[UgaBYTES] Are n't Internet cafes becoming a threat to telecentres?

[Meddie Mayanja]

Polly presents some good issues here:

"This still bring us back to the same old question - is simple access to equipment and e-government services enough? Who pays? Is the trend away from community ownership definitive?"

"... Is the problem government/UN initiatives?"

In my view, much of the telecentre work - since 1990's - has been about understanding how best technologies can support community development. We have tried different ways, along this path, to make technologies accessible, empower communities and build partnerships that create value around the tools (technologies). In fact, the emphasis on networking is one that aims at making telecentres sustainable while laveraging various social investments and resources within government, civil society and private sector. In the overall, it aims at building communities that will constantly review and innovate how to be more effective. 

While we have made a lot of progress, it has not covered all fronts and successes are not shared enough. 

We have learned that there could be mixed approaches including community ownership, government paying for some services, community meeting access costs, private sector helping to create value added services, civil society channeling content and services through telecentres etc. 

Best, Meddie









-----Original Message-----
From: ugabytes-bounces at lists.ugabytes.org [mailto:ugabytes-bounces at lists.ugabytes.org] On Behalf Of Polly Gaster
Sent: Tuesday, March 24, 2009 3:24 AM
To: ugabytes at lists.ugabytes.org
Subject: Re: [UgaBYTES] Are n't Internet cafes becoming a threat to telecentres?

Meddie _ I shd add one point. It sometimes seems to me that the main threat to telecentres in the traditional meaning of the word isn't the private sector but government - yet telecentre.org (to name but one) seems more and more interested in working with largescale government IT initiatives - or UN or whatever - which are being called telecentres, part of the network, etc, and what's being lost is the community ownership, empowerment and participation component. I'm not saying that government placing access points in rural areas, etc, is a bad thing, just questioning that in view of this trend maybe the whole telecentre movement needs rethinking?

It may be that this is more important for us in Mozambique than for other countries because we are going down the CMC road, and it is certainly not acceptable to have government running the community radios! At the same time, we do say that citizens have a right to information and its part of government's task to facilitate access to that right - but not through ownership.

This still bring us back to the same old question - is simple access to equipment and e-government services enough? Who pays? Is the trend away from community ownership definitive?

Polly

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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


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