[UgaBYTES] AFRICA KOWLEDGE NETWORK launched in Dares salaam|Strategy

[FELICIAN NCHEYE]

Dear All,
 
Let us be fair.
 
It is wise to appreciate one' s initiative(s). If you clearly go through UNECA documents, you will find that stakr holders were involved in the process since 2007. UNECA officers were travelling from countries to countries meeting a good number of stakeholders. My self I met Abebe  in  Dar discussed a lot about the issue after he had made meetongs with represenattives of The Commission for Science and Technology, Tanzania,Communications Regulatory Authority, SWOPnet etc and they did simiraly in other countries.
 
Additionally, stakeholders from all East Africa countries, telecentres , National Telecentre Networks, Ugabytes-which coordinates IDRC/Telecentre.org initiatives in  Africa-English speaking, NGO;s and Southern Africa representatives participated in a meeting in Kampala in 2008  for a ground work of the initiative. At the launch,all these represantives had an opportunity to deliberate on the suggested plans and elected a powerful team representing them to form a Steering Committtee to work with the secretariat to fine tune implementation strategies .
 
What level should be to be stakeholder driven, who would be selected so that it is particpatory representative?
 
Experience:
Regardless of the prevailing initiatives including IDRC's initiatives telecentres still have so many challeges particularly on content development and management of which AKN plans to address. In other word it plans to compliment IDRC and other ICTs development initiatives on its own capacity and understanding. The most important thing is to support the idea nad work together to address prevailing challenges. Even if you focus on past experiences new challenges will evolve. 
 
I am sure telecentre participants are very happy about this AKN initiative because it aims at addressing majoe setbacks like; equipment and materials, motivation for personnel and management and most importantly, addressing the core problem of the communities-KNOWLEDGE, which is the main purpose of Telecntres in the communities. No wonder telecentre practitioners support the wiseman' s statement - 'When an opportunity smiles, embrace it'
 
It is also true that one of the secrets of succes is appreciating resources at hand. We must show to UNECA that we appreciate theri concern and efforts for our communities and consideraing us to work with them, otherwise they could to abide to what some of the developed countries are doing, 'They consider first deligent people rather than intellectual people, because most of the intellectuals are self centred.Without them...
 
Let us cheer up what other are doing and work together with positive minds.
 
Ncheye

Manager
Sengerema Multipurpose Community Telecentre
P.O.BOX.399 Sengerema-Mwanza Tanzania
E-mail:ncheyefb at yahoo.com
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