*Ref: Communicationa and Information Resources, UNESCO*
Partnerships in Development Practice: Evidence from multi-stakeholder
ICT4D partnership practice in Africa, has been published by UNESCO as
part of its series for the World Summit on the Information Society.
This paper particularly focuses on partnerships in the field of
Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D).
More specifically, this publication has three main objectives:
* to highlight the diversity of interpretations of partnerships in
the global community;
* to explore some of the literature relating to the successful
delivery of partnerships, focusing especially on ICT4D; and
* to draw on the experiences of one such initiative, Imfundo:
Partnership for IT in Education, to provide insights into the
practice of multi-stakeholder partnerships in development.
The paper concludes that seven key practical elements need to be in
place for ICT4D partnerships to be successful.
The first, and most important of all is that partnerships must be based
on trust.
Second, it is important for all partnerships to have a clear focus.
Partnerships must actually deliver clearly defined objectives and
outputs if they are to be worthwhile, and a fine line needs to be drawn
between the efforts involved in shaping partnerships and then utilizing
those partnerships to produce an output that is worthwhile for
marginalised communities.
Third, all partnerships must have enthusiastic leaders, who will act as
champions for their particular cause.
A fourth fundamental element of partnership that is all too often
ignored is the need to focus on sustainability from the very beginning
of the design of any activities. Very few ICT4D initiatives across
Africa have as yet shown themselves to be sustainable, and most rely
heavily on the input of external resources to make them at all viable.
This issue of sustainability is closely related to the fifth key element
that needs to be in place for successful partnerships, namely a balance
between demand and supply. This is not an easy objective to achieve, but
all the evidence suggests that activities that are supply led, and that
do not sufficiently take into consideration the real needs and
aspirations of poor communities will rapidly fail.
Sixth, it is important for partnerships to invest time in networking
activities. While such activities are to some extent tied in with
reinforcing trust, it is also important for partners to be kept
regularly informed of a partnership's activities.
A final important practical issue is the need for transparency and a
sound ethical basis upon which any partnership is formed. If all of
these elements are in place, then a strong basis for implementing
effective ICT-supported educational partnerships will have been established.
--
M. Nazrul Islam
Director, Information and Communication Technology for Development
Relief International-Schools Online, Bangladesh Country Office
House # 210, Road # 2(East), Baridhara DOHS, Dhaka-1206
Tel. (8802)8816615, 8812056, Ext- 110
www.connect-bangladesh.org, www.ri.org, www.schoolsonline.org
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cell: (88)0175537544, (88)0192053996
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