employ foreigners "when they are able to offer something that their South African counterparts cannot provide, namely proficiency in a particular language." Channel Africa doesn't have a gender policy; female staff members are not excluded from any task though subconsciously particular tasks may be assigned to female staff. To compensate the absence of reporters based abroad, Mr Jabavu is working hard to form partnerships with broadcasters in Africa and overseas destinations, in order to syndicate their content on Channel Africa. This is planned to go through satellite and at the same time give Channel Africa access to FM. At present the Chinyanja and Silozi content are already syndicated.


All programmes are broadcast on shortwave radio, satellite and the internet. The advantage of shortwave is that it gives coverage to the whole continent, especially the rural areas. The disadvantage is that access to shortwave radios is relatively low and most of the time the shortwave signal is easily interfered with during bad weather conditions. On the other hand, satellite radio can be accessed by everyone anywhere with the right kind of equipment and can be used to generate revenue as well. Unlike shortwave broadcasting whose broadcast quality cannot always be guaranteed. On the internet both live programmes and background programmes can be listened to and also news videos can be watched. Apart from their own website (www.channelafrica.org), the English programmes can also be listened to on the World Radio Network. Though Channel Africa is independent now, it is still fully sponsored by the government. It is also based in Auckland park (the national media park) and hosted by SABC (South African Broadcasting Corporation), South Africa's national public service broadcaster. Hence new staff has to be approved by the SABC and the technical infrastructure is based at SABC. Recently the government has severely cut its funding to Channel Africa and the programme time had to be brought down and staff made redundant. As a consequence "listeners numbers have dwindled" according to Sydney Phiri, producer of the HIV/Aids programme. Mr Jabavu provides a more positive interpretation: "the government gives us the opportunity to grow by encouraging us to make a business plan. A revenue stream is needed, so we have to look at promotions, sponsorship and advertising". Government funding is likely to last for a period of 3 years only. However, depending on the kind of business plan we come up with, a scenario similar to that of BBC World and Al Jazeera, who while enjoying a considerable degree of independence continue to receive limited funding support from various governments. Channeling into Africa One of Channel Africa's audio programmes is called "Channeling into Africa". It is a 15 minute programme on HIV/Aids that is broadcast every Sunday and uploaded on the website on Monday. It is produced and presented by Mr Sydney Katunga Phiri and has a mix of awareness content, musical entertainment from African artists and a write-in slot. Every week a different topic is addressed, but like Channel Africa as a whole, the content always has an African perspective to it. The programme broadcast on Easter Sunday for instance was on the so called "faith healers" and addressed the question whether those "have an impact on the pandemic in the long run"(2). And the programme of June 8 addressed "a story that brings up debate on whether as Africans we can claim that we have our own cure for HIV/Aids. Can we say that conventional medicine has any superiority over traditional medicine?"(3). Sydney explains that the process of producing Channeling into Africa starts with gathering information on that weeks topic, writing the script, recording and editing. After the editing it is included in the broadcasting schedule and the webmaster uploads it on the website. This process, and the use of ICTs in it, is described more extensively below. Channel Africa and the use of ICTs

"Channel Africa is completely dependent on digital equipment – we cannot, apart from CDs and material on mini-disks, broadcast without it." Ms Helen Meyer - Audio and Technical Manager Channel Africa

Although radio as a medium as such is included in the term ICTs, it is the aim of this case study to explore the use of "new" ICTs by the channel. In general Channel Africa seems very well equipped compared to other radio stations in Africa. Almost all staff has a PC with a connection to the internet and a LAN and the website is quite advanced. The strong infrastructure definitely has to do with the fact that Channel Africa is hosted by SABC; the internet connection goes through the SABC wide LAN. The disadvantage is that they have to adjust to SABC's policies for instance with regards to the firewall. In general the network seems overcrowded; when most people had left the building for Easter


celebrations the connection suddenly became a lot better. Another sign of "ICT advancedness" is the fact that many steps in the process of radio production are digitized: information gathering, recording and storing, editing and broadcasting. ICTs in the production process Channel Africa staff has different sources to gather information among which the (music) library and the internet. "For the programme on faith healers I have searched the internet for information on faith healers in general" says Sydney Phiri. The producers responsible for other programmes use the internet equally much for information gathering. After the script has been written the programme is recorded and stored on the LAN in a big database that has all Channel Africa's programmes. There are some separate rooms reserved for editing, done all digitally through DaletPlus Radio Suite(4). Dalet is a media management system for the production and delivery of radio programmes. It enables producers to delete parts that went wrong in recording and to include spaces, jingles, music, parts of other programmes from the database etc. It is very easy to use and obviously has a lot of advantages over tape. When the editing is done, the programme is saved and placed in the broadcasting schedule. Channel Africa changed from reel-to-reel tape machines and record players to the digital system (Dalet) as early as 1994. Ms Helen Meyer (Audio and Technical Manager) points out that the staff was initially unhappy with these changes, particularly since many, at that stage, lacked basic computer skills, which increased the difficulty of implementing such changes. But once staff were trained and competent (which did take time), work was made much easier.

Sydney Phiri from Channel Africa is editing his programme using Dalet ICTs and broadcasting The Channel Africa website was first implemented in mid-1996 and is now almost entirely dedicated to broadcasting. The original reason to have a website was to overcome the restrictions of other forms of transmission with respect to the areas/regions that could access Channel Africa, especially Europe, the U.S. and Australia. "We wanted to diversify the audience" explains Mr Maurice Mate, who is responsible for web and internet in Channel Africa since 1999. Originally only pre-recorded programmes could be listened to, but after Mr Mate came in charge he put emphasis on the


importance of live online broadcasting. It took him till November 2001 to realize his plans, mainly because costs of live broadcasting were assumed to be as high as 2 million Rand. After his department found out that they only needed to establish a direct link from the studio during transmission, live broadcasting on the site of Channel Africa has become usual. "The expenses are just for hosting the streamer, which is a lot cheaper than what we thought we needed to spend earlier", says Mr Mate proudly. The pre-recorded programmes are offered in WMA (Windows Media Audio) and can either be listened to directly through Windows media player or downloaded when less bandwidth is available. A PC from the Pentium series with a 32 MB memory and a soundcard is minimally required to be able to access the programmes. Speed connectivity is not an issue according to Mr Mate since Channel Africa’s streaming is at the minimum speed (28.8 kilobytes per second). Still, online listeners make up the smaller group of Channel Africa listeners and the majority of them is not from Africa. They tend to be based in the U.S. mainly and in Europe. Most of these are academic institutions, large organisations and businesses using Channel Africa for research purposes, for example, rather than individuals accessing Channel Africa as a source of everyday news. Most African internet listeners are from South Africa and Tanzania. Lack of infrastructure and costs of connectivity are the main reasons why most African listeners prefer shortwave. Since Channel Africa's programmes are quite broadly focusing on news and current events, the site doesn't target a particular group of people. According to the webstatistics there were 306 160 successful hits in May (2003), half of which involved listening to Channel Africa. Mr Mate, however, was not very sure whether these hasty calculations were accurate. All in all it seems safe to conclude that Channel Africa is quite advanced as far as the use of (new) ICTs are concerned. Ms Meyer even states that "Channel Africa is completely dependent on digital equipment – we cannot, apart from CDs and material on mini-disks, broadcast without it." And not only for broadcasting, also for information gathering, editing and storing ICTs are simply indispensable. Channel Africa realized these modernizations in the production process prior to other SABC stations which had a positive spin off: "when other stations digitised, Channel Africa was initially considered an expert on the system (this has now changed), which fostered a closer working relationship" according to Ms Meyer. At the same time she is of the opinion that each system has its limitations and that having to upgrade the computers regularly is one of them. She, however, feels that the positive effects totally outweigh the costs. "Staff are not restricted to a studio which is costly – they can work anywhere as long as they are at a work station and connected to the network." OneWorld Radio

"Now that I have seen that there are 107 programmes available on Aids in Africa I am definitely going back to see if anything fits into this weeks programme" Mr Sydney Katunga Phiri – producer Channel Africa

OneWorld Radio (http://radio.oneworld.net) is a platform for broadcasters and civil society organisations who are using radio for human rights, sustainable development and democracy. OneWorld Radio offers its members the possibility to freely exchange radio programs that can be rebroadcast as well. Besides the huge amount of audio files, the site has news, training and funding resources, and a directory of all 900 members which is very useful for networking purposes. OneWorld radio has a special section on HIV/Aids, called Aids Radio. Channel Africa officially registered as a member of OneWorld Radio just before Aids Radio was launched in early 2002. But as early as 2000, following Mr Jabavu's visit to London as a fellow of the One World Broadcasting Trust, discussions about a partnership had already taken place. Phiri's main reason for him register was to be able to download relevant programmes on HIV/Aids and use them as input for his own programme. Especially information about countries like Angola or


Swaziland "or where ever we can't get our reporters to go". Something he reads in the news section of OneWorld Radio could also lead to an idea for one of his programmes. Through shortwave Channel Africa could rebroadcast programmes from OneWorld Radio and thus make them accessible to people who don't have internet connection themselves. Sydney stresses the fact that Channel Africa is now only using the HIV/Aids part of OneWorld radio, but that it would be good if for instance for the Swahili producer to visit OneWorld's website as well. At the level of partnerships, Channel Africa will be keen to upload its programmes on OneWorld Radio, mainly for promotional reasons. At the time of my visit (April 2003) Channel Africa had downloaded a programme from Aids Radio only once. That was in December 2002 when music from an MTV concert on Aids was made available because of World Aids Day. After that they tried to download but didn't succeed. They haven't been able to upload any of their programmes either. During my visit we succeeded to download programmes and immediately the huge potential became clear. "Now that I have seen that there are 107 programmes available on Aids in Africa I am definitely going back to see if anything fits into this weeks programme", states Sydney. And he also says "if for instance I see an interesting feature on Uganda, I can use it as a topic for my programme and search the internet for background information on Uganda". Uploading should be possible as well; the WMA format only needs to be translated into MP3. Given the "ICT readiness" of Channel Africa it shouldn't be a problem for them to upload and download audio files on OneWorld Radio and to include some of the downloaded material in their own programmes. It shouldn't be a problem either to connect the OneWorld Radio content with the Dalet database and thus rebroadcast anything. The reason it hasn't happened yet has less to do with technical problems but rather with capacity and commitment problems. There are some technical people in place, but they are too busy to show how to exchange radio programmes. The producers could do it themselves, but they need to be somehow taught the trick. Sydney says he would value a face to face training highly. "With only support through the mail we would have thought that we couldn't download because of the firewall. Only now, after one year membership, we are able to download." He did find the e-mail support from the OneWorld Radio team very encouraging, though. This supports the assumption that face to face support and encouragement are needed even if a specific member is technically advanced and gets a lot of support on the mail. It is also in line with observations from elsewhere where producers who are quite good at using their own technical tools do not necessarily know how to handle the internet in general. Like the illiterate women of Video SEWA who know how to handle a digital camera and do digital editing but can't write an email. Fortunately a few weeks later a OneWorld Radio coordinator started off, based in Johannesburg. Such an external contact is crucial for Channel Africa. For capacity building but also to get more people within Channel Africa aboard by showing what OneWorld Radio is all about. Thus more producers could use what is now still the potential of OneWorld Radio: pick ideas, download and rebroadcast programmes, upload their own material and network and partner with other African broadcasters. Listeners, impact and sustainability

The impact Channel Africa aims to have on its listeners is to “give people a choice” and promote the “pan-Africanist” perspective Mr Mongameli Jabavu -partnership manager Channel Africa

Listeners


"Welcome to the Listeners Corner where we interact with you. We need a lot of your inputs so that we know we reach you. It is imperative that you communicate so send us your comment on this week's topic."(5) This is how Sydney Phiri tries to reach his listeners. Weekly he receives 40-50 letters from listeners, many of them from listeners clubs. On the level of Channel Africa as a whole there is no formal measuring of listeners in place. Only the number of online listeners can be determined through the webstatistics. Mr Jabavu explains the lack of formal measuring of listeners due to Channel Africa’s history characterised by a lack of marketing and monitoring of the product. A research conducted about 7 years ago estimated the listeners number at around 50 million. Mr Jabavu is personally very sceptical and doubts the legitimacy of this number because of the difficulties inherent in determining who exactly is receiving the short wave signal. His conservative estimation is one million, which he has based on the number of people he has come into contact with who listen to, or are aware of, Channel Africa. Most Channel Africa listeners are assumed to be Swahili speakers from Central and East Africa, followed by English speakers from East, Southern and West Africa. French listeners are next, from Central and West Africa. With the recent cut in funding some particular African languages had to be removed which obviously caused a loss of listeners in the regions where those languages are most prominent. As stated before, most listeners access Channel Africa through short wave. Satellite and internet listeners are a far smaller group and they are mostly overseas academic institutions and large organisations rather than individuals accessing Channel Africa for every day news. Impact The impact Channel Africa aims to have on its listeners according to Mr Jabavu is to “give people a choice” and promote the “pan-Africanist” perspective, which he defined as “promoting Africa to the world and enhancing what is of African origin… [as well as] undoing the damage that has been done over the last 300 or 400 years to the psyche of the African”. This includes ensuring that Africa influences international public opinion and plays a role in global affairs, informs investment and tourism (from an African perspective) and that there is good governance. Mr Jabavu emphasised that change was desired on a wider scale, rather than at the individual level. Despite these ambitious aims Channel Africa doesn't have any measures in place to verify whether it actually has this impact on listeners. If we look at impact in terms of opportunity, empowerment and security, it seems empowerment is the most probable influence of Channel Africa on its listeners. Especially empowerment as Africans, in so far as the channel creates awareness of different issues affecting African countries, which can contribute towards appropriate responses. From the Channeling into Africa episodes available online, it is hard to assess whether they also add to the security (reducing poor people’s vulnerability to ill health) of the listeners. The content doesn't seem to be educational but rather, informative and stimulating the debate. Mr Jabavu adds that in some cases Channel Africa needs to provide information to overseas tourists on how to avoid and to respond to crime situations when visiting some African cities. Channel Africa programmes have not increased the opportunities for its listeners, but it is interesting to have a look at the opportunities of Channel Africa staff itself. Though staff tends to be comfortable at Channel Africa and on average stays for 15 years, Mr Jabavu points at some successful "products of Channel Africa". Some prominent journalists now working for SABC and also some international broadcasters have started their careers at Channel Africa. And as far as it is known the staff that was made redundant recently found new jobs in a couple of weeks. Reasons for these labour market opportunities according to Mr Jabavu are the independence allowed, the editing skills gained and the environment driven by modern technology at Channel Africa. He is probably boasting a bit when he says that "the particular level of modern technology used at Channel Africa was advantageous for staff members that choose to seek work elsewhere". But for sure the technology level of Channel Africa does stand out compared to other broadcasters. Sustainability


Financial sustainability is an issue for Channel Africa. Their airtime has been cut already and in principle the government will stop funding support after 3 years. It is hard to predict how Channel Africa can survive without its own revenue streams. It is however hoped that the business model to be followed at Channel Africa will work out well, but it will surely change Channel Africa's look and feel. The proposed syndication through partnerships with radio stations elsewhere in Africa could be a sustainable solution. The OneWorld Radio platform fits into that idea as it is about exchanging content and networking with other broadcasters. Footnotes (1) According to the Worldbank World Development Report 2000/2001, http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/wdrpoverty/report/ (2) Script Channeling into Africa, 20 April 2003. (3) Channeling into Africa 8 June 2003 mms://streamer.sabc.co.za/channelafrica/cia_1.wma (4) http://www.dalet.com/37.html (5) Channeling into Africa 8 June 2003 mms://streamer.sabc.co.za/channelafrica/cia_1.wma Resources http://www.channelafrica.org http://www.wrn.org http://www.sabc.co.za http://radio.oneworld.net


Summary Channel Africa

The impact Channel Africa aims to have on its listeners is to “give people a choice” and promote the “pan-Africanist” perspective Mr Mongameli Jabavu -partnership manager Channel Africa

Channel Africa's history goes back to 1964 when it was a government owned radio station. In 1988 it became an independent PanAfrican news distributor with the vision to "promote Africa to the world and enhance understanding". Channel Africa has a news service that is broadcast live twice a day in English, French and Portuguese. Besides that there is a number of pre-recorded programmes in three more languages (Swahili, Chinyanja and Silozi), mostly on actualities, development and African culture. All programmes are produced in Johannesburg, by a staff of around 65 people. Channel Africa doesn't have reporters based in other countries, but approximately 60% of staff is non South-African. All programmes are broadcast on shortwave radio, satellite and the internet. Though Channel Africa is independent now, it is still fully sponsored by the government. It is also hosted by SABC (South African Broadcasting Corporation), South Africa's national public service broadcaster. Recently the government has severely cut its funding to Channel Africa and the programme time had to be brought down and staff made redundant. Channel Africa and the use of ICTs Although radio as a medium as such is included in the term ICTs, it is the aim of this case study to explore the use of "new" ICTs by the channel. Channel Africa staff has different sources to gather information among which the (music) library and the internet. After the script has been written the programme is recorded and stored on the LAN in a big database that has all Channel Africa's programmes. Editing is done all digitally through DaletPlus Radio Suite. Dalet is a media management system for the production and delivery of radio programmes. When the editing is done, the programme is saved and placed in the broadcasting schedule. The Channel Africa website was first implemented in mid-1996 and is now almost entirely dedicated to broadcasting. The original reason to have a website was to overcome the restrictions of other forms of transmission with respect to the areas/regions that could access Channel Africa. Live broadcasting on the website was not realized till November 2001 however. Online listeners make up the smaller group of Channel Africa listeners and the majority of them is not from Africa. They tend to be based in the U.S. mainly and in Europe and most of these are academic institutions, large organisations and businesses. According to the (non-offical) webstatistics there were 306 160 successful hits in May 2003, half of which involved listening to Channel Africa. All in all it seems safe to conclude that Channel Africa is quite advanced as far as the use of (new) ICTs are concerned. Not only for broadcasting, but also for information gathering, editing and storing, ICTs are simply indispensable. Though having to upgrade the computers regularly is quite a burden, the positvie effects of using modern technologies outweigh the costs by far. OneWorld Radio OneWorld Radio (http://radio.oneworld.net) is a platform for broadcasters and civil society organisations who are using radio for human rights, sustainable development and democracy. OneWorld Radio offers its members the possibility to freely exchange radio programs that can be rebroadcast as well. Channel Africa officially registered as a member of OneWorld Radio just before Aids Radio was launched in early 2002, but the first contacts were established as early as 2000. The main reason for their membership was the possibility to download relevant programmes on HIV/Aids and use them as input for Channeling into Africa, Channel Africa's programme on HIV/Aids. After one year of membership and with face to face support from OneWorld, Channel Africa succeeded to download programmes and immediately the huge potential became clear. "Now that I have seen that there are 107 programmes available on Aids in Africa I am definitely going back to see if anything fits into this weeks programme", states Sydney Phiri, the editor of Channeling into Africa. And he also


says: "if for instance I see an interesting feature on Uganda, I can use it as a topic for my programme and search the internet for background information on Uganda". An important conclusion for OneWorld Radio is that face to face support and encouragement are needed even if a specific member like Channel Africa is technically advanced and gets a lot of support on the mail. Fortunately now a OneWorld Radio coordinator is based in Johannesburg. Listeners, impact and sustainability Channel Africa has no formal measuring of listeners in place. Only the number of online listeners can be determined through the webstatistics. To explain, partnership manager Mr Jabavu refers to Channel Africa’s history characterised by a lack of marketing and monitoring of the product. His conservative estimation of the number of listeners is one million. Most listeners access Channel Africa through short wave. Satellite and internet listeners are a far smaller group and they are mostly overseas academic institutions and large organisations rather than individuals accessing Channel Africa for every day news. The impact Channel Africa aims to have on its listeners according to Mr Jabavu is to “give people a choice” and promote the “pan-Africanist” perspective. Despite these (ambitious) aims Channel Africa doesn't have any measures in place to verify whether it actually has this impact on listeners. If we look at impact in terms of opportunity, empowerment and security, it seems empowerment is the most probable influence of Channel Africa on its listeners. Especially empowerment as Africans, in so far as the channel creates awareness of different issues affecting African countries, which can contribute towards appropriate responses. Channel Africa programmes do not increase the opportunities of its listeners, but it is interesting to have a look at the opportunities of Channel Africa staff itself. Mr Jabavu is probably boasting a bit when he says that "the particular level of modern technology used at Channel Africa was advantageous for staff members that choose to seek work elsewhere". But for sure the technology level of Channel Africa does stand out compared to other broadcasters. Financial sustainability is an issue for Channel Africa. Their airtime has been cut already and in principle the government will stop supporting after 3 years. It is hard to predict whether a business model will work out well, but it will surely change Channel Africa's look and feel. The proposed syndication through partnerships with radio stations elsewhere in Africa could be a sustainable solution. The OneWorld Radio platform fits into that idea as it is about exchanging content and networking with other broadcasters.


IV Case study ItrainOnline- Women'sNet Johannesburg, South Africa By Maartje Op de Coul, OneWorld International Introduction

OneWorld is part of the Building Digital Opportunities programme sponsored by the British, Swiss and Dutch governments. One of the elements in this programme is an ICT survey that aims "to give decision makers a clear understanding of how civil society is actually using ICT and its impact through a comprehensive study". It was decided that could be done best through a number of case studies on different uses of ICTs. The present study aims to find out in which way ICTs in general and ItrainOnline in particular enhance ICT capacity building for civil society organisations. ItrainOnline (www.itrainonline.org) is a joint initiative of APC, Bellanet, INASP, IICD, IISD and OneWorld. It's an online platform that aims to provide a selection of the best and most relevant computer and Internet training resources for development and social change. For the case study we selected Women'sNet in South Africa because we knew this organisation uses ICTs and ItrainOnline to conduct and improve their training. In India a similar case study has been conducted with Indev in Delhi.

About Women'sNet and their training "We are trying to bring awareness of ICT and gender issues in other social sectors so that they have an awareness of also advocating and lobbying around ICT issues" Sally Shackleton – trainer Women'sNet Background

The origins of Women'sNet lie in a workshop organised by SANGONeT in 1997 with the aim of exploring the possibilities of using electronic information and communication tools to enhance the different efforts taken in the field of gender equality in South Africa. Since then, Women'sNet has offered a support and networking program designed to enable (South) African women to use the internet to find the people, issues, resources and tools needed for women's social activism. Last year Women'sNet became officially independent from SANGONeT and moved out to another office. The team There are three people working for Women'sNet and they are all involved in the delivery of training workshops. Natasha Primo joined in February 2001 and has a background in gender and research capacity development. She started working with ICTs in her former job at the National Research Foundation where they started a database of women academics. She is responsible for the gender and ICT policy parts of the workshops, like privacy and security issues on the net, language and content etc. Sally Shackleton was a trainer on social context issues and had already worked for Women'sNet as a consultant before she joined in early 2001. But she didn't have much prior experience with technical training. She is responsible for the development of the training material, organising the workshop and selecting participants. Sally is "information coordinator" so she also does a lot of other things, like maintaining the Women'sNet website. Elizabeth Araujo got involved with Women'sNet in June 2001 as a web based intern for the Canadian organisation Alternatives. She works now on a longer term CUSO contract. She is primarily a trainer,


responsible for the facilitation of the workshops, but also compiling the material and designing the programme. While reading this study, please keep in mind that Natasha ‘s comments are confined to gender and ICT policy training, while Sally and Elizabeth talk about the more technical training. Training and participants On average Women'sNet organises one training or capacity building activity a month. They don't go out and sell their trainings, but meet with articulated needs from an organisation or network. "We get a lot of requests" says Sally. One recent example is APC's WENT (Women's Electronic Network Training) workshop where Women'sNet provided some specific parts of the training. The training sessions are always customized, and always focus on women or gender and ICTs. The level differs from basic computer literacy and how to use e-mail and the internet to building databases and using the internet for lobby and advocacy. "There is always a mix of technical, content and strategic use" explains Sally. Women'sNet doesn't train any specific applications but just the applications that are installed on the computers. Audio training is included most of the times as well. The participants of the workshops are usually representatives of women's NGOs with an ICT component. These NGOs can work on violence against women, gender and health issues etc and often they get in touch through the APC Africa network. "We are trying to bring awareness of ICT and gender issues in other social sectors so that they have an awareness of also advocating and lobbying around ICT issues". The participants are normally information officers and by default they are almost all women. "The gender of the participants is mostly determined by what the subject matter is". Use of ICTs to enhance the quality of the training

"People are so exited about the internet and the prospect of being able to communicate with others that it would be difficult to get them exited for the training without showing the internet" Sally Shackleton

ICTs here include online training material, webresources and discussion groups. And also all other kinds of digital tools such as powerpoint presentations, CD ROMs etc. ICTs and the training material There is not much existing material ready to use for the Women'sNet training workshops, because of the focus on gender and ICT and also because of the customization. For policy, one of the key resources they draw on is a paper written by APC-WNSP around gender and ICTs for social change. Besides that, existing national policies and legislations are brought in and real life or made up case exercises. They also try to "tease out" the issues the participants think are relevant in terms of gender and ICTs. The material depends on the level of the participants: "sometimes we have to give a basic overview of what policy is, how one can interact on policy formulation and then moving on to ICT policies". The internet, including ItrainOnline, is an important source for additional material. For the more technical part of the training, Sally and Elizabeth normally compile training material before each workshop both from printed material and from the internet. The material itself may not be gender focused, but the exercises and examples are focused on women's issues. "We will integrate issues of equality, access and context into the material". ICTs and the training course The workshops themselves are always face to face, but supported by powerpoint presentations and demonstrations of websites. One example is the radio component where Women'sNet shows sites where audio material can be found and thus show the potential of online audio. Sally states that "people are so exited about the internet and the prospect of being able to communicate with others that it would be difficult to get them exited for the training without showing the internet". The level of use of the internet during the workshops does depend on the nature of the training; for the basic


computer literacy courses printed manuals are used rather than online resources. "Powerpoint is mainly a tool to give a quick overview of what people might find in the background documents" says Natasha. CD's are only used to show how to get music off it. Sally says that Women'sNet would like to produce CD Roms (with a browsing environment) for ICT training in telecentres, because a lot of telecentres do not necessarily have an internet connection. Another option would be to burn the Women'sNet website on a CD for women that do not have access to the internet. ICTs and post-training activities Though online resources are demonstrated during the workshops, the main use occurs afterwards. The advantage being that participants with access to the internet can go back to the webreferences in their own time and thus also enhance their research capabilities. However, if these resources are mainly post training tools, there is less of a guarantee that trainees will actually use them. After the workshop the internet is not only used for information, but also for communication and networking. Women'sNet advises the women to use different listservs, for instance the WSIS women's caucus. Recently they have set up their own list for post-training exchange between trainers and trainees. "The idea is that we will come back to the issues discussed, so hopefully through that kind of stimulation people will read up on the issues". Usually those lists are used most intensively in the period directly after the workshop. The disadvantage of using the internet for post-training activities is obviously that people with no or poor access to the internet are excluded. The internet does enhance the quality of the training significantly: "you can either use it in the training room but there is also a growing base of resources online and you can't use all of it in a training situation. When people leave the training there are other things they can look at. We may be exposing them only to a particular perspective of gender and ICT issues and by searching the internet they might rather develop their own opinion around it" says Natasha. Though Women'sNet uses a lot of online resource material and other ICTs to enhance their training workshops, they prefer to stick to a combination of face to face and online delivery (mostly post-training) in stead of organizing online courses. They might try to experiment with it, but the poor connectivity of part of their target group is the main obstacle. ICTs and the capacity building of the trainers Within Women'sNet the staff occasionally participates in a formal work related course, though not always related to building their capacity as ICT trainers. Examples given are a design course and a facilitation course. Most of the skill building that has to do with training happens in an informal way and Natasha states that the internet and ICTs are mainly useful for the informal type of learning. She refers to listservs and newsletters to which you will respond when you feel pressed to do so. This "talking online" and exchanging ideas adds substantially to her capacity. For formal courses all three interviewees tend to prefer offline in stead of online, though they all tried to participate in an online course in one way or another. Sally inscribed for two (free) online courses but didn't find the time to participate, Elizabeth got rejected for a course because she was not from a developing country and Natasha found hers too expensive and she was also looking for a very particular thing. Costs seem more of a problem with online courses than with offline ones as there is less guarantee that one gets the same quality. "I don't know that the learning is worth paying for it" says Sally. Another problem is discipline; with a face to face training you would feel more obliged to attend. Sally says that she doesn't like the online courses with a specific timeframe which are real time facilitated; she prefers to work through it in her own time. This seems a little contradictory to the discipline issue.


ItrainOnline

"It's a valuable tool in the time constraint before a workshop, since everything is together on ItrainOnline" Elizabeth Araujo – facilitator Women'sNet

Use of ItrainOnline Women'sNet has been involved in ItrainOnline in quite an early stage (2001), because of their close relationship with APC, one of the ItrainOnline partners. Women'sNet has itself developed the "resources for women" section and the site is driven by ActionApps, a tool designed by Women'sNet. Natasha and Elizabeth visit the site once every couple of months, but Sally visits it on average once a week. All of them use the resources on ItrainOnline for a range of different activities. First of all ItrainOnline is an important source for the development of the Women'sNet training material, though more so for the more technical parts than the policy bit. For policy they would only use their own section, resources for women. Sally, who works most on the development of the material, says that she uses ItrainOnline a lot. "Around 65-70% of the resources I have found, are sourced on ItrainOnline". But once she has found what she needs, she doesn't usually go back to find what's new. "If I like it I just stick with it. What's new could be more articulate". Two examples of sections used a lot are the section on open source and the glossary of technical terms. "We photocopy the glossary of ItrainOnline and add it to our own material" says Elizabeth. It would be useful to also have some case studies on the use of ICTs for development on ItrainOnline. They could be used during the training for discussion. ItrainOnline is also used as reference material for the participants. "Specifically in the more technical training. But for the policy course we tend to refer to websites of organisations that are involved in policy development work". Women'sNet always hands out a couple of pages of ItrainOnline to the participants. If they are interested they have to go to the site itself to get more information. "It's a valuable tool in the time constraint before a workshop, since everything is together on ItrainOnline". For their own capacity building (and also other trainers) ItrainOnline is a very good tool as well. Natasha has retrieved information on list facilitation and running online meetings. Sally has found quick resources on HTML, cascading style sheets and webdesign that she uses for the Women'sNet website and to give technical advise to other organisations. At the same time they agree that the section "resources for trainers" is quite meager and too general. They would like to see more practical material for trainers such as training methodology, tools for planning and organising, materials for different levels and ideas for exercises. For the future Natasha says that it would be good to show ItrainOnline as reference material in the training room, something they don’t usually do now. She explains that "Itrainonline could probably be used in the training situation, but we have always just drawn on it in terms of consulting it and then building it into the materials that we disseminate rather than go online during the training except maybe to demonstrate". Usability of ItrainOnline Women'sNet is quite positive about the usability of ItrainOnline. They have no problem accessing the site and it is easy to find what you are looking for; navigability is fine. The design (done by them) is good for what it is meant for. Natasha and Sally think the terminology used is probably more appropriate for advanced users, "the language needs simplification and more pictures and graphics are needed". Elizabeth thinks there is


good mix between basic and advanced level. They would welcome more country specific content and also more languages, especially Portuguese. Conclusions

"There was a tendency to be very proprietary about training material and that is changing now. ItrainOnline has encouraged people to share because they can see the benefit straight away...” Sally Shackleton

Overall Women'sNet values ItrainOnline as important for the quality of the training workshops they organize. "If it wasn't there we would need a lot more time for gathering the material" says Sally. Elizabeth states that "ItrainOnline is really enhancing our training and supplementary material. It's very concise, everything is together. People can download it easily and they are free resources". Another very important achievement of ItrainOnline is the fact that it has stimulated organisations that offer ICT training to share their material and make it widely accessible, because normally they wouldn't publish their training material on their websites. "It is a resource you can build on and refine according to your needs so that you don't have to duplicate. If it wasn't there a lot of organisations would develop a lot of materials from scratch". Apart form avoiding duplication ItrainOnline has also brought about a change in mentality. "There was a tendency to be very proprietary about training material and that is changing now. ItrainOnline has encouraged people to share because they can see the benefit straight away. They don't see it as stealing anymore, but promotion, and the ultimate would be if they would also get feedback from others through ItrainOnline". Women’sNet thinks ItrainOnline is a great resource for NGO's who want to build their own technical capacity and train their targetgroups. Besides, there are more and more training institutes that offer ICT training for NGO's, because they become aware of the potential market. For them ItrainOnline is a very useful portal of resources as well. Women'sNet has some recommendations for ItrainOnline as well. Gender issues should be integrated more in the mainstream material and more attention could be paid to issues related to content and strategical use of ICTs, for instance by including some case studies. And as mentioned before, the resources for training need improvement, more languages and country specific data is needed and more updates on "what's new". Resources www.womensnet.org.za www.itrainonline.org www.apc.org http://www.apcwomen.org/


Summary ItrainOnline- Women'sNet

"It's a valuable tool in the time constraint before a workshop, since everything is together on ItrainOnline" Elizabeth Araujo – facilitator Women'sNet

Women'sNet originated from SANGONeT and offers a support and networking program designed to enable (South) African women to use the internet to find the people, issues, resources and tools needed for women's social activism. There are three people working for Women'sNet and they are all involved in the delivery of training workshops. On average Women'sNet organises one training or capacity building activity a month. They don't go out and sell their trainings, but meet with articulated needs from an organisation or network. The training sessions are always customized, and always focus on women or gender and ICTs. The participants of the workshops are usually representatives of women's NGOs with an ICT component and by default they are almost all women. Use of ICTs to enhance the quality of the training There is not much existing material ready to use for the Women'sNet training workshops, because of the focus on gender and ICT and also because of the customization. The internet, including ItrainOnline, is an important source for training material. The material itself may not be gender focused, but the exercises and examples are focused on women's issues. The workshops themselves are always face to face, but supported by powerpoint presentations and demonstrations of websites. The level of use of the internet during the workshops does depend on the nature of the training; for the basic computer literacy courses printed manuals are used rather than online resources. Powerpoint is mainly a tool to give a quick overview of what people might find in the background documents. CD's are only used to show how to get music off it, but Women'sNet would like to produce CD Roms for ICT training in telecentres, because a lot of telecentres do not necessarily have an internet connection. Though online resources are demonstrated during the workshops, the main use occurs afterwards. The advantage being that participants can go back to the webreferences in their own time and thus also enhance their research capabilities. After the workshop the internet is not only used for information, but also for communication and networking. Recently they have set up their own list for post-training exchange between trainers and trainees. The disadvantage of using the internet for post-training activities is obviously that people with no or poor access to the internet are excluded. The internet does enhance the quality of the training significantly: you can either use it in the training room but there is also a growing base of resources online and you can't use all of it in a training situation. Though Women'sNet uses a lot of online resource material and other ICTs to enhance their training workshops, they prefer to stick to a combination of face to face and online delivery (mostly post-training). For courses to build their own capacity all Women’sNet staff prefers offline in stead of online, though they all tried to participate in an online course in one way or another. ItrainOnline Women'sNet has been involved in ItrainOnline in quite an early stage (2001), because of their close relationship with APC, one of the ItrainOnline partners. Women'sNet has itself developed the "resources for women" section and the site is driven by ActionApps, a tool designed by Women'sNet. All Women’sNet trainers use the resources on ItrainOnline for a range of different activities. First of all ItrainOnline is an important source for the development of the Women'sNet training material, though more so for the more technical parts than the policy bit. Around 65-70% of the resources found are sourced on ItrainOnline. Two examples of sections used a lot are the section on open source and the glossary of technical terms. "We photocopy the glossary of ItrainOnline and add it to our own material". ItrainOnline is also used as reference material for the participants. "Specifically


in the more technical training. Women'sNet always hands out a couple of pages of ItrainOnline to the participants. If they are interested they have to go to the site itself to get more information. "It's a valuable tool in the time constraint before a workshop, since everything is together on ItrainOnline". For their own capacity building (and also other trainers) ItrainOnline is a very good tool as well.. At the same time they agree that the section "resources for trainers" is quite meager and too general. They would like to see more practical material for trainers such as training methodology, tools for planning and organising, materials for different levels and ideas for exercises. For the future it would be good to show ItrainOnline as reference material in the training room, something they don’t usually do now. Women'sNet is quite positive about the usability of ItrainOnline. They have no problem accessing the site and it is easy to find what you are looking for; navigability is fine. The design (done by them) is good for what it is meant for. The terminology used is probably more appropriate for advanced users though. Conclusions Overall Women'sNet values ItrainOnline as important for the quality of the training workshops they organize. "ItrainOnline is really enhancing our training and supplementary material. It's very concise, everything is together. People can download it easily and they are free resources". Another very important achievement of ItrainOnline is the fact that it has stimulated organisations that offer ICT training to share their material and make it widely accessible. There was a tendency to be very proprietary about training material and that is changing now. Women’sNet thinks ItrainOnline is a great resource for NGO's who want to build their own technical capacity and train their targetgroups. Besides, there are more and more training institutes that offer ICT training for NGO's and for them ItrainOnline is a very useful portal of resources as well. Women'sNet has some recommendations for ItrainOnline as well. Gender issues should be integrated more in the mainstream material and more attention could be paid to issues related to content and strategical use of ICTs, for instance by including some case studies. And the resources for training need improvement, more languages and country specific data is needed and more updates on "what's new".


V Case study NGOCC , Lusaka, Zambia By Maartje Op de Coul, OneWorld International Introduction OneWorld is part of the Building Digital Opportunities programme sponsored by the British, Swiss, Dutch and Canadian governments. One of the elements in this programme is an ICT survey that aims "to give decision makers a clear understanding of how civil society is actually using ICT and its impact through a comprehensive study". It was decided that could be done best through a number of case studies on different uses of ICTs. Throughout the different studies "impact" is considered in terms of opportunity, empowerment and security(1). The present study focuses on the use and impact of ICTs by NGOCC, a women's umbrella organisation in Zambia. Their main ICT intervention is a telecentre project with which they intend to give women in the rural provinces in Zambia access to information through the internet. About NGOCC

The members are the main target group of NGOCC, through which they claim to reach 75% of all Zambian women Website NGO-CC

NGOCC (Non-Governmental Organisations' Co-ordinating Committee) was established in 1985 by a few Zambian women's NGOs after the UN World Conference on Women, held in Nairobi, Kenya. It was born because it was realised that the process of empowering women needed concerted effort. Hence the aim of NGOCC to facilitate networking nationally and internationally. NGOCC has various programmes, but Capacity Building and Networking are called the "backbone" of their operations. Workshops are organized to build management, leadership and joint action capacities. Communications and Advocacy is another programme with the objective to promote awareness and sensitisation on gender issues through publications, media and the documentation and computer centre. Lastly the M2000 programme addresses issues that are taken up collectively by the NGOCC members, for instance getting more women in Parliament. In total 45 NGOs and 28 CBOs are members of NGOCC, 46 of which are based in the capital Lusaka. The membership fee for NGOs is 100.000 Kwacha (21 usd); for CBOs it is 50.000 Kwacha. The activities of all members are focused on gender and development. The members are the main target group of NGOCC, through which they claim to reach 75% of all Zambian women(2). NGOCC has its head office in Lusaka and 5 other operational offices in the provincial capitals, manned by two staff each. The offices in the provinces all have two staff members. The total staff is 24 of which 7 or 8 are men. The total annual budget is projected at between 1 and 2 million dollars a year. 90% is donor funded; 10% comes from the membership fees and sales of NGOCC chitenge material (cloth). NGOCC has two ICT related activities: the telecentre project and the NGOCC website. The NGOCC telecentre project

"It [the telecentre] should be a place where she is comfortable, where she can make mistakes" Evarine Mooya- coordinator of the Communications and Advocacy programme

The idea for the telecentre project was born in 2001 when 6 NGOCC members started to train NGOs in communications skills such as writing and making TV and radio productions. While doing so these members realized the need to also update the marginalized and illiterate women with the emerging


internet as well. These needs resulted in NGOCC building a computer centre in the Lusaka office first and to establish computers and internet access in the provincial offices later. The Lusaka computer centre was realized in 2002 with an initial donation of computers by WomenConnect. After that, 24 more computers (and printers, fax machines and photo copiers) were added with support from the Worldbank. The aim of the computer centres or telecentres is to provide women with access to information and communication. The information is to be gathered from the internet and can include market prices from various sources such as the Chambers of Commerce and the Zambian National Farmers Union among others. Some government policy documents, such as the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), are online as well. NGOCC realizes the need to help the women find this information online and intends to compose a list of useful websites. Access to communication will happen mainly through e-mail and is important since "some members don't have that privilege now". In its conceptual framework, the telecentres have been exclusively targeted at members and women, but they plan to open up to men in due course. "It should be a place where she is comfortable, where she can make mistakes" adds Evarine Mooya, coordinator of the Communications and Advocacy programme. Training will be offered for free; internet access will be charged for (about 1 usd for 15 minutes). Stage of the telecentre project In April 2003 the acquisition phase had been completed. In the computer room in Lusaka six Pentium III computers have been installed and are accessible to members. Documentation officer Golden Nachibinga, who is responsible for the management of the centre, explains that the PC's have access to the internet through a central dial-up connection. But "in the future I would like to have a leased line through the cable" he states. This is understandable though the dial-up connection at NGOCC was faster and more reliable than wireless connections encountered elsewhere in the city. The computers for the provincial offices had arrived in Lusaka, but are still waiting to be transported to the provincial capitals. First the provincial liaison officers will have to be trained to manage a telecentre. Then 2 computers will be installed in each of the provincial offices. The local liaison officers will have to manage the telecentre on top of their current tasks. NGOCC staff from Lusaka and the provincial offices as well as some members have participated in one training session in March 2003. The three days workshop addressed mail management using Outlook express, web based email services, using the Internet as a resource tool, importance of search engines and the use of information management systems both offline and online. Apart from these more general ICT skills, the setting up of a telecentre was dealt with as well. The workshop was sponsored through the assistance of OneWorld Africa and facilitated by Microlink, one of the Zambian ISP's. Though this session was very useful and quite a few of the provincial liaison officers participated, it is generally felt that not enough skills have been acquired by them yet to independently run a telecentre. The NGOCC website

It's a good mixture of static and more dynamic content and NGOCC itself as well as its members are represented.

NGOCC had its website built in 2000 by a Zambian company called Webdirectories. The same company trained Golden, who is also the webmaster, how to maintain the site (in FrontPage) and post-training support is arranged as well. "We are happy with it" states Golden. The website is intended to be the focal link that explains what NGOCC is all about, which activities are implemented and who the members are. There is a membership directory, but the contact details are not available online. They need to be bought for K 10.000 (2 usd) in print. The members are also represented in the online (and printed) monthly bulletins. The press releases section and the monthly bulletin make Golden update the site once a week on average.


NGOCC aims to address mainly the international community and partners (including donors) with its site. Many of the members are reached with printed material only, since access and ICT skills are generally low among Zambian NGOs. There is a counter on the site since 2001 to monitor the audience but "Zamnet could probably give better statistics" according to Golden. Talking to Golden and seeing how the website is maintained was quite encouraging. In comparison to other Zambian NGO sites NGOCC has kept its site simple and the maintenance is within their own control. It is updated often and all the relevant information is there. It's a good mixture of static and more dynamic content and NGOCC itself as well as its members are represented. The only vulnerability is the risk of Golden leaving the job and not hand over properly. Expected impact telecentres

"We are trying to see how we will be able to generate local information to share, and that is a challenge" Evarine Mooya

Since the telecentre project has only recently started and in Lusaka only, it is too early for any statement on realized impact. For the future Evarine Mooya projects that the telecentres would have an impact on the women in terms of empowerment, opportunity and security. Access to information and capacity building are the keys to achieve those goals. Opportunities of the women will be enhanced through information on crop marketing prices, farming methods, cattle diseases etc. There is no real hope of telecentre participants finding a computer job however: "that is not easy in the provinces and a certificate of attendance (of an ICT training at a telecentre) will not be enough". Information on health will lead to more security for the Zambian women and all of this will - as a spin-off - also empower them. Power relationships are expected to shift because of the enhanced capacity of the women. These expectations are not unrealistic in the sense that similar ICT projects have caused these kinds of impacts(3), though maybe not all at the same time. Having said that, there seem to be some major obstacles for NGOCC to achieve the expected results. One difficulty lies within the project design, where equipment seems to be more important than content. The acquisition of the hardware has been the major focus of the project. What is missing is a robust information strategy based on an information needs assessment or a baseline study. NGOCC hopes to find information that is vital for their targetgroup on the web, but hasn't yet verified whether the content needed is really available online. "We are trying to see how we will be able to generate local information to share, and that is a challenge" admits Evarine. Research on telecentres shows that lack of relevant content in telecentres is among the main reasons for failure(4). Another obstacle lies in the human resources and capacities. The provincial liaison officers are expected to become telecentre managers and not all of them seem willing and/or confident to take this on. Even if it wouldn't come on top of their current responsibilities, not every good liaison officer is necessarily a good telecentre manager. But there is no money for extra (specialised) staff, so a lot of training is needed. As yet it is not clear when and how this training is going to take place and in the mean time the computers for the provinces are waiting to be taken in use... Not only the capacity of the liaison officers is an issue, the same goes for the people in charge of the project in Lusaka. Though they are experienced information and communication professionals, their confidence with technologies, let alone setting up rural telecentres, isn't yet very high. The fact that they asked OneWorld Africa to organize a general ICT training supports that observation and they expressed the need for more training and exchange of experiences with NGOs elsewhere that already run a telecentre.


Sustainability of the telecentre project

"With the telecentres people are trying to serve the poor, contribute to development, be replicable and sustainable at the same time" Polly Gaster - UEM, Maputo, Mozambique

The NGOCC telecentres will be development orientated access points where women who would otherwise not get in touch with ICTs can take their first steps in getting familiar with computers and the internet. The telecentres are not planned to become commercial self-sustaining internet cafes and the income gained from offering internet access will be "only to buy paper, not to cover the costs" explains Evarine Mooya. This point of view, as opposed to forcefully planning for commercial income and self-sustainability, is probably most realistic. At the 2003 Acacia Conference Polly Gaster (UEM, Maputo) states that "with the telecentres people are trying to serve the poor, contribute to development, be replicable and sustainable at the same time. But there is a tension between being a development centre in a rural area and being financially sustainable." The consequence of the above is that the majority of the initial and running costs of the telecentres has to be covered by donors. NGOCC has found funders for the operational costs of the provincial centres. But no additional funds are available for the human resources to keep the centre up and running and attend the users. Especially these human resources are a sustainability issue in the case of NGOCC, where the women will need a lot of professional assistance. It's hard to predict the consequences of the human resources issue once the equipment has been installed in the provinces and the liaison officers are trained to manage them. NGOCC has a good and longstanding reputation both nationally and internationally which makes one assume that possible funding problems will be solved. Also because NGOCC seems one of few organisations putting effort in access to ICTs in rural Zambia. Conclusion

The focus has been on acquiring equipment, without thoroughly verifying whether that equipment will provide the information needed by the target group.

The idea to offer access to ICTs and information to women in the provinces of Zambia in order to improve their social and living conditions, is quite noble. But a strategic plan, including an information needs assessment and sufficient training of staff, seems to be lacking. The focus has been on acquiring equipment, without thoroughly verifying whether that equipment will provide the information needed by the target group. It is surprising that NGOCC, despite their good international contacts, hasn't really taken the initiative to get in touch with reputable organisations like IDRC who have a lot of experience with setting up telecentres in rural areas. On the other hand, the whole telecentre project seems to be quite donor driven. The Worldbank and WomenConnect haven't asked too many questions before delivering the computers to NGOCC. It is among the responsibilities of donors to make sure that not only initial costs are covered but also to make reservations for staff costs. And to assess whether the projectplan is of good quality and the receiving organisation ready for implementing it. Footnotes (1) According to the Worldbank World Development Report 2000/2001, http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/wdrpoverty/report/ (2) http://www.ngocc.org.zm/membership.htm (3) see BDO case studies VideoSEWA, RLEK on www.digitalopportunity.org and the Knowledge Information Centres of MSSRF (www.mssrf.org).


(4) Florence Etta (IDRC) and Peter Benjamin (LINK Centre) in April 2003 at the Acacia Conference "Networking Africa’s Future" in Pilanesberg, South Africa. Resources http://www.ngocc.org.zm - website NGOCC


Summary NGOCC

The focus has been on acquiring equipment, without thoroughly verifying whether that equipment will provide the information needed by the target group.

NGOCC was established in 1985 by a few Zambian women's NGOs after the UN World Conference on Women, held in Nairobi, Kenya. In total 45 NGOs and 28 CBOs are members of NGOCC, 46 of which are based in the capital Lusaka. The members are the main target group of NGOCC, through which they claim to reach 75% of all Zambian women. The total annual budget is projected at between 1 and 2 million dollars a year. NGOCC has two ICT related activities: the telecentre project and the NGOCC website. The NGOCC telecentre project The awareness among members that even illiterate women need to be updated with the possibilities of the internet, resulted in NGOCC building a computer centre in the Lusaka office first and to establish computers and internet access in its provincial offices later. The Lusaka computer centre was realized in 2002 with an initial donation of computers by WomenConnect. After that, 24 more computers (and printers, fax machines and photo copiers) were added with support from the Worldbank. The aim of the telecentres is to provide women with access to information and communication. The information is to be gathered from the internet and can include market prices from various sources such as the Chambers of Commerce. NGOCC realizes the need to help the women find this information online and intends to compose a list of useful websites. Training will be offered for free; internet access will be charged for (about 1 usd for 15 minutes). In April 2003 the acquisition phase had been completed. In the computer room in Lusaka six Pentium III computers have been installed and are accessible to members. The computers for the provincial offices had arrived in Lusaka, but are still waiting to be transported to the provincial capitals. First the provincial liaison officers will have to be trained to manage a telecentre. The NGOCC website NGOCC had its website built in 2000 by a Zambian company called Webdirectories. The same company trained the webmaster how to maintain the site and post-training support is arranged as well. The website intends to explain what NGOCC is all about, which activities are implemented and who the members are. There is a membership directory, but the contact details have to be bought offline. The press releases section and the monthly bulletin make the webmaster update the site once a week on average. NGOCC aims to address mainly the international community and partners (including donors) with its site. Many of the members are reached with printed material only, since access and ICT skills are generally low among Zambian NGOs. Talking to the webmaster and seeing how the website is maintained was quite encouraging. In comparison to other Zambian NGO sites NGOCC has kept its site simple and the maintenance is within their own control. It's a good mixture of static and more dynamic content and NGOCC itself as well as its members are represented. Expected impact and sustainability Since the telecentre project has only recently started and in Lusaka only, it is too early for any statement on realized impact. For the future it is projected that the telecentres will have an impact on the women in terms of empowerment, opportunity and security. Access to information and capacity building are the keys to achieve those goals. Opportunities of the women will be enhanced through information on crop marketing prices etc. Information on health will lead to more security for the Zambian women and power relationships are expected to shift because of the enhanced capacity of the women. These expectations are not unrealistic in the sense that similar ICT projects have caused these kinds of impacts, though maybe not all at the same time. Having said that, there seem to be some major obstacles for NGOCC to achieve the expected results. One difficulty lies within the project design,


where equipment seems to be more important than content. What is missing is a robust information strategy based on an information needs assessment. Research on telecentres shows that lack of relevant content in telecentres is among the main reasons for failure. Another obstacle lies in the human resources and capacities. The provincial liaison officers are expected to become telecentre managers and not all of them seem willing and/or confident to take this on. And the same goes for the people in charge of the project in Lusaka. Though they are experienced information and communication professionals, their confidence with technologies, let alone setting up rural telecentres, isn't yet very high. The telecentres are not planned to become commercial self-sustaining internet cafes, which is probably a realistic approach. There is a tension between being a development centre in a rural area and being financially sustainable. The consequence is that the majority of the costs have to be covered by donors. NGOCC has found funders for the operational costs of the provincial centres. But no additional funds are available for the human resources to keep the centre up and running and attend the users. Conclusion The idea to offer access to ICTs and information to women in the provinces of Zambia in order to improve their social and living conditions, is quite noble. But a strategic plan, including an information needs assessment and sufficient training of staff, seems to be lacking. The focus has been on acquiring equipment, without thoroughly verifying whether that equipment will provide the information needed by the target group. It is surprising that NGOCC hasn't really taken the initiative to get in touch with reputable organisations like IDRC who have a lot of experience with setting up telecentres in rural areas. On the other hand, the whole telecentre project seems to be quite donor driven. It is among the responsibilities of donors to make sure that not only initial costs are covered but also to make reservations for staff costs. And to assess whether the projectplan is of good quality and the receiving organisation ready for implementing it.

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