[UgaBYTES] AFRICA KOWLEDGE NETWORK launched in Dar es salaam |Strategy

[Dean Mulozi]

Hi Sulah, 
Just a mixer of Rosaline SATNET Zimbabwe. It should read SATNET, Zambia. Rosaline comes from SAFIRE, Zimbabwe, 
 
Thanks


Dean Mulozi, 
ZAA-ICT/SATNET Regional Facilitator, 
Private Bag 195x Ridgeway, 
Lusaka, 
Zambia.

Mobile:                  260 978 034196


--- On Thu, 7/9/09, Polly Gaster <polly.gaster at uem.mz> wrote:


From: Polly Gaster <polly.gaster at uem.mz>
Subject: Re: [UgaBYTES] AFRICA KOWLEDGE NETWORK launched in Dar es salaam |Strategy
To: ugabytes at lists.ugabytes.org
Date: Thursday, July 9, 2009, 4:58 AM


Dear Paul

Thanks for the info. And Sulah also helped to clarify some questions.

Just one clarification from my point of view - my initial fear was that in the
first place this new project would NOT reap important lessons from previous
experiences such as OKN, which is already closed down as an international
project but left some seeds behind, as Gladman knows. And not a fear of
"competition" as such but yes, a concern about possible failure to benefit
from and collaborate with and strengthen what little already exists on the
ground. I have seen this very often, as Kiringai mentioned - too often
institutions want their own "branding" and visibility in preference to
synergies, and doing things in parallel (duplicating) means higher costs, and
creates confusion at local level, where (in Mozambique at least) the human
resources are not so many and it tends to be the same people doing everything
anyway. Hence my initial short question, which has provoked such an
interesting exchange of views.

But in general, of course, the more things that are happening the better, and
any organisation should feel free to work directly with any community
initiative on the ground so long as it is bringing strength in some way and
not exploiting. I don't think anyone who has commented so far has been worried
about duplicating networks as such, which will live or die according to how
useful they are, it's the local impact that matters. 

I guess the general concern emerging from the list is precisely wanting to be
sure that the AKN has been thought through and has learned from so much that
has already been done or attempted in this area. I find that institutions,
even governments, when something isn't working often just abandon it and set
up something else, without ever sitting down and learning the hard lessons.

>From our own small OKN experience I wd point out 3 things:
a) we used existing telecentres/CMCs/community radios as a base for OKN
activities rather than setting up something separate, hoping that this
strategy wd be mutually beneficial and good for the community, which I think
it was. And also gave a better chance of sustainability, and continuation
"post-project". 
b) the language issue drastically reduced the possibilities of sharing locally
produced content - in our case not only the fact of having many national
languages, but even our official language of Portuguese doesn't exactly help! 
c) we found on a study visit to India, as well as experiences with Latin
America, that it's impossible to generalise strategies from continent to
continent, as the contexts are so very different.

Hope this is a helpful contribution. But I would still like the AKN strategy
to be shared more widely, to see if there is anything that we can learn or
benefit from. I am always curious!

Polly






----

Polly Gaster
TICs para Desenvolvimento/ICT4D
Centro de Informatica da Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (CIUEM)
Campus Universitario, Maputo, Mozambique
e-mail: polly.gaster at uem.mz
cel: