Message in a Bottle: ICT project brings hope to the troubled Islands of Solomon

Author : Randall Biliki, PFnet Manager
Date added : 2002-04-05

Brief Project Background

The People First Network (PFnet) was initiated by a UNDP/UNOPS participatory development and institutional strengthening project Solomon Islands Development Administration and Participatory Planning Programme (SIDAPP), 1997-2001. It is now organised and run as a project of the Rural Development Volunteers Association (RDVA), a non-profit association set up and affiliated to the Ministry of Provincial Government and Rural Development.

Initially, the aims were to use ICTs as advocacy tools for the rural communities’ micro-development project ideas and the other outputs of SIDAPP. The concept was widened with research into the most practical and appropriate means of improving rural communications and facilitating information flows, especially in an environment decimated by the ethnic conflict which has collapsed the economy and threatened national unity.

The PFnet web site http://www.peoplefirst.net.sb was launched in January 2001, initially as a SIDAPP institutional site but it is intended to redesign and restructure the site as a true development portal for Solomon Islands, with participation from many agencies. The launching of the web site was followed by the country’s first Internet Café in March 2001, which proved so highly popular that since then it has expanded twice.

The next step was to connect remote rural communities, where 85% of Solomon Islanders live without any access to telecommunications other than short-wave radios for voice calls and a handful of prohibitively expensive satellite telephones. Research and field testing of rural email networking followed, with the focus on affordability, appropriateness and sustainability. For the mainstay of the network, a well proven system using HF radios was chosen, with solar power in most situations. Other emerging non-profit opportunities in satellite communications were (and still are) also being investigated. The country’s first rural community email station established in October 2001, using a model where the station is managed by a trained local committee with awareness raising and other community consultations. The community email stations are operator-assisted and thus accessible to all people, and a simple message service allows customers without email addresses to receive mail.

Consultations with other development agencies and sectors as produced strong interest in participation. To test the potential applications of PFnet in the field of education, a pilot project was proposed which would entail the University of the South Pacific Centre using the email system for it’s distance learning programme. Funding for this initiative was granted in January 2002 by the APDIP Pan Asia Networking Programme and it will take place in May-September 2002.

After the closing of SIDAPP in December 2001, the Solomon Islands Government and UNDP both accepted SIDAPP’s recommendations that the PFnet rural email network be considered as a priority to promote and facilitate equitable and sustainable rural development and peace building by enabling better information sharing and knowledge building among and across communities forming the Solomon Islands. A proposal for a two-year project, which would expand the network to over 25 or more stations in all rural areas, and then use the network and other ICTs to facilitate information flows and sharing and build the capacity to use the ICTs has been accepted by the regional UNDP office and submitted to the UNDP Thematic Trust Fund for ICT. In the meantime, the project continues to sustainably operate under it’s own revenues and even expand in a modular fashion with new rural stations financed by diplomatic missions, partnerships of local and international civil society organisations, and other donors.

Some three years ago, a young Ulawan boy was trawling along the sea shore, looking for anything interesting that might turn up. Something glinted in the tropical sun, and caught his eye - a bottle, still capped with something inside. He took it home and showed his dad, who opened the cap and drew out a piece of paper with a name and address written on it. Although Belgium is about as far from the South Pacific as you can go, Mr. Ngali had heard of it from his work as the local primary school Headmaster. He wrote to the couple from that far-off land, who had launched their message many months previously and although only half expecting a reply was delighted when he did get a letter in return. Of course, this process took a very long time - the turn-around for the Solomon’s rural mail service can take months. Eventually, a warm correspondence resulted, and the intrepid Belgian Couple even started to write about their hopes to visit Ulawa.

Unfortunately, times took a turn for the worse as the nation plunged into a period of ethnic conflict which left over 100 dead and the fragile economy in total collapse. The Belgian couple never got to visit the country, and so neither did they witness it’s incredible diversity of cultures, with Melanesians, Micronesians, Polynesians, Chinese and Europeans all living together in a state of happy but fragile co-existence.

In all such conflicts it is the innocent who suffer the most, and in the Solomons the poor rural islanders soon found themselves with even the most basic services in a state of rapid decline. Their main source of income for school fees, the Copra trade, was an early casualty, and as the country’s coffers ran dry school grants and medical supplies ceased to materialize.

In the field of communications the situation was not much better. Solomon Islands has a tele-density of as little as 0.3 per hundred outside the capital Honiara - half the rate of countries such as Indonesia for example - and even those telephones are concentrated in only a few provincial centers.

With rural areas deprived of basic communications and in a climate of fear, misinformation and spreading distrust, it was not surprising that cracks began to appear in the fabric holding the nation together. The country is in danger of fragmentation.

Many analysts have pointed to the failure of successive governments to implement policies of equitable development as a root cause of the troubles, but it is also a moot point that the rural communities themselves are powerless to drive the process forward if their voice cannot be heard and their potential partners cannot contact them.

This is why the people of Ulawa are now so delighted with the stroke of good fortune which has managed to reach across to their small isolated island. The People First Network, a UNDP-established ICT project run within the Rural Development Volunteers Association (RDVA), has just opened a community email facility based at the island’s secondary school, and suddenly the message in the bottle becomes a symbol of the past isolation as the people for the first time connect to the outside world.

“It is like turning on a light,” observed RDVA Chairman Alan Agassi from Honiara. “As each new outer island is connected, you begin to notice how their name is mentioned more frequently, and how things start to happen there - development projects, improvements, good news”.

The facility on Ulawa Island is the second one to be launched by the People First Network (PFnet). PFnet uses an email system based on a robust, proven and sustainable technology that permits remote locations on islands across thousands of square kilometres to have access to Internet emails using a simple computer, short-wave radio, and solar power.

Established as a not-for-profit organization through the Ministry of Provincial Government and it’s affiliated association RDVA, PFnet has received funding and technical support from the Solomon Islands Development Administration and Participatory Planning Programme (SIDAPP), a project of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) which closed in December 2001. Through their local missions the governments of Japan, Britain and the Republic of China have also given generous support to the project’s start-up activities.

The project’s objectives are to:

· Facilitate point-to-point communications to and from the remote provinces of the Solomon Islands using affordable, sustainable and appropriate technology, and to use this network with other ICTs to:

· Facilitate rural development and peace-related information flows among all social groups; and

· Facilitate the exchange of information between communities and development programmes, NGOs, government offices, the media, businesses and other stakeholders.

When asked why an e-mail system is appropriate for deprived and remote areas, the project team will explain that it is precisely in such areas that basic telecommunication has the most value and impact. For such locations, telecommunication is the only and vital link with the outside world, either to ensure health security, public services such as education, or essential contacts with family and professional peers.

Yet, currently, the only two means of communication with the outside world for most remote locations in the Solomon Islands are short-wave radios and satellite telephones. When short-wave radios are used for voice communication, they often require hours of patient queuing and retrials, sometimes in vain, and at a cost still very high for rural folks living largely in non-cash subsistence economy. In turn, satellite telephones, when available, are far beyond the reach of most of the population, for costing between US$5 to $10 per minute, regardless of the destination called.

The PFnet system, offering basic email services, seeks to improve connectivity while dramatically reducing the prices of communication, making it affordable for low-income users and sustainable over time. As a basic utility to all other activities, this affordable telecommunication and information network is already assisting the country, particularly low-income groups, in taking in charge their own development through improved logistics, information and knowledge. A particular attention is given to gender equity (many of the rural station operators whom PFnet trains and users are women) and to democratic governance.

The community email stations give rural people a voice in important matters concerning their affairs and development, for instance to contact decision makers and the media directly, to receive news and information and to contribute to important public and official debates. The service helps with the delivery of priority services and gives islanders opportunities to benefit from the global economy by allowing them to communicate with not only relatives but business contacts, investors and tourists all around the world at very low cost. It is accessible to all - even those with no knowledge of computers and email and illiterates will be able to use the service as it is operator-assisted and messages can be sent to relatives or others for collection in Honiara care of the PFnet Internet Café.

This is in concrete terms what bridging of the digital divide means to the Solomon Islands.

Results

In order to describe how PFnet works, it is important to explain that PFnet has two key components: an Internet café and a rural email network.

The PFnet Internet Café in Honiara allows residents of the capital city to access the Internet for writing emails to any location across the Solomon Islands or the wider Internet. They can also browse the World Wide Web in search of information, or post their own information to share with others. The Café has been operational since February 2001. Now with 12 workstations, it has proven very useful to the community and is already financially self-sufficient. The Café also serves as a training facility for a number of rural development stakeholders and the broader public. Although hard to quantify, the number of Solomon Islanders who have discovered the efficiency, global outreach and convenience of email has mushroomed in the last year alone.

“Almost all the customers are local people”, explained Café Assistants Phil Buarafi and Ralita Bule. “Most are young people and students, but also government workers, teachers and professionals. But also we now see many more people coming in to send messages to their relatives on their home islands, as the rural email stations start up. We can send an email for them, or show them how to set up a free account with Hotmail or Yahoo.”

People are quick to grasp the advantages of email, where other forms of communications do not exist or are prohibitively expensive. Already the Café has expanded twice and is often used at full capacity.

A recent survey of customers revealed that most users are students (24%) or professionals (38%) educated to at least secondary level (90%), although the number of less-educated people is increasing, especially as the rural network expands. Already, nearly 40% of users are women. Only 12% of customers are not Solomon Islanders.

When asked what was their primary use for the Internet, customers stated that contacting relatives and friends overseas (54%) and in the Solomons (18%), emailing business contacts overseas (13%) and in the Solomons (7%) was important. Also important was educational use - 29% had used the Café mainly for school assignments or searching for educational opportunities. Solomon Islanders are also using the Internet to find independent news sources, for entertainment and job hunting.

The second and, over time, most important component of PFnet is the network of email stations located in remote islands across the country. The stations are usually hosted in provincial clinics, schools, or other accessible and secure public facilities. Email operators assist customer to send and receive emails at a nominal cost.

The stations use a simple, robust and well-proven technology, consisting of a short-wave radio (already ubiquitous and well-known in the South Pacific), a low-end computer, and solar energy. The main factors considered were affordability, sustainability and flexibility. The scattered and remote nature of many islands, together with the prohibitive cost of satellite options dictates the use of HF radio systems in most cases, although VHF and microwave may be used in certain circumstances, and increasingly we are seeing not-for-profit satellite initiatives such as the programme by Volunteers in Technical Assistance (VITA) becoming available.

Lessons

After considering the range of systems, PFnet chose the WaveMail/Pactor-2 system for it’s flexibility and robustness. WaveMail is a package which allows not only HF but VHF Packet, telephone, Immarsat and other connectivity choices integrated into a single upgradeable and secure system. Importantly, the HF radio sets commonly found in rural villages are often of a type that can be used with WaveMail directly. Pactor 2 is a very robust mode that allows transmission in very poor signal-to-noise conditions - thus ensuring that the message gets through. Speed is not the most important factor, although the software compression often achieves rates of 80% for text, giving an effective throughput in terms of characters per second equivalent to 1000 bps. In practice, a typical text email sent by rural villagers takes about 30 seconds to transmit. Routine sending of attachments is discouraged, but possible, for instance text files of up to 1MB may be transmitted during quiet times. Non-text files such as JPEG images can also be sent, although the user must compress them before sending. This facility is useful - for example one NGO aims to use PFnet to help rural crafts people market their works with digital photographs, and another aims to assist farmers to identify pests also using photographs.

On schedule, several times a day, each remote email station connects to the hub station in Honiara. At such time, incoming or outgoing emails are transferred between the remote station and the hub, and between this hub and the wider Internet. The base station has the capacity for up to seven different modems to operate simultaneously, giving a large total capacity of remote stations.

Initially, PFnet plans to deploy as many as 25 remote email stations across the nine provinces of the country. This is pending available funds from aid sources. Meanwhile, stations are being deployed on a modular basis.

The first station was opened in Sasamungga, Choiseul, in October 2001, followed in March 2002 by a second station at Ulawa. Three more community stations are scheduled to be deployed in Temotu, Western and Isabel Provinces in April and May 2002. The Ulawa and Temotu stations are funded under the Japanese Grassroots Assistance Programme, and also included substantial 1KW solar power supplies for the community schools at which they were based, also implemented by PFnet.

Many development agencies, NGOs and projects are interested in using PFnet to fulfill their rural networking requirements. For instance, starting in May 2002 an EU rural fisheries project aims to set up a sub-net of six rural stations, primarily to communicate fisheries data but the connection will benefit the community as the station can act as a hub for secondary stations using cheaper VHF technology. Other approved stations are scheduled for a farmer’s advice center in North Malaita, funded by the AusAid Community Peace and Restoration Fund, a Rural Teacher Training center on Kolombangara Island and a primary school on remote Ontong Java.

Depending on an application for core funding, PFnet hopes to implement many others, as well as concentrating on it’s information sharing and capacity building activities, which include the redesign of the project’s web site www.peoplefirst.net.sb into a true development portal.

For indicators of impacts, we can look at the data collected through PFnet’s monitoring system. This reveals that a rural village community typically generates traffic of 10-20 emails sent and received per day, and this steadily growing as more people gain confidence to use the system.

The monitoring system is an effective evaluation tool which can be used to indicate where more training and awareness raising is needed. It is too early to note significant differences in traffic between the two stations currently operating, but one factor is clear. In both locations, 80% of customers are male. There may be cultural and other reasons for this. In rural areas the traditional gender roles are strong, with few professional and business opportunities for women. It is a mainly subsistence economy, and the few professionals are mainly teachers and health workers. In Solomon Islands generally, politics and business are vastly male-dominated with no female MPs and no women in the highest level of the civil service. However, the data allows us to see that there is a need to target non-professional women and so allow them to view the system as a simple means of sending messages, and also as a means for obtaining advice about gender-specific opportunities, which will help correct the imbalance. The fact that email is confidential is one of the inherent advantages, quickly noted by islanders used to an environment where nothing is a secret. For the first time rural women will be able to access services offering confidential advice such as the Family Support Centre.

These are lessons that will be built on in the subsequent expansion of the network. PFnet will identify and publicise specific uses for target groups and seek out “seed users”, or those who can be trained individually and thereafter act as examples for others to follow.

The data also shows that most of the outward-bound traffic is in the categories “contact family and friends” (42%) and “business” (21%). Entries for “Education” (14%) and “Medical” (6%) may be skewed as a result of the siting of the two stations close to schools and a hospital. Use of email for educational purposes is one area with considerable potential. To explore the potential application of the rural email system in the education sector, PFnet has received grant assistance from the Asia Pacific Development Information Programme (APDIP) to conduct a distance learning pilot at Sasamungga Community High School. This will take place in partnership with the University of the South Pacific and the Rural Development Volunteers Association, who will jointly implement the project during May-September 2002. An important component of the work will be a more in-depth study of the impacts and benefits of the rural email service and to identify areas for improvement.

The use of the system to contact the media and decision makers in government is encouraged in pursuance of good governance. However the data only reflects 0.3% and 0.4% for these two categories. This is may be because customers have put their messages into more general categories. The monitoring system will be improved to pick up more specific data, and specific uses will be stimulated in future expansion.

Development Impacts

An obvious benefit of PFnet to the nation as a whole is the information sharing which can take place, the cross-fertilisation of ideas and sharing of rural news. To stimulate this aspect, PFnet will be working with local media (i.e. the national broadcaster) and community schools, who can (for instance) set assignments to students to generate local news whilst learning about modern communications and the Internet. The implementation of government policies towards rural development can be made more effective by connecting provincial offices and training staff.

PFnet has now gained useful experience in the introduction of new technologies into rural areas. To ensure sustainability is clear that such projects must work closely with the rural communities from the outset. Consultations are made at all levels in the process of selecting and deploying stations. Village committees are formed and mobilised to drive the process and to raise awareness and a sense of ownership amongst the community. PFnet signs a three-way agreement with the village committee and the designated operator to make clear the various roles of each party and the way in which the benefits including revenues will be shared. Performance incentives are written into the agreement. The high sense of value which villagers are assigning to these first few stations is obvious from the care (and expense) put into the construction and decoration of their new facilities.

Finally we can return to the enchanted isle of Ulawa, where Ruddi Ngali still keeps a certain well-travelled glass bottle on display in his home. Ruddi was one of the first customers of PFnet Pirupiru Community Email Station. Sending a greeting and a digital photograph of him and his son to his Belgian friends, he was expecting a rather more imminent reply than with that message in a bottle!

For more information, see http://www.peoplefirst.net.sb/general/pfnet.htm

[Editor please note: This story has 10 accompanying images. We have also emailed the story as a Word document to stories@iicd.org we feel that all the info in the 4 fields above is in the content, but the story does not divide into four independant sections in the interest of a good flow]

Project Information

Organisation : People First Network, Rural Development Volunteers Association, Ministry of Provincial Government and Rural Development, Solomon
URL : http://www.peoplefirst.net.sb/general/pfnet.htm
Total budget in US$ : 2-year core project proposal is for USD 520,000 Current operation has received approximately USD 100,000 since October 2000

Are there any partners involved : yes
What is partners role?: EU Rural Fisheries Enterprise Project, Solomon Islands Association of Rural Training Centres, EU Microproject Programme, Community Peace and Restoration Fund (AusAid),
University of the South Pacific.

The University of the South Pacific is involved in a distance learning pilot using PFnet as described above.

Other partners are projects which require rural email networking which PFnet can facilitate.

Contact Information

Randall Biliki, PFnet Manager
leeming@pipolfastaem.gov.sb
Anthony Saru Building
5th Floor, P.O.Box G35
Honiara
Solomon Islands

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