iConnect Series

ICTs in the Health Sector

IICD — 2007-12-30T16:22+00:00

Information management especially at the district level in Ghana’s health delivery system remains thorny. John Yarney writes on how Ghana Ministry of Health has started an Information Management programme for personnel to improve with its data gathering and other initiatives to improve capacity within its health sector.

According to practitioners within Ghana health sector, data has been a major issue since Ghana started her health reforms.

For the entire article, please download PDF above.

Zambia still lagging in Local content production

IICD — 2007-12-30T14:28+00:00

Zambia is among the first African countries to be hooked to the internet though its long presence in the usage of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), has failed to improve the production of local content.

Many Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) experts attribute the poor production of local content to limited access to computers and to internet usage.

The lack of understanding of the value of adding services and products on the Internet has contributed to the country’s lagging behind in producing local content that is suitable to the local users and outsiders.

Hence most Zambians have resorted to having access to foreign information which at times may not be suitable for them.

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Catalysing creation and exchange of local content

IICD — 2007-12-30T14:24+00:00

In 2001 and 2002, the UK Department for International Development (DFID) commissioned the International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD) and OneWorld International (OWI) to examine issues associated with the generation and exchange of local content. DFID and the Canadian government funded the project, which has been executed by OWI, IICD and a network of partner organisations.

Local content refers to locally owned and adapted knowledge of a community and the project was aimed at supporting efforts by poor people in developing countries to create and exchange useful, potentially wealth-generating content via ICTs.

In Uganda, I-Network implemented the project. Natalie Kimbugwe, the programme coordinator at I-Network says five projects received funding under the one-year project. The organisations were Schoolnet Uganda, Radio Apach Women's Voices project, Community Organisation for Empowerment of Young People (COFEY) in Uganda, the Centre for Development Alternatives (CEDA) and ThinkQuest.

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In times of abundance, operation abilities are still limited

IICD — 2007-12-18T15:21+00:00

Mali is a country where culture is described as being mainly oral. A priori, this situation is not in favor of the written production of cultural goods. The holders of local knowledge are people considered by the communities as a resource in charge of passing on this knowledge according to tradition. In spite of this de facto situation, there are many initiatives of change developing here and there. According to this new approach, local content is produced by institutions or commercial organisms, by civil society and mainly by the media.

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UNDP supports development of local content in Ghana

IICD — 2007-12-18T15:09+00:00

Information they say is power and can make or unmake a people or individuals depending on the uses to which they apply the information.

But for rural communities everywhere, it is difficult to access, let lone to apply the information for development. Now more than ever, people everywhere are realising the importance of information and its ability to empower them democratically and economically for development.

The United Nations as a lead world body is urging governments to build an informed society as part of efforts to develop and halve the world’s poor through the implementation of key development strategies including the application of ICTs to meet the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

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Local content for the management of ecological agriculture

IICD — 2007-12-18T14:55+00:00

“We are very interested in the development of local content as, usually, information is created somewhere else and it does not necessarily satisfy the needs created by our local conditions” affirms José Rivadeneira, Executive Coordinator of Coordinadora Ecuatoriana de Agroecología, CEA.

In 2003, the CEA started creating its own local content. Benjamín Macas, regional coordinator reveals that they started by making a diagnosis in several regional and national organizations in order to identify their potential to provide agro ecological information to the communities. This was the birth of the project “Comunicación para el Manejo de Sistemas Productivos Agroecológicos”, (Communication for the Management of Agro ecological Productive Systems), supported by the International Institute for Communication and Development, IICD. The results of the diagnosis where used as a starting point for the selection of the contents to be created. This diagnosis was also useful to identify the better way to distribute information.

For the entire article, please download PDF above.

With Burkina-ntic local content gets onto the Web

IICD — 2007-12-18T14:55+00:00

In Burkina Faso, there are many local initiatives as regards the extension and popularization of ICTs. Among all these initiatives, there is one in particular that can be regarded as the most dynamic platform and the one which is in the public eye. It is called Burkina-NTIC (http://www.burkina-ntic.net/ and http://www.burkina-ntic.org/) and it attends to local content by permanently updating the activities performed by the different local communities in the area.

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Expanding the frontiers of rural access

IICD — 2008-01-14T16:57+00:00

Janet Kwami writes on findings from an ethnographic research on communication, poverty and development in two villages in Twifo Praso district in Ghana.

It looked particularly at the kinds of information and communication technologies (ICTs) that are used in these villages and how they affect individuals living in these communities and their livelihoods. The focus of the investigation was based on the ICT Center in the district and the opportunities it presents to the communities in that district. The research was part of the findings from a four-country study on ICT and Poverty carried out in Ghana, South Africa, Jamaica and India and funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID).

The two villages that were studied were at varying distances from the district capital, Twifo Praso, 70kms north of the capital of Ghana’s Central Region -- Cape Coast.

For the entire article, please download PDF above.

Tanzania: ICT education project amid rural connectivity challenges

IICD — 2007-12-30T16:36+00:00

Tanzania is a rural country with 80% of population and 70% of able labour force living permanently outside urban areas as peasant farmers. Like most developing countries, the Tanzanian rural masses lack satisfactory social services. For rural connectivity to make a difference in the community, it must be hinged on a social sector that touches on the lives and provides content that is relevant, cost effective and essential to the livelihood of the community. Education is one of essential social services in rural Tanzania, which is deprived of quality infrastructure, human and financial resources.

For instance, many rural schools lack tap water, electricity and basic telephone connections. This impedes the teacher and student’s passion to utilize modern technologies necessary in teaching or for practical lessons. The modern Information & Communication Technologies (ICTs) are among the essential tools that most school administrations hesitate to acquire due to lack of electricity and telephone or high costs of connection.

For the entire article, please download PDF above.

Rural ICT access: Information Centers, CMCs and CLICs, a trigger for rural connectivity

IICD — 2007-12-17T13:38+00:00

Local Information and Communication Centers (CLIC according to its French acronym) and Multi Media Community Centers (CMC) have been implemented in some information centers. They help communities deprived of quality communication infrastructure to have access to new technologies. This enables people to improve their life conditions as thanks to these technologies they are now able to obtain valuable information concerning the main sectors of development: health, education, agriculture…

Since 2000, the President Alpha Oumar KONARE has been expressing a wish to have all the parishes in Mali connected to the Internet. After the International Meeting Bamako 2000, where the issue of discussion was - Internet: gateways to Development, several partners committed themselves to making the necessary efforts to have that dream come true. These partners were, among others, the International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD), World Space, USAID, UNESCO, etc.

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From the traditional to a modern harvest: An upgrading of the skills of rural women

IICD — 2007-12-17T17:30+00:00

Strengthening the economic power of women members of the Songtaaba-yalgré association has been achieved through upgrading their skills using information and communications technology (ICT). The result: New skills acquired and a big increase in the value added of local products.

Songtaaba-yalgré, an association that specializes in production of karite butter, has trained its members in the use of new technologies. Its goal is to raise production standards and output of a quality butter product.

For the entire article, please download PDF above.

Zambian women empowered via ICTs

IICD — 2007-12-07T17:30+00:00

For a long time, Zambian women have lagged behind in new developmental trends, especially in areas of technology, politics, and economy. To help mitigate this trend, women in Zambia came together 20 years ago to form the Zambia Association for Research and Development (ZARD). This occurred when many people, including a number of women, thought the fight for women empowerment into leadership positions was an affront against culture.

For the entire article, please download PDF above.

Video Conferencing: Delivering global content to local communities

IICD — 2007-12-30T15:28+00:00

The Tanzania Global Development Learning Centre (TGDLC) was established in 2000 as a capacity development tool to empower decision makers and mid-level professionals and practitioners with skills meant to simplify and bring about efficacy and efficiency in the way they execute their duties.

The Centre was set to develop skills and competences of the public servants, private sector and civil society for the delivery of excellent services through distance learning using cost-effective state of the art technology.

For the entire article, please download PDF above.

Digital Training

IICD — 2007-12-07T17:12+00:00

In Mali, where the New Information and Communication Technologies (NICT) are on the rise, the stakeholders have all the same concern: training and capacity building. And to better identify the issue, we wanted to know the different labels, their characteristics and their content.

For Lassana Fofana, in charge of capacity building and training for the Agence des Technologies de l’Information et de la Communication (AGETIC), the AGETIC label is divided in two components. The first one for initial training and the other for capacity building.

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Challenges of rural connectivity in Zambia

IICD — 2007-12-07T11:06+00:00

Rural connectivity - a key benefit to many internet users - is spreading at a fast rate especially in developed countries but its potential is yet to be tapped in developing countries such as Zambia.

Despite the gloomy picture of rural connectivity, Macha, a rural place in Southern Province of Zambia, is set to improve the provision of internet service to the community. The project which started in 2004 is run by the Macha Mission Hospital and the Malaria Institute at Macha (MIAM) has added a new life to many people around the area.

For the entire article, please download PDF above.