Africa urgently needs a coherent policy to link information to community needs, writes Aspasia Karras
The Technology Foresight study, recently completed in Britain, attempts to urgently determine where and how the country can gain the competitive edge in the increasingly chaotic global market.
This process is probably even more significant for South Africa, yet the word from the Departments of Post and Telecommunications, and Arts, Culture, Science and Technology is that our equivalent White Paper will take up to four years to produce. Developments on the ground point to an urgent need for a coherent policy.
Michael Kahn, head of the Gauteng Information Technology Department, explains: “It is a political question. We have a social commitment to development, and we need to become internationally competitive.”
The Information Society and Development (ISAD) conference of the G7 and developing states held in May, seemed to be heading towards a first phase of practicable measures to achieve this end. One of the lead projects for South Africa, taken up by the National Telecommunications Forum (NTF), is the development of infrastructure for multi-purpose community centres (MPCCs).
Peter Benjamin, who is co-ordinating the Community Access Task Team of the NTF, sees the centres as the logical extension of the information community, as opposed to the information superhighway and information society, highlighting the need to link information to community needs in developing states, rather than to the business needs of the technologically developed world.
The ideas informing the centres have evolved in a similar way. The ISAD was brimming with information idealists, who appeared to believe that access to the Internet would propel any disadvantaged community into the 21st-century overnight.
Critics were quick to point out that a rural community in the Transkei would need access to cheap telephony and basic services like a fax, even before the more obvious literacy campaign that would enable them to surf the world wide web. Access to the technology will not necessarily ensure development; a carefully studied and negotiated process is much more critical to link technology to the real needs of a community.
The concept is not new; in fact, practically each government line department has something equivalent on the go. The South African Police, for instance, have R200-million from the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) fund to invest in “community safety centres”; the Welfare Department has built six community centres linked to local RDP councils in the Western Cape; the Gauteng Public Works Department is building in Khutsong South, West Rand, for R2-million; Eskom has donated computers to an MPCC in Rabie Ridge, facilitated by the Community Development Forums in the North East Rand.
In addition, a sum of R150 000 per MPCC has been promised by the United States for Deputy President Thabo Mbeki’s Communications Task Team, with a proposal to build 10 pilot projects.
The list certainly illustrates the government’s and international donors’ commitment to the need for information dissemination, but more critically it points to the lack of integrated planning.
Al Karaki, a veteran proponent of MPCCs in the country, is adamant: “Lateral and vertical integration of planning is practically non-existent, this is massive wastage,” owing to the way the budget is structured.
Each department and province has to submit their business plans by December 17, and spend the money by the end of September the following year. This leads to a panicked rush for projects that seem viable, but are neither consultative nor integrated, causing unnecessary duplication.
Another problem is that each department must be seen to deliver, therefore integrated projects may not have a high- enough profile, or enough quantifiable indicators for a specific department’s needs.
“They have no time to consult each other, because of the time restraints. Ideally, an autonomous co-ordinating body should be formed to integrate planning. This lack of integrated planning is one of the great successes of apartheid.”
A first initiative towards this end is being funded by the International Development Research Council of Canada. The project will audit and report on all organisations and projects that are related to the MPCC concept. Benjamin estimates that the network could number more than 2 000. More important, the country needs a policy framework.
Kahn concludes that by identifying those areas in which South Africa is different and in fact ground-breaking could show the way forward. He cites an ironic by-product of the apartheid era: the development of military expertise at encryption.
Using this technological advantage, Eskom has created the prepaid electricity meter cards. Significantly, this led to Siemens becoming a strategic partner in the project. But it also raised the spectre of a targeted population still without electricity as they cannot afford to buy the cards.
“It is the fundamental question: can we be both leaders and followers? In choosing where we head, we have to take into account who we are leading.”
Kahn elaborates, “If our primary concern is development, then technology is a tool we should be using. The point is to identify what elements we can develop that are ground-breaking and therefore offer potential economic leverage.
“By providing computers and information centres to a largely illiterate population, we should be realising that we are in fact opening up a market in iconic programme development, and touch screen specialisation.”