Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2003 11:06:38 +0530
From: Subbiah Arunachalam
Rural Knowledge Centres:
Harnessing Local Knowledge via Interactive Media
Policy Makers Workshop, 8-9 October 2003
M S Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai 600 113, India
Recommendations for policy makers in India
1. Regional priorities: The North East region was identified as
a priority area for launching a science and technology based poverty
eradication programme using ICT in a significant way.
2. Information, knowledge and skill empowerment of self-help
groups (SHGs): The microcredit supported microenterprise revolution
triggered by SHGs has provided hope that a new deal can be extended to the
self-employed. For SHGs to become sustainable SHGs, it is essential that
forward linkages with markets and backward linkages with research
institutions and data management centres are established. ICT has a major
role in sustaining and extending this self-help revolution.
3. Every village a knowledge centre: There is a need for
developing a master plan coupled with a business plan for extending the
benefits of ICT to all the 600,000 villages in India by 2007, which marks
the 60th anniversary of our independence. The master plan should help to
link technology-knowledge-rural women and men in a symbiotic manner. The
investment needs will have to be estimated and business plans prepared. A
National Alliance for ICT for Poverty Eradication may be established for
launching the Every Village a Knowledge Centre movement. Such an alliance
should include the private sector, cooperatives, NGOs, R&D institutions,
women's associations, mass media and appropriate government agencies.
4. Domestic software development and application: Learning from
past experience in rural areas, there is a need for increasing India's
competitiveness in domestic software applications. Government projects
mainly provide static information. What is needed by rural families is
dynamic information relating to weather, markets, health and other
day-to-day information needs.
5. Community radio: Along with the internet, cable TV, local
vernacular press and the All India Radio, community radio stations and ham
radio will be of immense help in communicating up-to-date information to
those who will benefit from it, as for example, fishermen in catamarans in
the ocean. Government of India should liberalise policies for the operation
of community and ham radio stations. This will help to confer the benefits
of the knowledge age to every woman and man in a village. Reaching the
unreached and including the excluded will be possible only through an
integrated ICT system.
6. Technology upgradation in villages: NABARD has been
operating a programme in Himachal Pradesh with support from the Rural
Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF). This programme has helped to promote
both e-governance and e-commerce. There is a similar initiative in
Uttaranchal with the help of IIT, Roorkee. Scope for using RIDF in other
States should be explored. This will help to convert the concept of every
village a knowledge centre into reality.
7. Content creation: The usefulness of a computer-aided
knowledge centre in villages will be directly proportional to the social,
ecological and economic significance of the static and dynamic information
being provided. Hence, a consortium of content providers will have to be
developed for each agro-ecological zone. Leading industries could
participate actively in such a knowledge and skill empowerment revolution by
adopting specific villages where they could provide, in addition to monetary
support, marketing and management information. There is need for a
regionally differentiated approach to content creation. Both environmental
audit and gender audit should be integrated in the procedures for monitoring
and evaluation.
8. Women and ICT: The available experience indicates that rural
women, whether literate or semi-literate, are able to take to new
technologies like fish to water. It is therefore important that women
managers and operators are trained in large numbers. There is also a gender
dimension to the information needed. For example, quite often women require
specific health information. Therefore, the participation of women both as
managers and users of ICT should receive specific attention. Also, a gender
audit procedure should be built into the final ICT programmes.
9. Participatory knowledge system: E-governance is invariably a
passive system of information empowerment. There is need for promoting
participatory methodologies of content creation and knowledge management.
The approach to rural women and men should be one of partnership and not
patronage. In the field of agriculture, a Farmer Participatory Knowledge
System (FPKS) could replace the existing beneficiary and patronage approach
to knowledge dissemination. The information should be demand driven and
should be relevant in terms of time and space.
10. Sustainability and replicability - Role of Panchayati Raj
institutions: Unless the local communities have a sense of ownership of the
knowledge management centres, it will be difficult to sustain them. It is
only a user driven and managed system that will be replicable and capable of
developing a self-propelling momentum. Women's groups should be fully
involved it the management and also enabled to operate distance education
courses. The programme should be people oriented and not just
project-centred. Affordable methods of cost sharing should be introduced in
consultation with local communities. Sustainability and replicability should
be the bottomline in the development of the National Action Plan for the
"every village a knowledge centre" movement. In this context Panchayati Raj
institutions, in which one-third of the members are women, could provide the
needed space for the location of the rural knowledge centre. The Gram Sabha
and the Gram Panchayats could both play a key role in ensuring that the
knowledge centres become instruments for triggering a prosperity revolution
based on gender and social equity.
11. Promoting job-led economic growth: Increasing rural
unemployment is resulting in the unplanned expansion of urban slums. There
is need for more on-farm and non-farm employment opportunities in villages.
This will be possible only if there is diversification of farming systems
and value addition to primary products through improved post-harvest
technology. Training should be with reference to market-driven skills. Small
scale industries and Khadi and village industries should receive particular
attention from the point of view of the upgradation of both technology and
marketing skills. There is also need for synergy between the private sector
and public and cooperative sectors in promoting more avenues for skilled
jobs in villages.
12. Servicing and maintenance: Servicing facilities at the local
level should be improved through appropriate training and capacity building
measures. This will also provide additional employment opportunities for
rural youth in villages.
13. Wake up call: In a country of over 1 billion, there are
hardly about 5 million computers. 75-80% of these computers are used in
offices. Hardly 20% is available for use in development. Therefore, there is
no time to relax on the ICT front. We will be left far behind China and
other South and Southeast Asian countries if we do not launch a National ICT
for Economic Prosperity and Employment Programme. The penetration level will
then increase. There is also need to review the customs duty procedures,
which are mostly obsolete and obstructive. Needlessly inelastic rules should
be dispensed with. Donations of new computers to NGOs working in rural and
backward areas should be encouraged. Branding of projects should also be
facilitated.
14. Virtual Academy for Food Security and Rural Prosperity: The
Virtual Academy approach coupled with a hub and spokes model of the kind
spearheaded by MSSRF is ideal for rural India. The Virtual Academy can help
to mobilise the power of partnership and establish beneficial linkages with
national challenge programmes like drought management. MSSRF Virtual Academy
could develop linkages with other organisations devoted to the knowledge and
skill empowerment of the rural poor in different parts of the country so
that it becomes a National Academy supporting the "every village a knowledge
centre" programme. There is need for standardisation of local language
websites and also names in Indian languages. Dissemination of information
should be in the local language.
15. Political commitment, public action and investment
priorities: A Sub-Committee for E-Governance has been set up by the National
Development Council under the leadership of the Deputy Prime Minister. The
recommendations of this workshop could be forwarded to both the Deputy Prime
Minister and the Minister for Information and Technology for appropriate
action.
Recommendations for policy makers at WSIS
Policymakers should pay special attention to leveraging the full benefits of
ICTs for rural communities in conjunction with existing development
imperatives. At a crucial juncture in human history, when the benefits of
revolutionary new technologies seem within the grasp of urban and rural
communities, care must be taken by policymakers to accommodate the needs and
aspirations of the neediest and marginalised communities within the
unfolding of the knowledge age. The following recommendations constitute a
modest step in this regard.
1. Infrastructure
Developing nations should pursue near-universal and affordable access
strategies via low cost devices, open source or shareware software
platforms, reasonable tariff levels, and level playing fields between
telecom and datacom operators. Associated infrastructure -like reliable
sources of electricity - should also be ensured. Where necessary, access
discounts and tax breaks should be given on a priority basis to needy
sectors like education and healthcare. Shared access models should be
actively pursued for rural communities, via cybercafes, kiosks and rural
telecentres. New access methods like VoIP and wireless (WLL, WLAN) have
tremendous potential especially for remote areas or dense urban clusters and
should be actively explored.
2. Content and Online Services
Access should be promoted to global content via the Net as well as
generation and promotion of locally relevant content in local languages.
This includes local language tools, digital libraries, e-learning, archives
of local cultural resources, and needs assessment of rural communities.
Government agencies need to play a bigger role as online content providers
by publishing citizen information for rural communities on the Web and
promoting online services for applications like downloading and submitting
tax forms, land records, import/export documents and pension claims.
Standardisation of fonts and keyboards by private sector and government
agencies is an urgent priority.
3. Grounding in Community
ICT4D policy initiatives should have a strong grounding in local communities
of villages. Online and offline forums should be promoted for communities of
interest and communities of practice to exchange knowledge on harnessing and
creating ICTs in the rural context. Exposure to similar ICT4D initiatives in
other rural communities can enable benchmarking and sharing of expertise.
Many developing countries have extensive diaspora communities, which should
be tapped as a source of ideas, development partnerships and capital for
rural ICT4D.
4. Commerce
Legal infrastructure to nurture and promote e-commerce and m-commerce must
be spellt out, taking into considerations the special constraints and
circumstances of rural communities. Online services (eg. e-government)
should be designed with a mix of free and fee-based services so as to ensure
commercial sustainability of rural ICT4D initiatives in the long run. As
major consumers of ICT products and services, governments in developing
countries can also lead by way of example in the use of ICT, implementing
best organisational practices and spurring local markets in rural areas.
5. Progressive Attitudes towards Change
A culture of change, knowledge and lifelong learning should be encouraged by
rural communities and the government agencies serving them, along with an
openness to a wide spectrum of ideas in the knowledge age. Policymakers
should have the wisdom, conviction and commitment to change when and where
necessary. Efficiency and innovation should become the hallmarks of national
culture. Cultures of merit, analysis, professionalism and evidence-based
decision-making should be embraced in rural ICT4D initiatives. Commitment to
mainstreaming of gender parity issues should be incorporated at all levels.
6. Human Resources
Measures should be implemented to increase ICT literacy in rural areas;
private sector training institutes will play a major role here. Technical,
managerial and design capacity should be built up in the adoption of ICT for
rural communities, creation and maintenance of secure ICT infrastructure,
and scaling up of rural ICT initiatives across dimensions of depth and
breadth. Capacities should be built up not just in adoption of ICTs in rural
areas, but in creativity with regard to devising new applications, R&D focus
areas, and harvesting of local knowledge. Self-help groups and volunteer
initiatives should be actively harnessed in this regard.
7. Alliancing
Stakeholders in private, educational, government, donor and multilateral
sectors must pro-actively form partnerships to ensure ethical and economic
use of ICTs in rural communities. Multi-actor alliances targeting rural
ICT4D initiatives should be encouraged and nurtured.
8. Investment
Creating funding options for rural ICT4D initiatives should be explored,
including venture capital, corporate foundations, donor grants, and
revenue-sharing based on projected use. Special financing should be set
aside for ICT initiatives involving marginalised communities, the disabled,
refugees, migrant populations and youth. Financial sustainability of such
rural infocentres should be a key focus, but not at the cost of social
sustainability.
9. Regulatory Environment
The optimum regulatory environment for the proliferation of successful rural
ICT4D initiatives includes removal of restrictive import duties on ICTs,
promotion of wireless communication channels, opening up of community media
like radio, free flow of content, and funds for near-universal access to
infrastructure and services in rural areas.
10. Alignment with Millenium Development Goals
The desired targets enshrined in the Millenium Development Goals should be
correspondingly incorporated in the form of relevant and appropriate metrics
in the design of rural ICT4D initiatives. A clear focus on quantitative and
qualitative metrics at the macro and micro level, for urban and rural
communities should be incorporated at the level of traditional and new media
initiatives.
