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

[NKURUNZIZA Jean Paul]

Hello all !
The discussions going on about the AKN is really interesting !
My suggestion is that online discussion throught a mailing list is
conducted before physical meetings for next events related to AKN.

I just want to emphasize on one aspect of the project strategy  :"
Avoiding overlap and duplication". I can read this statement on the point
6 entitled :" Implementing the Regional Knowledge Network", in the second
subpoint entitled : "6.2. Partnerships". This is found in the draft of the
regional strategy document.

So yes, this  project from UNECA will learn from other simular projects,
and will partner with other organizations involved in the same area.
I even remember that one participant raised the OKN experience to be taken
into consideration in addition to others like telecentre.org.

I hope final documents will be shared soon by the UNECA team .
Meanwhile, there I can see there is an interesting document about the
projecton this link :
http://knowledgenets.net/images/Documents/project%20document.pdf

Sincerely

> 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:
>
>
>
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> ugabytes at lists.ugabytes.org
> http://lists.ugabytes.org/mailman/listinfo/ugabytes_lists.ugabytes.org
>


-- 
NKURUNZIZA Jean Paul
Président du Réseau des Télécentres Communautaires  du Burundi
Secrétaire Général de BYTC
B.P 7031 BUJUMBURA BURUNDI
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Tél Mob : 00257 76 60 49 46/00257 79 981 459
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E.Mail : nkurunziza at bytc.bi ou
         jnkurunz at hotmail.com
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