Telecentres and Internet Governance, Lessons Learnt from the Inaugural Southern Africa Internet Governance Forum

“In this new environment, the danger of the gap between the rich and poor in Africa is growing wider and more seriously than ever and threatens the economic prosperity, social stability, and very survival of democracy. Measures are needed to give all citizens the opportunity to acquire knowledge, frequently update that knowledge, and become fully engaged members of society. Southern Africa Telecentre Network (SATNET) recognises that internet communication is central to the transforming of the way people interact all over the world. However, access to it is largely dependent on its governance. It is through various ICT tools such as the computer and mobile phone that citizens access internet services. However, access to and interaction through internet among citizens in Africa still remains an obstacle. We believe that universal access to ICTs and internet is the key to the above challenge. We have a choice in our quest to achieve universal access. From our experiences and feedback from stakeholders in the Southern African region, we feel more should be done to address critical issues regarding internet access particularly from governments. It is important too, to recognise the importance of local actors, local entrepreneurs, farmers, small-scale business community and community led organisations in rural and peri-urban areas. When you allow and provide opportunities to citizens to interact through fastest means, you stimulate action from them to participate and innovate. TELECENTRE MODEL is one of the most important starting points for driving towards achievement of key strategic objectives of development. If implemented correctly, telecentres can drive the universal access process forward. It should be clearly understood and appreciated that telecentres have been recognised and appreciated to play a critical role of increasing public access to ICTs, internet and other relevant services that may not be readily available through ordinary means, and creates significant impact through universal access by means of shared facilities. Telecentres have the potential to help break down some of the largest barriers to developments that are presently faced by low income populations, particularly in rural areas. Use of telecentres would enable a rural inhabitant, for example, to gain on-line access to distant productive assets and services; opportunities to learn better practices through formal and informal source; to crucial market intelligence through informal networks that enhance bargaining power; to information on projects, financial institutions, job opportunities and connect to persons with similar interests willing to work for a common cause.” The above statement as an excerpt from the Southern African Telecentre Network (SATNET) Regional Facilitator, states in simple terms how telecentres are helping to achieve internet governance issues with the focus first on access, diversity, capacity building, impact on vulnerable groups, emerging issues, multi-stakeholder participation and development. The importance and benefits of enhanced cooperation in harnessing the power of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for social-economic development at all levels- global, regional, national and local cannot be overlooked by any society or community interest in the social and economic development of its constituents. Aware of this fact, The United Nations World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Phase II, held from 16-18 November, 2005 in Tunis, Tunisia, recognised this fact and as result, endorsed the establishment of the Internet Governance Forum in 2006. Ever since the IGF has evolved in a tremendous way with various regional and national IGF established around the world, and has played a vital role in the progress realised so far in the use of the internet to facilitate free communication of ideas and information hence attain social-economic development . More so, different cardinal issues such as critical internet resources, access, diversity, openness, security have been discussed and these have influenced the prolific use of the internet, as well as enabling more stakeholders such as government, private sector and civil society to participate in IGF process. According to the WSIS definition adopted in 2005, Internet Governance can be defined as the development and application by governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles, of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures, and programs that shape the evolution and use of the internet. The original mandate of the IGF was from 2006-2010 during which five IGFs were held in various countries. A renewed mandate has been provided for 2011-2015 and 27-30 September 2011, Kenya will be host to the first IGF under the new mandate. In order to ensure that the views and voices of Southern Africa are represented at the 2011 IGF, the NEPAD e-Africa Programme, Association for Progressive Communication (APC), and Southern African NGO Network (SANGONeT) convened the inaugural Southern Africa Internet Governance Forum (SAIGF). The inaugural SAIGF was hosted by the Government of South Africa, through the Department of Communications and under the auspices of SADC. The inaugural SAIGF was held from 1st -3rd September, 2011 in Johannesburg, South Africa, and attracted a number of stakeholders such as those from governments, international organisations, the private sector, civil society, academics, the technical community and others. Zambia Telecentre Network was represented in the forum. As a stakeholder in internet governance, civil society has been the most vocal and active promoter of multi-stakeholder approach to internet governance. The role of civil society should not only be perceived to be that of watchdogs of certain interests like freedom of expression, rather civil society should be recognised and appreciated as progressive users of the internet giving new meaning to internet tools. Technology is never neutral. History of human society provides many examples of technology empowering some individuals, groups, or nations, while excluding others. The internet is no different in this respect. From the individual to global level, a profound change has occurred in the distribution of wealth and power. This impact of ICT/Internet on the distribution of power and development has given rise to many questions such as how the internet and ICTs in general in its accelerated changes affect already existing divide between the poor and the rich, and how and when will developing nations be able to reach the ICT levels of more industrially developed countries. Truly, the answer to these questions will assist in the understanding of the relevance of development within the context of Internet governance. Almost all the internet governance issues discussed at the inaugural SAIGF have a development aspect. For instance, The existence of a telecommunication infrastructure facilitates access, the first precondition for overcoming the digital divide; the current economic model for internet access places a disproportionate burden on those developing countries that have finance access to backbones based in developed countries; spam has comparatively higher negative impact on developing countries due to their limited bandwidth and lack of capability to deal with it; ownership of personal computers and internet access is expensive , this denies many of those in developing countries to be computer literate and access the internet especially that they have to prioritise other needs such as food due to limited income; the global regulation of intellectual property rights directly affects development because of the reduced opportunity of developing countries to access knowledge and information online. The development aspect has been frequently repeated in many cases including the UN General Assembly Resolution on WSIS, which stressed that WSIS should be promoting development. The WSIS Geneva Declaration and Plan of Action highlighted development as a priority and linked it to the Millennium Resolution and its promotion of ‘access of all countries to information, knowledge, and communication technologies for development’. However, the rift between those who, for technical, political, social, or economic reasons, have access and capabilities to use ICT/internet, and those who do not exists at different levels within countries; between countries; between rural and urban populations; between the old and the young; as well as between men and women. This rift is referred to as the digital divide, and it’s not an independent phenomena but reflect existing broad social-economic inequalities in education, health care, capital, shelter, employment, clean water, and food. Furthermore, internet/ICT developments leave the developing world behind at a much faster rate than advances in other fields (e.g. agriculture or medical techniques ) and, as the developed world has the necessary tools to successfully use these technological advances, the digital divide appears to be continuously and rapidly widening. Universal Access, that is, access for all to ICTs is another factor that deters the achievement of this development agenda. It has been so far noted that frequent referral to universal access without the necessary political and financial support has resulted into a formless principle of little practice relevance. This requires multi-stakeholder engagement to invest in the realisation of this goal. It is a recognised fact that access to the internet facilitates freedom of expression and freedom of association, enables knowledge sharing, learning and collaboration, making it a drive for social and economic development. An intersectional approach enables links between universal access to infrastructure, accessibility and usability for marginalised groups and promotion of linguistic diversity. Having recognised the challenges posed by the digital divide and unattained universal access, realisation of meaningful development expected to be rapid with the use of ICTs, stills remains a battle. While this has been recognised, there are workable solutions which have been tried in other regions of the world, such as the country wide strategic roll out and development of telecentres. According to Southern Telecentre Network and as earlier stated, a telecentre model is one of the most important starting points for driving towards achievement of key strategic objectives of development. If implemented correctly, telecentres can drive the universal access process forward. It should be clearly understood and appreciated that telecentres have been recognised and appreciated to play a critical role of increasing public access to ICTs, internet and other relevant services that may not be readily available through ordinary means, and creates significant impact through universal access by means of shared facilities. In the inaugural SAIGF Telecentres were recognised, appreciated and recommended to be cardinal in achieving internet governance issues, and were included in the SAIGF Communiqué on priority issue number four ; Capacity building for internet governance with several issues associated with them included in various issues of the communiqué. As telecentres establishment and development remains a challenge among developing countries due to high internet connection costs charged by Internet Service Providers, high costs of equipment procurement and low levels of capacity among development players in sectors such as agriculture, education, health to embrace the integration of ICTs and internet use in development. However, according to the inaugural SAIGF, the establishment of Internet exchange Points (IXPs) at national and regional levels, favourable policies, involvement of government and private sector through public private partnerships in the strategic roll out of telecentres in countries, the continuous capacity building of telecentre managers, and ICT/internet awareness campaigns among other issues would bring about increased number of telecentres in developing countries and increase their impact on local communities. An emphasis was also put on capacity building to ensure the sustainable development of local content, this which can be realised through telecentre. Furthermore, telecentres should engage actively in all internet governance issues at national, regional and global level as well as take advantage of the internet governance capacity building initiatives such as those provided by DIPLO and Internet Society. It is clear that telecentres should be considered at all levels in internet governance if IG has to reach the grassroots with increased impact. ....Originally posted on www.satnetwork.org