Vikas Nath raised the question of the cost of bridging the digital divide, and bringing Basic Connectivity to all.
I wanted to respond, then realised the complexity of trying to do so because we use these various terms 'as if we all understand them and agree what they mean'. But we may well be using them to describe very different specific situations. Thinking through what the digital divide and connectivity means to our project led to the description and thoughts below. For example, we describe our Oke-Ogun Community Development project (which has a vision to overcome some of the disadvantages faced by the communities in this rural area) as a digital bridge project. Our focus is on the disadvantages of being on the unconnected side of the digital divide, which result in being left out of the benefits of the information age. Our project is an attempt to overcome 'information underload' in rural areas which contributes to population drift (and brain drain) to the urban areas and abroad. Our project is about trying to bring information to the people (information designed to offer parallel opportunities for education/training and for employment/sustainable development) instead of the people moving away to better sources of information. We are trying to connect the existing community communication systems to additional sources of information. We are trying to build an ICT system 'on top of the existing community systems' to make the process of information exchange efficient. We are starting with networks of people, not ICT networks (because people and vision is what we do have, and technology is what we don't have yet). Our present information delivery and exchange is going further than the present ICT infrastructure. In fact most of our project area is beyond the reach of the telephone network, and so the people involved only have access to telephones when they are in the urban areas, and direct web access is not a realistic option. None the less the internet provides rich sources of information for the project, via the UK, so, although the project area does not have Direct Connectivity, we see ourselves as bridging the digital divide, albeit in a small, gradual and at present low-tech way. In the long term we look forward to upgrading our information exchange system to include wireless connection by satellite to some of our key locations in Oke-Ogun. Gradually we will move to greater digital connectivity. The time scale will depend on a mixture of government initiatives to improve infrastructure (as outlined in the Nigerian IT policy strategy 'USE IT') and our own ability to attract funding. As and when that connectivity happens we will offer public access telephones - the Basic Connectivity that Vikas Nath describes. Before we get full connectivity we expect people to be able to access information at the key sites, but offline. We expect people to have access to a mixture of printed resources and on-screen resources. The key sites will become Community Digital Information Centres (CDICs). This builds from what is happening now. At present for example the Oke-Ogun Community Development Agenda 2000 Plus Committee has some emails access, and physical deliveries of printed web pages. Only the UK side of the project is on the connected side of the digital divide. The next step must be to get full connectivity for the committee, so they can serve the information needs of the project more effectively and directly, in the same way that the UK connection presently serves the information needs of the committee. We expect to have key sites available for CDICs before we have connectivity. It is no problem if we get computers for them before we get infrastructure (overcoming problems of power supply and maintenance will not be discussed here). As the key sites for information access develop, their onscreen resources can be via computers, even if the computers are not online. The information sources for the computers can arrive physically, in batches. Emails, CDs and DVDs can be delivered at appropriate intervals through the existing communication networks. As it emerges which information is most sought after this will influence which websites are downloaded to CDs (by the CDIC co-ordinating centre) and how often they are updated. As a result people who are not connected will be able to access web pages, and request further information, and they will be able to feedback their own contributions. Most importantly they will begin to get an idea of what is available for a connected community and be able to influence how their community becomes connected - as is happening with the committee. That ends this description of the Oke-Ogun Community Development Agenda 2000 approach to overcoming the digital divide and how Direct Connectivity fits in with it. Pam McLean CAWD UK Co-ordinator for Oke-Ogun Community Development Agenda 2000 Plus Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] More details: www.cawd.info ------------ ***GKD is an initiative of the Global Knowledge Partnership*** To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: <http://www.globalknowledge.org>
