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

Fri Jul 10 05:37:37 GMT 2009

Abebe,
Thanks for the insights into the knowledge network. I did visit the
www.knowledgenets.net website. 

My understanding now is that your effort is a peek into the sustainability
of telecentres and that is why a partnership with the selected telecentres
is/was critical. 

Before Paul's posting, not much had been disseminated prior to your
programme start, to help provide you with insights into the strategic focus
that would otherwise have guided your strategic focus. 

I suppose this exchange will help future programmes that seek to use the
telecentre network to cast their nets deeper and wider. 

UgaBYTES knows that before introducing anything new, they have programming
meetings; they always engage the movement in a brainstorming session, which
is normally one week long to get the views of practitioners discussed and to
help guide their agenda. I suppose this did not happen, much as I was out in
the field. How this escaped Sulah, only he can tell, but that is water under
the bridge. 

If you allow me to confuse you with development parlance: your programme
seems to be more supply than demand led. It may also be prudent to indicate
that your ESCWA region website is scanty of details and that what you now
have may indeed still be a learning phase for your project. This may then
makes what is happening now important to you and your country anchors and
may call for wider consultations.

Anyway, now that you have clarified your goal and the target clientele is
the disadvantaged, you will have one more problem: identifying the
disadvantaged and targeting them through technology. How your programme will
link up the disadvantaged, get them to create sustainable livelihoods first
then make them use ICT as a solution whose impact you can measure will lead
to what Paul said - "wait and see". 

My position on this is: Let us be proactive, what you people have is not
enough to create a regional project.

Why?

Much as Abebe may have been involved in addressing sustainability of
telecentres, there is need to wake up to the reality that depending on our
definition of the poor or disadvantaged person. Remember that these elements
can be defined on the basis of opportunity want, financial want, or
nutrition want. You may need to revisit Abraham Maslow's to understand where
our interventions need to be heaviest. What I am trying to say is that you
will in the end have to look at what these people do to make a living and
help support/enhance that. Whether you will need telecentre practitioners to
achieve that is a matter of programming, which will therefore call for you
to redefine your programme duration. For this I suppose UNECA does not need
much advice.

While I may have argued in my earlier posting that you were not
participatory, now it does seem to me that you may have been too
participatory and assumed that the telecentre model is perfect and all that
is needed is the creation of knowledge hubs. May be you are right, or may be
you are not.

To facilitate further discourse, I suppose the best that can happen is for
you to 

EITHER 

You send the AKN project plan of action to the network either online,
through mail or through the national anchors so that those of us that never
had the benefit of having our strategic thoughts integrated into your
programme can have the opportunity to provide you with the same. 

OR. 

Because you have already identified national hubs, it is their duty and
responsibility to hold national agenda setting forums where your project
documents can be customized for the local setting so that the interests of
individual country initiatives are factored into your programme.

Whatever the case, you have a programme that promises good tidings for the
telecentre network. What is needed is to you to ensure that you work more in
developing the content that provides you with content for creation of
employment, facilitation of education and learning and support to gender and
health.

These are noble intentions tat require serious content so that the use of
words 'knowledge', 'hubs', or 'portals' can be used.

Good day as you continue programming. You have a lot in your plate!

Kiringai Kamau

-----Original Message-----
From: ugabytes-bounces at lists.ugabytes.org
[mailto:ugabytes-bounces at lists.ugabytes.org] On Behalf Of Abebe Chekol
Sent: Thursday, July 09, 2009 4:25 PM
To: ugabytes at lists.ugabytes.org
Subject: Re: [UgaBYTES] AFRICA KOWLEDGE NETWORK launched in Dar es salaam
|Strategy

Thanks Sulah for bringing this to members of the telecentre movement in
Africa and for inviting me to be part of the list.  I have been part of
the telecentre movement since 2000 when I initiated and led a project in
Ethiopia to pilot the first telecentres in three rural towns. We learnt a
lot on the opportunities and challenges of telecentres and raised a lot of
concerns in terms of sustainabily, etc. but above all the role and relevance
of telecentres haven't been ruled out. A number of players have tried to
scale up telecentres to enhance their services beyond and above mere ICT
access points. This initiative also aims to support further development of
telecentres and tries to play a role in transforming telecentres (ICT access
points) in to knowledge hubs of a regional and/or global knowledge network.

The above network is the result of the UN initiative involving its five
Regional Commissions with the UN Economic and Social Commission for West
Asia (ESCWA) as a lead agency under the project 'Knowledge Networks through
ICT access points for disadvantaged communities' funded from the UN
Development Account. Therefore UNECA is implementing the African regional
network involving selected ICT access points (telecentres) and telecentre
networks in selected countries. The main goal of the project is to empower
poor and disadvantaged communities through the transformation of existing
ICT access points in selected countries around the world into knowledge hubs
of global knoweldge networks. It intends to increase the involvement and
engagement of disadvantaged communities - with an emphasis on women - by
encouraging and promoting the dissemination, in existing access points, of
knowledge that pertains to key areas of sustainable development such as
employment,
 education, gender and health. 

A number of activities have taken place including a regional review and
assessment in East African Community comprising of countries - Kenya,
Tanzania and Uganda, which identified services and best practices in
community ICT access points, in selected telecentres. As a result ECA held a
stakeholders’ workshop to look at the regional knowledge network strategies,
mechanisms and tools. Incorporating inputs from the knowledge network
stakeholders, the regional knowledge network strategy was developed and
implementation of initial activities has already begun. Work is also in
progress to develop the knowledge network portal. Close collaboration with
other relevant United Nations agencies as well as representatives of
Governments, the private sector, civil society and international
organizations, are being maintained throughout the different phases of
implementation. This particular activity will ensure building synergies
with the various initiatives
 both at regional and international level. For example, Telecentre.org is
involved in the implementation activities of this project in the  ESCAP
(Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific) and ESCWA regions
including during the initial consultation in Africa. This is why the
involvement of networks like Ugabytes from the initial days of this project
was very important for us. The main players of the activities of this
project are primarily the selected telecentres in selected countries and the
national telecentre networks in these countries in order for these networks
to contribute and coordinate content generation, dissemination, capacity
building and in other technical issues. To this end, telecentres and
telecentre networks from Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda,
Zambia and Zimbabwe are currently participating in the implementation. In
this context, given the scope and limitations of this project, we will be
 happy to know the roles of other players in Africa that we need to liaise
with to enrich the success of this intiative. 

We will be happy to interact with further topics of interest in this regard.
Please also see the link www.knowledgenets.net on the knowledge network
portal of the ESCWA region knowledge network for more information on this
initiative in other regions..

We are very delighted to see such an interesting debate and discussion
facilitated through the Ugabytes list. We hope this will help not only this
initiative but other initiatives in the region and those at the global level
in building synergies and capturing best practices and knowledge already in
existence. I believe there is still much to be done in the area despite the
several initiatives that are in existence or previously piloted. 

All the very best
Abebe Chekol

________________________________
From: Ndaula Sulah <ndaulasula at ugabytes.org>
To: ugabytes at lists.ugabytes.org
Sent: Thursday, July 9, 2009 11:56:52 AM
Subject: Re: [UgaBYTES] AFRICA KOWLEDGE NETWORK launched in Dar es salaam |
Strategy

Dear All,

It is nice reading all the reactions to the AKN. As someone who took
part in the workshop, I'll assure you that I did bring out all these
fears many of us have shared or continues to share - the lessons of
OKN, how telecentre.org unfolded, the difference in the target groups
for both networks, their strategies etc.

But I believe the best way for these answers to get responded and also
for telecentres here to be part of shaping AKN if it make sense to the
movement is to get the Team at UNECA to this list. And thankfully
Francis has already done so.

Please Abebe, join in whenever you have time, Francis will forward you
whatever suggestions you may have missed before join the group.

Important to know: Abebe Chokel, works with UNECA and has been working
on this project for the last 2 years. I would pray that we don't judge
the project but help it to fit within the lessons of the past,
telecentre needs and the broader experiences of the African continent
on the matter.

Best regards,
---
Sulah

On 7/8/09, Kiringai Kamau <kiringai at willpower.co.ke> wrote:
> Dear Paul and All,
> What is coming out of this discussion is that there is need for caution
not
> to repeat what has been done by other initiatives, or as Polly put it in
her
> post, to reinvent the wheel.
>
> Within the perspective of the telecentre focus, we have done a lot making
> policy shifts within institutions that we have been seeking support to
work
> with the telecentre movement. In my view, what needs to be done through
AKN
> is to identify the gaps that the existing model of telecentres is not
> addressing and meet those within the purview of AKN.
>
> It is for this reason that the posts that are coming through are asking.
Can
> you give us the goals and objectives of the AKN so that we can
> participatorily contribute to its dream and strategic thinking?
>
> It is necessary not to make us dance to so many drum beats. We need to
forge
> ahead. Integrate, crate capacity, mobilize utilization. So much has been
> done on the sensitization front-ask the TEAMS team.
>
> Kiringai
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ugabytes-bounces at lists.ugabytes.org
> [mailto:ugabytes-bounces at lists.ugabytes.org] On Behalf Of Meddie Mayanja
> Sent: Wednesday, July 08, 2009 1:52 AM
> To: ugabytes at lists.ugabytes.org
> Subject: Re: [UgaBYTES] AFRICA KOWLEDGE NETWORK launched in Dar es salaam
|
> Strategy
>
> Colleagues,
>
> It's all nice to know about the creation of AKN.
>
> Would someone share the strategy and primary actions or AKN? I think as
> well, that the telecentre community would want to know to participate in
> this initiative.
>
> It's nevertheless critical AKN learns from what has happened before. For
> instance, as Polly said with OKN. There are also several experiences that
> can be drawn from telecentre.org efforts in building/supporting networks
> around the world. Infact telecentre networks in Africa might be a great
> place to start in creating the AKN  - if they buy into the program
> objective.
>
> Best, Meddie
>
>
> ________________________________________
> From: ugabytes-bounces at lists.ugabytes.org
> [ugabytes-bounces at lists.ugabytes.org] On Behalf Of Polly Gaster
> [polly.gaster at uem.mz]
> Sent: July 7, 2009 3:44 AM
> To: ugabytes at lists.ugabytes.org
> Subject: Re: [UgaBYTES] AFRICA KOWLEDGE NETWORK launched in Dar es salaam
>
> Dear Paul
>
> This is interesting. I'm wondering if the Africa Knowledge Network has any
> relation to the OPen Knowledge Network, a project that ran for several
years
> in countries such as Kenya, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Senegal... Or is it starting
> again re-inventing the wheel? The OKN project did some interesting things,
> but
> was not successful in some of its ambitions. I do think it wd be important
> for
> you to at least be aware of what was done, what worked and what didn't,
and
> why, so the AKN can benefit from lessons learned. The Kenyan partner was
> ALIN,
> are you in touch with them?
>
> I wd also be interested in knowing more about the concrete AKN strategy
and
> goals.
>
> 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: +258-82-3264540
> tel/fax: +258-21-485779
> Skype: polly_gaster
>
>
> --
> This message has been scanned for viruses and
> dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
> believed to be clean.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> ugabytes mailing list
> ugabytes at lists.ugabytes.org
> http://lists.ugabytes.org/mailman/listinfo/ugabytes_lists.ugabytes.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> ugabytes mailing list
> ugabytes at lists.ugabytes.org
> http://lists.ugabytes.org/mailman/listinfo/ugabytes_lists.ugabytes.org
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> ugabytes mailing list
> ugabytes at lists.ugabytes.org
> http://lists.ugabytes.org/mailman/listinfo/ugabytes_lists.ugabytes.org
>

-- 
Executive Director
UgaBYTES Initiative
Tel: +256414370163
Mob: +256712314969
Skype: sulah.ndaula
Yahoo: ndaulasula
Email: ndaulasula@
(ugabytes.org,yahoo.co.uk or gmail)

_______________________________________________
ugabytes mailing list
ugabytes at lists.ugabytes.org
http://lists.ugabytes.org/mailman/listinfo/ugabytes_lists.ugabytes.org

_______________________________________________
ugabytes mailing list
ugabytes at lists.ugabytes.org
http://lists.ugabytes.org/mailman/listinfo/ugabytes_lists.ugabytes.org