[UgaBYTES] EATLF- Social enterprise and how tosustaintelecentres

[Meddie Mayanja]

Thanks, Aminata:

This gives us yet another field example of how telecentres and
networks manage social enterprise and sustainability issues on a
daily  basis. Certainly the more techniques and knowledge the
telecentre community can get the better. 

Many thanks to UgaBYTES, Loic and all members for making this
e-conference such a great place to learn and share.

Regards, Meddie

---- Original Message ----
From: amaiga at clicmali.org
To: ugabytes at lists.ugabytes.org
Subject: Re: [UgaBYTES] EATLF- Social enterprise and how
tosustaintelecentres
Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2007 08:44:11 -0000

>Dear All,
>
> 
>
>Sorry to post my mail regarding Mission drift now but I sent it in
>another
>list. I hope It will be of interest for you as it contain practical
>example
>we deal with in our telecentres here in Mali:
>
> 
>
>The debate is very interesting. I did not hear about Mission drift
>before
>but it is real.
>
>In Loic's example, the situation could be resolve if the Telecentre
>having
>more resource from the IT support, hire another person to answer the
>community initial need and dedicate the other more qualified
>technically to
>IT Support to business. The Telecentre can also extend his offices if
>the
>level of financial resource requires it. Of course the telecentres
>managers
>should have some training or advices to think on this kind of
>strategies
>(This can be one of the networks' roles). In Mali most off the
>telecentres
>have an governing board or advisory board composed of community
>stakeholders
>and their role is to guide the managers in such way that the
>Telecentre
>continue to serve community needs (IT serve as an interface between
>the
>Telecentre and the community groups)
>
> 
>
>In some discussion I use to talk about financial sustainability and
>social
>sustainaibility of Telecentre. We organised an award of the best CLIC
>and
>the CLIC which had financial difficulties has been chosen by us on
>3rd place
>while another one with many fund on his account did not get prize.
>The first
>was providing a lot of effort in training the community at very low
>prices,
>disseminate development related content and also had a very
>transparent fund
>management and accountability but was located in a locality without
>many
>development project and since it is not very far from Bamako (75 KM)
>many
>people who have the power to use Internet connection do it in Bamako
>during
>their travel in week end because the prices are different.
>
>The second one is located in the North of the Country with no
>Internet
>connexion and many development agencies are present. When we
>installed the
>VSAT at the CLIC, all the agencies wanted to be connected by wireless
>and
>contribute. The VSAT monthly fees was 220 000FCFA and each sharing
>partner
>paid 75 000FCFA so with 8 partners, the Telecentre come up with a
>fixe
>monthly income 3 time higher without taking into account the
>generated fees
>from the Internet connexion in the CLIC itself. Giving this fact,
>these CLIC
>managers begun not to promote other services. As the support Unit, we
>drew
>their attention on it and said that their relative favourable
>financial
>situation is due to the fact that no one else provide this service in
>their
>locality and it will change when their partners project end or when
>the
>official telecomm operators arrive in the locally. In Last August, 5
>of
>their partners broke the contract because they are leaving the town
>and the
>others will break soon as ORANGE, the second teleceom operator is
>coming on
>the locality with its Live box product which cheaper  for higher
>bandwidth.
>
> 
>
> 
>
>Best regards,
>
>Aminata
>
> 
>
> 
>
>  _____  
>
>De : ugabytes-bounces at lists.ugabytes.org
>[mailto:ugabytes-bounces at lists.ugabytes.org] De la part de Loic
>Comolli
>Envoyé : vendredi 2 novembre 2007 13:26
>À : ugabytes at lists.ugabytes.org
>Cc : ldavis at nesst.org; 'Nicole Etchart'
>Objet : Re: [UgaBYTES] EATLF- Social enterprise and how
>tosustaintelecentres
>
> 
>
>Dear Colleagues,
>
> 
>
>It is November 2 and, as you know, this online discussion of EATLF on
>Social
>Enterprise: Finding New Solutions to Sustaining Telecentres ends
>today. It
>has been a great pleasure discussing the topic of social enterprise
>and
>sustainability with everyone on this list, and thank you for your
>insightful, concrete, and thought-provoking ideas. In this closing
>post I
>would like to summarize some of the discussions and also talk about a
>few
>ways we can concretize this sustainability movement. 
>
> 
>
>Some of the highlights of this discussion include (this is by no
>means a
>comprehensive list, and I know I’m not doing justice to all the good
>ideas
>that were brought up the past two weeks):
>
> 
>
>- Going beyond ICT: sustainability requires responding to community
>needs
>and using ICT as a tool for ICT4D. This brings some key questions
>such as
>the need to do basic market research on the products and services
>that the
>community wants (including basic financial analysis); and also to
>identify a
>willingness to pay (a customer) that is not necessarily the same as
>the
>end-user.
>
> 
>
>- Need for integrated approach/support system/value chain: probably
>the best
>option to reach sustainability is to act as a broker of products and
>services that the community wants. Brokering services imply linking
>buyers
>and sellers; for this to happen a value chain and support system must
>be
>created. Here the role for telecentre networks is key: they can
>identify
>products and services that telecentres can sell; they can negotiate
>with
>corporations, donors, and government; they can provide ‘mini-finance’
>and
>capacity-building to telecentres to launch new products and services.
>Bringing together many stakeholders is a key ingredient in all of
>this.
>
> 
>
>- Sustainability as a whole: is sustainability only about money? It
>is true
>that a telecentre must earn more cash than it spends to become
>sustainable.
>However, one should not forget that a social enterprise is a complex
>structure (some call enterprises ‘organisms’ because they have many
>interlinked and moving parts) that goes beyond cash. Human resources
>(ie,
>qualified staff), ethical/transparent/and competent management,
>systems, and
>social impact are some of the elements that should be addressed to
>reach
>sustainability.
>
> 
>
>- Mission drift: in the quest for sustainability it is important not
>to lose
>focus of the social mission. Otherwise we risk turning telecentres
>into
>cybercafés. To avoid mission drift, it is important that telecentre
>leaders
>first set clear social impact targets. Then they can assess how much
>money
>is needed to achieve these targets and sell the corresponding
>products and
>services that will help them to achieve their targets.
>
> 
>
>- Sustainability equations: thanks to Damas for the equation C+M+P =
>SSE;
>and Shaddy for the 5 C’s framework. It would be interesting to
>continue
>developing these sustainability frameworks for telecentres to use as
>they
>develop their own sustainability initiatives.
>
> 
>
>Another important contribution of this list has been the products and
>services that have been mentioned and proposed to increase
>sustainability.
>UgaBYTES made an inventory of these so they are documented for anyone
>to use
>to expand their services (thanks to Mariam for compiling the list):
>
> 
>
>- Hold business workshops (and charge a fee)
>
>- Provide ICT courses
>
>- Financial services
>
>- Health information services
>
>- Employment services, e.g. having a career-counseling centre.
>
>- Marketing of community products for sale to national and
>international
>markets.
>
>- Mobile phone services, e.g. Mobile phone banking.
>
>- Internet browsing 
>
>- Providing CDs with relevant information and offer them at a cost.
>
>- Act as digital public libraries to support distance learning
>programs. 
>
>- Become a community movie theatre - to bring local, national and
>international news and increase interactions between the community
>and the
>telecentre.
>
>- Invest in stationery, selling air time to the community, provide
>telephone
>services (similar to a business bureau).
>
>- Develop content and video coverage 
>
> 
>
>Here again, the role of market research is paramount before launching
>any of
>these services. Furthermore, telecentre networks such as UgaBYTES
>also play
>a role in bringing some of these services to the community.
>
> 
>
>At this point the challenge is to develop concrete next steps around
>sustainability. I see three immediate ones:
>
>- 4th East African Telecentre Forum: next week we will explore the
>issues
>raised in this discussion and potential products and services. I look
>forward to meeting those who will attend and to discuss how we can
>make
>sustainability a core element of their activities.
>
>- UgaBYTES: for telecentres in the East Africa region UgaBYTES can
>play a
>key role in developing the integrated value chain (described above).
>Is it
>important that telecentres and telecentre networks start a dialogue
>around
>the kinds of products and services they can jointly offer at the
>community
>level.  
>
>- SustainabilityFirst: I invite everyone wishing to contribute to the
>subject of sustainability to read and comment on
>SustainabilityFirst.org, a
>telecentre.org initiative led by Harsha Liyanage (NESsT is a
>contributing
>partner). SustainabilityFirst discusses some very practical lessons
>for
>telecentre sustainability, with concrete examples and interesting
>discussions.
>
> 
>
>I look forward to staying in touch. Thank you everyone, it’s been a
>pleasure.
>
> 
>
>Best,
>
>Loic
>
> 
>
>_________________
>
>Loïc Comolli
>
>Enterprise Development Director
>
>NESsT
>
>lcomolli at nesst.org
>
>www.nesst.org
>
> 
>
>*** NESsT 1997-2007: Celebrating ten years of investing in social
>enterprise
>solutions. Visit www.nesst.org/anniversary. ***
>
> 
>
> 
>