[UgaBYTES] Rural Communication Development Policy-II 2009/14|Draftfor feedback

[Meddie Mayanja]

Dear all,
 
As Sandra noted, the draft document covers a lot of ground to enhance universal access. I liked the fact that the drafting team made an effort to learn from other countries like South Africa, Chile, and Nigeria etc - while I might have an issue on what was learned from some of these cases. I glad also that community development is an area of interest in RCDP-II. That, it’s not all about deploying technology as was the case in phase II
 
Key concerns:
 
The policy doesn't address the reason why ICT access centers/telecentres implemented in RCDF-I performed badly. Yes, there is an acknowledgement of the fact but RCDF-II doesn't address the problem. Had to think new plan will bring any different results. This is why: 
 
1 - I don’t think the SWOT analysis was rigorous enough. It reads rather short on helpful diagnosis of RCDP but even then, issues highlighted such as operational sustainability, innovation, impact and quality of service are not achieved by providing money. They are outcomes of deliberate planning, learning and improving work processes over time. No facility can achieve these in isolation. It was the main undoing of RCDP -I. imagining that as long as the cheque is sent off to the project site UCC is done because there will be universal access. The fact that we are talking underserved, largely communities with socio-economic challenges makes it even more difficult to see result with this model. You should review Ghana's experience to understand what happens when broad partnership is not created around these initiatives.
 
2 - Related to the SWOT analysis, there is no acknowledgement of the growing community and knowledge on universal access issues with Uganda and around the world. Should anyone worry, yes. Because it comes off as if RCDP won't be able to leverage these opportunities in implementation phase. That would definitely impact on outcomes.
 
3 - The criteria for selection of project is very unrealistic or theoretical. Take for instance, "...the lower the cost of implementation in comparison with other in the same policy action category, the more points..." then, "...the more the project is rated to create socio-economic transformation the more points..." then "...locations in underserved ...score more" and then "..the wider the geographical spread..." In reality these points contradict/ cancel each other out at a rapid rate especially if you consider the socio-economic indicators of disadvantaged areas painted in the intro section. 
 
4 - The policy actions category is quite not categories in some areas. For instance, what is the difference between community information centers (CIC), regional technology demonstration centers, content development and disbursement centers and IT facilities for service delivery points? I don’t see much in between especially in function. One may also argue that the functions can be done by any of these "names". 
 
5 - There is no framework for learning from RCDP-I and other universal access providers in the country. That can only weaken the project outcomes - refer to point 1. The consultation process leading to the policy is great but the project teams/leaders/practitioners need a network of their own to continuously access support, knowledge and experience to improve what they do. This was a problem highlighted early in 2006, of RCDP-I. These initiatives can not work in isolation of each other or what is going on around the world. There should be a forum (face to face and online) to address this. Actually one way to achieve more with less is through networks - that’s a fact. The gaps from RCDP-I will not be removed by just putting in more money; but networking will contribute a great deal.
 
6 - I found the idea of getting underserved communities represented on the [to be created] RCDF Board very uncomfortable. Consider that "underserved" is not a static state. Todays underserved may not be a few months later... then what happens? Is really important that people have to seat of committees to be heard? This is a source of problems in many disciplines and often leads to over governance. I think as long as the RCDF Board has an intelligent group of individuals all should be fine.
 
7. Great to see that licensing might be handled differently in disadvantaged communities. In fact, it may that one contribution of the RDP-II would be that license without investing direct resources in the case where the applicant is able to raise own resources. I wanted to see more of these strategies for leveraging resources in the hands of other players using the weight of UCC other than assuming that the universal access could be ensured by the US $ 17 million only.
 
7 - This policy will need a robust monitoring and evaluation plan with a logic model. It would be nice to understand how all the input, from the early stages would result in the anticipated outcomes - impact. If later, UCC would want to establish a casual analysis or at least make contribution analysis this would be critical. Fortunately, there is enough baseline data to use from within the subsector and RCDP-I. For now, the Monitoring and Evaluation strategy section doesn't tell us much. For instance, some of the outcome indicators really overlook a lot of things. Take for instance, "It facilities for social service delivery areas" (which by the way is not worded the same way in the Policy Actions), the indicator is "... at least 50% of health and admin workers in covered sub-counties use the service for at least 3 hrs per week" I could ask a lot of question on this... but first, this is not a realistic indicator. In my experience, there are many reasons why a health worker could use the facility or not and yes, it doesn't even say use for what. I guess this shows the need for deeper thinking with this M&E strategy if it will be useful.
 
All said, it’s a good starting point and great that the policy has provided space for feedback. It can only get better from here.
 
Best, Meddie