Policy changes necessary to harness resources for building Information Society

By Aloyce Menda of JUSTA-AFRICA

"Where is the money for bridging the digital divide and building Information Society?" “How do we acquire the expertise to develop infrastructure and install the necessary Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)?”

These are questions asked often by many people in developing countries whenever informed about the benefits of applying ICT in their daily activities, says Harry Hare, the east African manager of the African Information Technology Exhibitions and Conferences (AITEC). While stakeholders in the ICT sectors are probing hard for solutions, policy architects at local and international level are facing tough challenges and dilemmas in transforming the intellectual attitudes of bureaucrats and hard-line politicians toward modernization and sustainable development.

Head of States and the top government bureaucrats would like to question policy proposals, why the format of annual national budgets should be rectified to allocate more money for introducing ICT lessons in schools, while some schools lack essential facilities such as electricity, telephone and enough desks.

In Tanzania for instance, it was only after foreign donors’ pressure and promise to support that the Ministry of Education and Culture (MoEC) accepted, and started implementation of a strategy to introduce ICT as a compulsory subject and teaching aid in all secondary schools. ICT training in teachers’ colleges started after Agreement signing on May 17, 2005 between the Swedish Embassy in Dar es Salaam and MoEC. In the Agreement, the Swedish International Agency for Development Aid (SIDA) pledged to grant Tshs. four billion (approx. US$ four million) in support of the project.

Nevertheless, some bureaucratic officials are asking: “What is the future benefit of ICT training in Tanzanian schools whilst most of students’ guardians are peasant farmers who still uses the archaic hand-tools that do not enable them to produce beyond subsistence level?” “Can ICT knowledge alleviate rural poverty?” Covering 937,062 square kilometers of country size, Tanzania has a huge potential for agriculture with an estimated 43 million hectares suitable for farming. However, only an average of 6.3 million hectares are cultivated annually mostly by peasant farmers. Yet, about 80 % of the Tanzanian population of 3.4 million is rural and relies on agriculture for livelihood.

Deemed as the spine of the economy since independence from Britain in 1961, the agricultural sector is poorly performing and its current contribution to GDP is only 50 % though it employs over 70 % of national labour force. According to government statistics, an overall real agricultural GDP has been growing at an average rate of only about 3.5 % per annum since 1981.

In Tanzania like most developing countries, a policy proposal often faces criticisms based on prioritization challenges. Should the meager state resources go in education, ICT training in particular, or in modernizing the ailing agricultural sector to alleviate extensive rural poverty? Even authorities in the higher learning institutions find it hard to influence bureaucrats and source government funds, says Charles Senkondo; the director of the Dar es Salaam based Tanzania Global Development Learning Center (TGDLC). The center is a government project funded by the World Bank and it offers training courses through distant learning programs.

The narrow National ICT Policy of Tanzania (37–page) released in March 2003 passed some hurdles against prioritization challenges as well but fails to address some burning issues from critics. “What are the future benefits of ICT in the impoverished rural Tanzania?” and “Where would the money for bridging the digital-divide come from?”

In 2001, Tanzania was listed among nine technological marginalized countries in the UNDP’s Technology Achievement Index. According to the National ICT Policy, most of ICT services are limited to urban areas due to the lack of telecommunication networks and electricity in most rural areas. Official records indicates that by 2002, Tanzania had a low tele-density, at 12 telephone lines per 1,000 people for the fixed and mobile cellular lines. The mobile phone subscribers were 81 per 10,000 people. Dar es Salaam, the de-facto capital, had five fixed lines and 10 mobile phone subscribers per 100 people.

ICT in poverty alleviation

The Tanzanian Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security said in March 2001 during the national agricultural conference, that the sector faces a multitude of problems, which hamper its rapid growth. The listed problems includes low priority accorded to agriculture in public resources allocation and disbursement; poor rural infrastructure; farmers’ limited capital and access to credit; inadequate support services; weak and inappropriate legal framework; land tenure and tax policy. Solutions to any of these problems mean alleviation to extensive rural poverty.

Already few ICT projects offer solutions to some of these problems, particularly in crop marketing. While stakeholders in agricultural sector are pressing the government to ensure a fair-competition policy, for agricultural marketing and distribution, these projects are leveling the ground by use of modern ICT to empower farmers. The CROMABU project is a typical example. Basically the project [www.cromabu.com] is aimed at empowering small-scale farmers economically by enhancing their access to price information and insights in trade flows. Based in Magu area in the southern shores of Lake Victoria, the four-year old project is supported by the Dutch International Institute for Communication Development (IICD).

According to the project manager, Mrs. Naomi Massele, CROMABU comprises three components. These are the Internet Café that serves the targeted community; the price information services; and community development through information and training. She said 16 villages are the main targets of the project though the information circulates further.

The youth, particularly school leavers are employed as a channel of communication between the CROMABU and the targeted farmers in Magu. Information on crop prices gathered from local markets and prices of foreign markets downloaded from the Internet sources are compiled by CROMABU and stored in a database. Eventually a price index is prepared in Ki-Swahili language and disseminated to farming villages. CROMABU distributes market statements with price index regularly. The youth take them to targeted villages using bicycles provided by the project.

Another communication method used is through the CROMABU community-training center for peasant farmers and youth groups. The youth trained by this center are charged fees but could pay part of it thorough temporary employment by collecting data from the local markets. They are also engaged in information dissemination to farmers.

The CROMABU’s development phase will end in September 2006 and is regarded by IICD as a pilot project to be replicated in other rural areas with crop marketing problems. It is a poverty reduction project. With NGO set-up, the project generates income from its community-training center and youth groups. It also charges fees from institutional clients in Magu such as NGOs for training and the Internet Café.

Small-scale farmers have benefited much from the project. The Internet services have helped them get best markets for their produce namely cotton, groundnuts, maize, beans, finger-millet and sunflower. When prices are low in Tanzania, the Internet enables them to secure direct buyers from aboard some of whom are sometimes ready to pay above the world market price. The project is envisaged to sustain itself and eventually generate extra money for bridging digital-divide. It would be a key exhibit on how community based ICT projects could harn

Posted By: ALOYCE MENDA