On Friday, May 20 2005, Janice Brodman wrote: > I would like to propose what may be a somewhat radical approach to using > ICT to strengthen local governments (LGs): We should be thinking of LGs > -- and encouraging them to think of themselves -- as companies do.
We have had some very bad experience of this concept in various levels of government. Too often, the company that government models itself on is Enron. :-( I have a different idea. Let us make our NGOs into companies, like the microcredit institutions, and like the organizations that help poor artists and craftspeople sell their wares on eBay and Overstock.com, and like ITC in India, which puts computers into villages so that farmers can see world crop prices at no charge. ITC also offers to buy at prices publicly pegged to the Chicago Board of Trade, thus increasing farm income and (they say) getting better quality product at lower cost than the alternatives. Suppose we put all of this together. Create computer software and training in local languages for applications that will increase village income, such as e-commerce, and get the microbanks to place them (along with wireless Internet equipment) and make the loans for buying them, as they do with cell phones. Then let us see what kinds of health, education, and other programs we can deliver over these computers to increase local income further and faster, and how villagers can talk to each other about wider cooperation, including producer and consumer co-ops. Let us also see what kind of development portal we can create to sell to the no-longer-poor farmers and artisans and to their families. Do you think we can get a government to think of itself as the Sears and Montgomery Wards of more than a century ago? -- Edward Cherlin, Simputer Evangelist Encore Technologies (S) Pte. Ltd. The Village Information Society http://cherlin.blogspot.com ------------ This DOT-COM Discussion is funded by the dot-ORG USAID Cooperative Agreement, and hosted by GKD. http://www.dot-com-alliance.org provides more information. 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 For past messages, see: http://www.dot-com-alliance.org/archive.html
