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

Wed Jul 15 09:22:25 GMT 2009

Dear Pete,

I enjoyed reading your last share...

#1. And just to reflect on a piece:-

>>OKN worked best where partner
>>organisations were able to choose one or two elements from the menu to add
>>to what they were already doing. So that the relationships and practices
>>that had evolved over time could continue but with some small added value
>>from parts of OKN. THat is how I read AKN is planning to work, with the
>>telecentres and organisations in the Steering group able to control from the
>>beginning what is happening in each area. That is where we got to in the end
>>with OKN - but it was a rocky road!

Pete: You remember our trip to India together -- Drishtee also had
similar lessons. It Started with an ambitious 120 services and by the
time of our visit only four where franchised...<long story>

Brosdi's content delivery over mobile phones is also promising because
the organisation leveled out on commodity prices only. But am sure we
all have some examples to give including lessons of CBOs, NGOs...

#2. The context of reality.

Once the needs assessment is done, it is always true that the
communities say things or needs that are more than the interested
organization can support - food security, post harvest losses,
improved seeds & farming methods, commodity markets... for agric
alone, the list will follow for health, education, environ.....

What I guess could follow is knowing who is already doing or is
committed to supporting some of the areas identified in the needs
assessment - these form development partners and in web solutions you
pt to them for solutions or use RSS feeds.

The next act would be to seive out viable and feasible needs that
provide opportunities - for social help, business sense, logical
intervention, sustained development or whatever makes sense...

And by scoring the needs against the support organisation's  ---
readiness and preparedness to take on the need, marketability of a
need (cost vs benefit or impact to community and mission, demand vs
supply of useful content - availability of critical mass of users and
providers of content), internal & holistic system ability to deliver
on the opportunity the need avails, planned stay of the project or
program and mission and values of the parent org. and key partners---
the organization levels out its critical intervention point from the
forest of needs advising the rest to dev. partners or phasing them
into future project cycles.

I guess by liking to do it all, OKN toed a rocky road so was Drishtee
but not Brosdi and many development organizations. But in the end they
all get pushed to the line by realities of practice after resources
are thinly spread - a few organizations/ projects/ programs are able
to survive the cost of this mistake.

Why then the temptation...
A wider entry only makes sense in cases where the implementation is
the needs assessment itself or where the first needs assessment was
just of road side analysis standard and quality. In that sense the
parenting organization can't accurately judge its direction - hence it
goes boot strapping rather than using from ground up methods.

I believe UNECA, needs to evaluate AKN to-date to rightly judge
whether the width of focus is not beyond the ability to deliver. or
simply agree that this is a boot strapping stage for fine tuning the
real direction and in that case getting big results in first phase
becomes a nice smell in wind.

Best Regards,
---
Sulah

Apologies as these are only my lessons of the past and reality. You
may opinion differently on the matter.

On 7/15/09, Pete Cranston <pete.cranston at btinternet.com> wrote:
> hi
>
> As ever, Sulah, you get to the core issues in a phrase - 'width of focus
> against delivering'. I think the underlying issue is to do with how
> bottom-up AKN is going to be able to be given that it is centrally funded
> with a three year objectives and an eye-watering set of performance
> indicators.
>
> I am absolutely sure that Abebe and others in the UNECA team will be working
> to make the programme responsive through consultations etc. But another
> piece of learning from the large, long OKN programme was best expressed by
> wise Richard Fuchs when I asked on IDRC's concerns about OKN. He said he
> thought it had been 'too cooked'. He meant that all the time we spent
> working out the ideas and possible implementation options and evaluation
> schemes and programme logic and technical solutions and regional
> consultation plans and staffing structures and....the list goes on for ever,
> all the things that you have to do to get large funding.... meant that we
> came to our African and South Asian partners with more than a menu, more
> even than a set of recipes, with an enormous pre-cooked stew made up of
> ingredients from all over the world. Indigestible.
>
> To be clear, all our African partners quickly helped us understand how OKN
> needed to adapt significantly to local conditions and we began making
> changes from the first planning meetings with ALIN and AfriAya. But we had
> committed to delivering a range of interim milestones (the tyranny of the
> logframe!) so we found it hard to be flexible enough, at least in the early
> stages. I'm sure that AKN is aware of this issue - the project document I
> read was quite high level, not as detailed as OKN was (our project document
> was so big it needed wheels!).
>
> To return to focus, surely the answer lies in the needs and wishes of the
> particular communities, or regions, or interest groups? I don't believe that
> it would be possible to do 'Gender, Agric, Environ. Education, Health, I.K
> and appropriate techn' in all the AKN sites in three years and I am guessing
> that the AKN team don't expect to. The infrastructure and processes for
> 'customising and packaging' information, to quote Sarah Mpagi, can be common
> but the nature of each set of materials and content can be different. I
> assume that plans are in place for local consultations at whatever is the
> bottom level of the AKN to establish priorities and focus areas for each
> particular region or set of communities? OKN worked best where partner
> organisations were able to choose one or two elements from the menu to add
> to what they were already doing. So that the relationships and practices
> that had evolved over time could continue but with some small added value
> from parts of OKN. THat is how I read AKN is planning to work, with the
> telecentres and organisations in the Steering group able to control from the
> beginning what is happening in each area. That is where we got to in the end
> with OKN - but it was a rocky road!
>
> I'm really looking forward to seeing how this develops since it offers so
> much opportunity
>
> Cheers
>
> Pete
>
>
> Pete Cranston
> skype: petecranston
> mobile: +44 (0)7917 390133
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ugabytes-bounces at lists.ugabytes.org
> [mailto:ugabytes-bounces at lists.ugabytes.org] On Behalf Of Ndaula Sulah
> Sent: 14 July 2009 09:38
> To: ugabytes at lists.ugabytes.org
> Subject: Re: [UgaBYTES] AFRICA KOWLEDGE NETWORK launched in Dar es
> salaam|Strategy
>
> Dearest Kiringai,
>
> Thanks for your contribution... I can see the model "your model" flow as;
>
>  <Data->process->information->synthesize->knowledge->integration->wisdom.
>
> #1. Mirrioring on this model where do you see AKN's intervention?
>
>
> Pete and others; The regional strategy -December 2008 states the themes AKN
> would focus on as; Gender, Agric, Environ. Education, Health, I.K and
> appropriate techn. What would be your opinion of the width of focus against
> delivering?
>
> FYI: Kiringai all participants of the f2f workshop must be having the print
> version of the strategy and other documents that is why they may not have
> shared any doc. But I believe Abebe will share the doc. and provide a link
> to the group - especially if all the info. is public digest.
>
> Best regards,
> ---
> Sulah
>
>
>
> On 7/14/09, Ndaula Sulah <ndaulasula at ugabytes.org> wrote:
>> Dear All,
>>
>> What a great contribution from Pete - he brings to AKN his lessons of
>> the past as a leader at OKN (UK). I didn't expect any less from his
>> contribution.
>>
>> How points out pitfalls at;
>>
>> #1. Intended impact "Transform into knowledge hub" and it's
>> measurability #2. Target groups (intended users and content
>> aggregators)
>>
>> But on the positive end he joins earlier voice to note
>>
>> #1. Despite greater successes and lessons of different telecentre
>> interventions there is no shortage of work that still needs to be done
>> to increase impact.
>> #2. He will dig reports on the lessons of OKN and shares them to the
>> benefit of AKN
>>
>> Additionally, Pete points out areas that need keen improvement;
>>
>> #1. AKN idea thinking and presentation - using hubs is a great mind
>> but given the global focus of the project, it will like trying to
>> localize international knowledge which can not work for community
>> targeted initiatives [save for specialists] #2. The strategy's
>> relationship with; content vs knowledge, local vs global knowledge,
>> target users vs target compilers and result vs process
>>
>>
>> The biggest challenge he points out is that of localizing global
>> information and knowledge especially if the project is targeting
>> community and if it doesn't intend to do it through intermediaries.
>> And indeed it was the weak end of OKN.
>>
>>
>> Unanswered questions ----
>>
>> #1. Whose knowledge
>> #2.  Are they information hubs or knowledge hubs #3. but either way
>> how will knowledge be packaged; or can knowledge be packaged
>>
>>
>> I guess friends at UNECA and members of the list would love to give
>> some feed back and questions to Pete's issues - Abebe...
>>
>> Best regards,
>> ---
>> Sulah
>>
>>
>>
>> On 7/13/09, Meddie Mayanja <mmayanja at idrc.ca> wrote:
>>> I am trying to get to speed on this initiative. It has not been easy
>>> since I am just recovering from poor health - lots to catchup with.
>>>
>>> Pete: provides a great analysis especially linking what we we have
>>> learned in the past from similar initiatives. I am sure the
>>> programming team will take a close look at these issues raised here -
>>> if not done already.
>>>
>>> Understanding the target group and when one can confirm ICT centres
>>> have been turned into knowledge hubs are key data points for me too.
>>>
>>> Best, Meddie
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ________________________________________
>>> From: ugabytes-bounces at lists.ugabytes.org
>>> [ugabytes-bounces at lists.ugabytes.org] On Behalf Of Pete Cranston
>>> [pete.cranston at btinternet.com]
>>> Sent: July 13, 2009 5:58 AM
>>> To: ugabytes at lists.ugabytes.org
>>> Subject: Re: [UgaBYTES] AFRICA KOWLEDGE NETWORK launched in Dar es salaam
>>>    |Strategy
>>>
>>> Hi
>>>
>>> Thanks everyone for this rich and interesting exchange. I have been
>>> reading the Project Document and want to comment for two reasons:
>>>
>>> 1. Learning: people have suggested AKN could benfit from the learning
>>> from our experience with OKN that could be useful. I have promised to
>>> dig out learning reports, which I will do. Some of our work on
>>> content for telecentre.org might also be useful. Specifically here I
>>> try and share some learning about global vs. local
>>>
>>> 2. Local Content: as I announced on this list some time ago Peter
>>> Ballantyne and I are doing some research into what is happening with
>>> Local Content in Eastern (and, to some extent Southern) Africa since
>>> we both worked in the area with OKN, IICD and telecentre.org. We are
>>> planning a small workshop later this year, probably in Brussels in
>>> October, to try and bring together people working in the area,
>>> international NGOs and funders to discuss how to promote and extend
>>> the work since it is still a crucial part of development.
>>> I am contacting people who have replied to our first call about how
>>> we can organise that workshop and who is interested in taking the
>>> work further.
>>> We
>>> are sharing information using the low bandwidth blogging platform,
>>> Maneno
>>> -
>>> http://communitycontent.maneno.org. It is about content that I have
>>> some questions.
>>>
>>> First, though, I hope the programme is a success. Any new investment
>>> in the ICT4D in general and telecentres in particular has to be a
>>> good thing and $1m isn't a small amount of money, even spread across
>>> the ECA, ECE, ECLAC, and ESCAP region over three years. From the
>>> names that I recognise at the Africa planning meeting I think there
>>> is as much wisdom within that group about these issues as in any
>>> other group on the planet. Certainly there is little I could add to
>>> that collection of brains and experience, a great resource for the
>>> project managers. It's true that a lot of the language of the project
>>> seems very familiar from similar projects over the years, but then
>>> the world hasn't changed all that much either: people face the same
>>> problems - in some cases worse - and although projects like
>>> telecentre.org have done wonderful work there is no shortage of work
>>> that still needs to be done. I've cooked lots of meals for my family
>>> but I still learn from new recipes.
>>>
>>> Personally, I found it hard to understand what the project document
>>> is saying about content and knowledge management. 'Knowledge' is in
>>> headlines, but how people in communities will get involved in
>>> learning new things, or in sharing what they know isn't exactly
>>> clear. One of the core building blocks in the problem tree says, "Low
>>> capabilities of disadvantaged communities in accessing, adapting and
>>> utilizing knowledge". It doesn't specify whose knowledge is being
>>> talked about but a lot of the language, as Polly says, is about
>>> global knowledge networking which was *by far* the least successful
>>> part of OKN.
>>>
>>> MOre promisingly the document says, " Knowledge hubs will act as
>>> intermediary stations between the local communities and the global
>>> knowledge networks. Knowledge hubs will be localizing knowledge
>>> gained from peer ICT access points, including those in other regions
>>> fitting the specificity of the localities they are serving, while
>>> they will also contribute to creating knowledge by providing
>>> experiences gained from the local community to the benefit of the
>>> global networks at large."
>>>
>>> But then, " The project is mainly concerned with identifying and
>>> implementing solutions that aggregate fragmented knowledge that is
>>> useful to different disadvantaged  communities, and providing
>>> solutions that increase utilization of this aggregated knowledge." As
>>> Polly says, we found that external knowledge, especially from other
>>> parts of the globe, or even region
>>> - doesn't translate easily - in terms of language, format, context
>>> and relevance - to specific communities.  The document suggests there
>>> is a "a common (global) pool of knowledge for each priority area" but
>>> our experience was this may be true at a specialist level - doctors
>>> and nurses, academics and agricultural specialist, physics teachers -
>>> but not at a village, or community level. Is this a network to
>>> connect specialists, who can be intermediaries? That would be useful,
>>> but it's not clear to me if that is the target group since
>>> 'communities' are mentioned a lot.
>>>
>>> A problem is for me that the process relating to knowledge, content
>>> and learning is simply captured in an arrow called, "Transformation
> Process".
>>> A
>>> possible source of the confusion is that the document sometimes
>>> treats knowledge as if it is something that can be packaged and
>>> shared like pictures or music. This was one of our *fundamental
>>> errrors* in OKN (by 'our' I mean the global team, not the people in
>>> African partner organisations). In fact our experience reinforced
>>> what we should have remembered, that learning is a social process.
>>> Making information accessible is only the first step in that process.
>>> Further, in terms of knowledge transfer - which to me means learning
>>> - from outside a community, a trusted intermediary is vital. Our
>>> resources were spread too thin - we were also a project that was sold
>>> as global - to focus enough on this area.
>>>
>>> It has been very interesting to talk again to Peter Balaba in
>>> Nakeseke and Joseph Sekiku in FADECO about the way that they, like
>>> many others, use all their media channels (radio, internet, print) to
>>> circulate local knowledge through their community audiences. It is
>>> that process of engaging with people, capturing what they know and
>>> do, sharing that with people who are close enough to trust the
>>> sources - and sometimes passing on to the outside especially useful
>>> ideas  - that I think is at the core of learning and knowledge. But
>>> it is an expensive, long-term, people-based process so hard to
>>> persuade funders to resource and even harder to finance through
>>> business models built on providing information and entertainment
>>> services to paying customers.
>>>
>>> I think it's an ambitious project which raises some questions,
>>> especially the AKN aim of "Transforming selected ICT access points
>>> into knowledge hubs of the global knowledge platform, providing,
>>> developing, organizing, sharing and disseminating knowledge pertinent
>>> to these communities". and especially what will be measured in the
>>> indicator, "Number of transformed ICT access points into knowledge
>>> hubs" at evaluation time. I'd love to learn more:
>>>
>>> * What does the team understand by knowledge, and what role do they
>>> see for local content?
>>> * Will the project support the people-based social processes that
>>> make up knowledge transfer, or learning, and if so how?
>>> * How will the project identify the point at which an access point
>>> becomes a knowledge hub? Will it be through having physical and
>>> electronic resources in place - which a lot of places already have -
>>> or will it be more ambitious and try to assess how effectively the
>>> hub supports the learning processes
>>> -
>>> and if so, how?
>>> * Finally, who is the project targetting?
>>>
>>> I think the proposal confirms, if it still needed confirming, that
>>> shared access to digital resources through telecentres of one kind or
>>> another is seen as a key tool in development. I wish everyone in the
>>> project all the luck in the world and look forward to learning from your
> experiences.
>>>
>>> Best wishes
>>>
>>> Pete
>>>
>>>
>>> Pete Cranston
>>> skype: petecranston
>>> mobile: +44 (0)7917 390133
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Pete Cranston
>>> skype: petecranston
>>> mobile: +44 (0)7917 390133
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: ugabytes-bounces at lists.ugabytes.org
>>> [mailto:ugabytes-bounces at lists.ugabytes.org] On Behalf Of NKURUNZIZA
>>> Jean Paul
>>> Sent: 10 July 2009 11:26
>>> To: ugabytes at lists.ugabytes.org
>>> Subject: Re: [UgaBYTES] AFRICA KOWLEDGE NETWORK launched in Dar es
>>> salaam
>>> |Strategy
>>>
>>> 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:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> ugabytes mailing list
>>>> ugabytes at lists.ugabytes.org
>>>> http://lists.ugabytes.org/mailman/listinfo/ugabytes_lists.ugabytes.o
>>>> rg
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> NKURUNZIZA Jean Paul
>>> Président du Réseau des Télécentres Communautaires  du Burundi
>>> Secrétaire Général de BYTC B.P 7031 BUJUMBURA BURUNDI
>>> Tél: 00257 22 21 96 45
>>> Tél Mob : 00257 76 60 49 46/00257 79 981 459 Fax : 00257 212485 ou
>>> 00257
>>> 222147 E.Mail : nkurunziza at bytc.bi ou
>>>          jnkurunz at hotmail.com
>>> Site web : http://www.bytc.bi
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> ugabytes mailing list
>>> ugabytes at lists.ugabytes.org
>>> http://lists.ugabytes.org/mailman/listinfo/ugabytes_lists.ugabytes.or
>>> g
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> g
>>>
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>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Executive Director
>> UgaBYTES Initiative
>> Tel: +256414370163
>> Mob: +256712314969
>> Skype: sulah.ndaula
>> Yahoo: ndaulasula
>> Email: ndaulasula@
>> (ugabytes.org,yahoo.co.uk or gmail)
>>
>
>
> --
> Executive Director
> UgaBYTES Initiative
> Tel: +256414370163
> Mob: +256712314969
> Skype: sulah.ndaula
> Yahoo: ndaulasula
> Email: ndaulasula@
> (ugabytes.org,yahoo.co.uk or gmail)
>
> _______________________________________________
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-- 
Executive Director
UgaBYTES Initiative
Tel: +256414370163
Mob: +256712314969
Skype: sulah.ndaula
Yahoo: ndaulasula
Email: ndaulasula@
(ugabytes.org,yahoo.co.uk or gmail)