🚀 go-pugleaf

IIC Pre-Conference Seminar: Communications for Development:
Applying Information and Communication Technologies to Development Needs.

Co-organized by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES) and
the International Development Research Centre (IDRC)


                            PRESS RELEASE

        GROUP HIGHLIGHTS SOUTHERN PERSPECTIVES
           ON INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAYS

More than 40 professionals from the media and communication sectors in
developing countries attended a two day seminar (16-17 October 1996)
before the start of the annual conference of the International Institute of
Communications (IIC) in Munich, Germany.

"It was a unique gathering that brought together Internet service providers,
media workers and communication researchers," said Reinhard Keune of
the Friedrich Ebert Foundation of Germany, which -- together with the
International Development Research Centre of Canada -- co-sponsored the
event.

The participants reviewed the diverse experiences and lessons learned
from their involvement in the use or provision of information and
communications technologies and services.

Experiences with new communications technologies in the field of mass
media and in the work of civil society groups were examined, with a view to
identifying which kinds of projects have borne and could bear fruit in the
South.

The group also addressed some of the constraints facing those attempting
to expand access and use of the Internet and other communications
technologies in developing countries, with a focus on the regulatory
environment and programmes of donor organizations.

One of the group's concerns was that access and participation of users in
developing countries is limited due to lack of basic infrastructure such as
telephones lines and computers. As such the participants stressed the
importance of integrating the new technologies with existing and more
widely-used communication media, such as radio. In Bolivia, for example,
while there are only two telephones per 100 people, there are 60 radios per
hundred.

Examples were given of radio news services in Latin America and Africa
which seek to repackage news and information for broadcast to wider
audiences. "In this way, the radio stations serve as a gateway that allows
the communities to access in at least a limited way the information
available," said Anriette Esterhuysen, Director of Sangonet, based in South
Africa.

J.J. Musukuma, co-ordinator of the Southern African Broadcasting
Association (SABA), also testified to the efficacy of radio in reaching
communities. "In Southern Africa, our radio news service SABANEWS
reaches more than 100 million listeners of public radio stations, which is
much more than the total of Internet users in Latin America and Africa put
together."

Concern was expressed at the lack of representation of the views of civil
society-oriented and not-for-profit stakeholder groups in bodies such as the
International Telecommunications Union (ITU) which make important
decisions about standards and policies in telecommunications and its
applications.

It was stressed that the Internet, rather than developing as a tool for
consolidating power in the hands of the elites in a way which would
emphasise the poverty gap, should be a model for democratization which
must ensure access to and interactive participation by a wide variety of
communities.

The seminar's recommendations were due to be presented at the
International Institute for Communications Annual Conference commencing
on 18 October 1996.


    Conclusions of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung/International
    Development
                   Research Centre Pre-conference Seminar
                            (October 16/17, 1996)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

The group concluded that the following specific strategies could go
some way towards addressing a series of challenges:

Challenge:

The future direction of the Internet is being planned in so-called
developed countries, especially with regard to the development of
applications and standards.

Response:

a) Identify communications tools which are flexible, and easy to
interface with other media; lobby those developing new technologies
and software to ensure "backward-compatibility" with earlier
generations of tools.

b) Greater efforts should be made by civil society and non-commercial
stakeholder groups to identify and influence bodies which negotiate
and define standards for telecommunications.

c) Attempts should be made to develop appropriate use at the community
level (the use of pilot projects should be developed more thoroughly,
with greater efforts to share both success stories and failures)

Challenge:

Access to Internet is improving in larger cities of developing
countries, but largely fails to reach rural and marginalised
communities, due to infrastructural constraints.

Response:

a) There is great need for integration with existing communications
media.

b) The experiences learned from a wide range of pilot projects such as
"telecentres" or "multi-purpose community centres" being proposed for
countries including South Africa, Peru and Senegal, some of which have
large rural components, should be shared, as should those of
initiatives in Northern countries.

Challenge:

There is no guarantee that Internet, now thought to have great
potential as an educational tool, will not, through commercialization,
become a mere marketing medium.

Response:

a) Development organizations and governments should offer support to
non-profit organizations providing Internet as well as other services
such as low cost networking, training services, and socially-oriented
content. The survival of these types of initiative may hold the key to
a socially useful development of the Internet in developing countries.

b) Service providers and other actors in developing countries must
work with different communities of users to ensure that the Internet
responds to the needs of people.

Challenge:

Government telecommunications regulation can and should play an
enabling role towards meeting social development objectives.

Response:

a) Research on regulatory reform should be carried out with the
participation of stakeholders from civil society groups, particularly
women and other marginalized groups, and the results widely
disseminated to inform civil society lobbying of policy makers
(reformers, regulatory bodies, and standards bodies), in order to
ensure that reform successes can be duplicated and failures can be
avoided.

b) A clearinghouse for information related to policies, standards and
regulations should be established to enable monitoring and influencing
of developments.

Challenge:

New technologies work but within very serious infrastructural
constraints. Telecommunications infrastructure in many developing
countries remains a serious problem.

Response:

Telecommunications infrastructure and access to it should be improved,
particularly in rural areas, with participation of international
financing institutions, government and the private sector, in
consultation with ordinary citizens. This infrastructure must be made
availaible for development purposes.

Challenge:

Independent network service providers in specific cases are forced to
work in politically hostile environments.

Response:

These providers require sustained support from the national and
international community.

Challenge:

New communications technologies are largely meaningless if they do not
convey relevant information. Most information available on the
Internet relates to and originates from developed societies, and its
use to developing societies is therefore limited.

Response:

Further the promotion, compilation and development of information
originated by and/or relevant to developing societies.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------

The event was co-organized by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation of
Germany and the International Development Research Centre of Canada.

For further information, please contact:
Duncan Pruett at dmtpruett@igc.apc.org
or go to: http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/parade/abb80/pcagenda.htm
___________________________________________________
Bruce Girard
Agencia Informativa Pulsar
Email: bgirard@pulsar.org.ec
http://www.web.net/amarc/pulsar.html
Tel: +593-2-525521  Fono/Fax: +593-2-542818 o 226648
Av. America 3584, Casilla 17-08-8489, Quito, Ecuador