Final Report ACP ICT Program 20jan 2005

Final Report: Feasibility Study for Information Society Program in ACP Countries
Final Report Feasibility Study for an Information Society Program for the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Countries
(Grant Agreement # 1237)
20 January 2005
Project Leaders:
Tina James Kate Wild
Team Members:
Lishan Adam Boubakar Barry Stephen Esselaar Valerie Gordon Taholo Kami Yacine Khelladi Vidya Kissoon Jonathan Miller David Souter
www.trigrammic.com
Cape Town Office Phone/Fax +27 21 790 1327 P O Box 26138 Hout Bay 7872 South Africa jon@trigrammic.com Pretoria Office Phone/Fax +27 12 361 4334 P O Box 72267 Lynnwood Ridge 0040 South Africa tina@trigrammic.com
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS..........................................................................................i THE PROJECT TEAM..........................................................................................iii LIST OF ACRONYMS...........................................................................................ix EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.........................................................................................x A. Introduction and Objectives..........................................................................x B. The Development Challenges.......................................................................xiii C. The Proposed ACP ICT Program ...................................................................xiii C1. Program Focus ...................................................................................xiii C2. Program Components............................................................................xiv C3. Program Outputs and Outcomes................................................................xv C4. Program Activities................................................................................xv C5. Target Beneficiaries..............................................................................xv 1. Introduction................................................................................................1 2. Factors Influencing the Design of the EUs ICT Program for the ACP Countries................2 2.1 The Development Context ..........................................................................2 2.2 Capturing the Lessons for ICT Programs...........................................................3 2.3 Capturing Lessons for ICT Projects and Applications...........................................5 2.3.1 ICT and Gender...................................................................................5 2.3.2 Policy and Regulation..........................................................................6 2.3.3 ICTs, Economic Growth and Poverty.........................................................7 2.3.4 Sectoral Applications of ICT...................................................................7 2.3.5 Broad Lessons ..................................................................................10 2.4 The EU and ICT for Development Programs.....................................................10 3. Identifying the Problems and Opportunities: Findings from the Regional Research..........12 4. Statement of the Problem..............................................................................17 4.1 Challenges.............................................................................................18 4.2 Opportunities for the EU Strategic choices....................................................21 5. Program Philosophy and Objectives ..................................................................23 5.1 Overall Philosophy..................................................................................23 5.2 Overall Program Objective and Purpose.........................................................24 5.3 Target Beneficiaries ................................................................................25 5.4 Outputs and Outcomes of the Program...........................................................26 5.5 Assumptions and Risks...............................................................................26 6. Program Components ...................................................................................27 7. Program Activities: the Capacity Building Approach...............................................31 8. Program Governance and Management...............................................................32 8.1 Overall Mechanism...................................................................................32 8.2 Management Mechanism............................................................................32 8.3 Management Role and Costs........................................................................34 8.4 Allocation of Funds..................................................................................34 8.5 Selection of Management Agent(s)................................................................37 8.6 Selection of Implementing Agents ................................................................38 8.7 Selection of Projects...............................................................................39 8.8 Timetable for Disbursement of Funds............................................................40 8.9 Program Coherence..................................................................................41 9. Monitoring and Evaluation..............................................................................41
ANNEXES Annex I: Annex II: Annex III: Current Donor-funded ICT Programs in OECD and EU Countries Organizations and Specialized Agencies of the United Nations and Other Leading Sectoral Partners The Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) I-III: 1 I-III: 6 I-III: 12
Regional Reports: Annex IV: Regional Report Africa A. Regional Report: East Africa B. Regional Report: West and Central Africa C. Regional Report: Southern Africa D. List of Contacts in Africa Annex V: Annex VI: Regional Report Caribbean Regional Report Pacific IV: 1 IV: 7 IV: 43 IV: 62 IV: 86 V: 1 VI: 1
ii
THE PROJECT TEAM

Lishan Adam An international development consultant based in Addis Ababa and specializing in ICT for development with a focus on Africa. He is Associate Professor of Information Science at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa. Early experience was gained at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa in Addis Ababa, where he spent 14 years as programmer, trainer and network manager. He was one of the pioneer "bridge builders" who brought low cost connectivity to Africa in the early 1990s. From 1993-1996 he was project officer of capacity building for Electronic Communications in Africa (CABECA), where he helped to establish the first electronic communications nodes in 24 African countries. From 1996-2002 he was regional advisor on information technology policy and connectivity where he implemented the African Information Society Initiative and provided advice on ICT applications and development of national and sectoral ICT policies and strategies (including e-learning and ehealth) to over 25 countries in Africa. His recent professional experience (January 2003 to the present) is as a Consultant on National E-learning Strategy for the Government of Botswana for the utilization of the European Development Fund. Lishan contributes to the component of the CATIA program funded by the Department of International Development, UK, for facilitating Low Cost Access to Satellite and Wireless technologies for Internet Access Opportunities Across Africa. He is a Hewlett Fellow on ICT at the Centre for International Development and Conflict Management, University of Maryland, where he researches Internet diffusion and International Cooperation. He is a member of Research ICT Africa! (RIA) network where he is involved in research on telecommunication sector performance and tele-access. He is also a member of the ICT and Global Governance Network Social Science Research Council (US), where he is responsible for research on national policies, global governance and trans-national civil society. Boubakar Barry Boubakar Barry is presently acting as Director of the Computer Center and IT Director of Cheikh Anta Diop University. He is involved in several activities related to ICT in Senegal and other African countries. He is Senegals focal point for the Regional Information Society Network for Africa (RINAF) and team leader of the Low Cost Hardware and Software Working Group. As executive administrator, he managed several initiatives and projects on ICT in Senegal and Africa, in co-operation with international institutions like UNESCO and CTA (Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Co-operation). Mr. Barry led in the last 10 years several regional training workshops on ICT as course director and was national coordinator of Senegals Teacher Training Network. He is involved in research activities on Computer Networks and Wireless Telecommunications. Steve Esselaar Currently employed as a researcher at the LINK Centre at the University of the Witwaterrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, which does research into the telecommunications and ICT regulatory and policy environment in Africa. This has entailed specific research on the regulatory and policy obstacles to increased telecomms investment in Africa. In particular, LINK is developing public policy models that can be used by African regulators to develop ICT markets. Currently coordinator for a continent-wide research initiative called the E-Access & Usage Index. This focuses on the demand side of ICTs in contrast to the supply-side only analyses typical of most research in Africa. iii
Steve completed an MBA in 2001, with a dissertation titled, The Strategic Impact of Voice over Internet Protocol on South African Telecommunications Operators. After completing his studies, he took up the position of Sales Director at Spitz, a high street fashion retailer. The company had just been bought out of liquidation and was looking for a high growth strategy to regain its market position. In addition, with fellow board members, a stronger focus on the black market was developed, laying the foundations for strong growth in the forthcoming financial year. Valerie Gordon Valerie Gordon is National Coordinator for the Jamaica Sustainable Development Network Ltd. In this capacity she coordinates, promotes and manages the JSDN Ltds programs which are geared toward enhancing the capacity of the Jamaican public to use Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to support sustainable development. Part of JSDNs mandate is to establish and support ICT enabled community access centers and community information networks. JSDN operates through strategic partnerships which ensure knowledge sharing, optimum resource use and the availability of appropriate ICT tools for community groups. In addition to her management responsibilities with JSDN Valerie has carried out numerous consulting assignments for international donors. She is presently serving as Community Development Expert on an ICT4D Project under the overall responsibility of IICD and the Government of Jamaica/GOJ. She provides advice on systems to facilitate enhanced functionality of ICT tools related to networking, collaboration and partnerships among groups; gathers tools, information and resources to support community action; and identifies the context within which communities do business and develop as engines of national growth. Valerie has recently completed, for UNESCO, a participatory evaluation of the Container Project, a community based mobile telecenter facility which provides a self-directed, open ICT learning space to facilitate creative expression and skill building among marginalized rural youth. Other consultancies for IICD, UNESCO and the World Bank have involved evaluation of an egovernance project, the preparation and assessment of project proposals and a review of Caribbean options in the context of the Global Knowledge Partnership. Prior to joining JSDN Valerie was Environmental Advisor and Green Fund Coordinator in the CIDA Canadian Cooperation Office in Jamaica. She was responsible for the design, development and management CIDAs Environmental Program in Jamaica and Belize. Tina James An information and communications technology (ICT) specialist with more than twenty years experience in various aspects of ICTs in Africa. Short and long-term contracts undertaken to date have drawn on a wide range of expertise in the management of multidisciplinary projects, strategic planning, program design, facilitation of participative processes at community and corporate level, and an in-depth understanding of ICT-related activities in the sub-region. Has managed several large, multidisciplinary projects in both the ICT and environmental management arena. These include a recently initiated seven-country ICT policy project in Africa (team leader), a publication on information policy in Southern Africa (www.apc.org/books/ictpolsa/), baseline studies for the CIDA-supported South African IT industry strategy (SAITIS); preparatory papers on ICTs for youth and education in Africa, for the Economic Commission for Africa's (ECA) post-African Development Forum Summit; and a study on regional and national ICT policy support for Southern African countries. Additional expertise iv
includes research on gender and ICTs, gender surveys in the Maputo Corridor, community telecentres, universal access, and the use of ICTs to support entrepreneurs in developing countries. As Senior Advisor to the Canadian International Development Research Centre's Acacia Program, which addressed the use of ICTs by disadvantaged, rural communities in sub-Saharan Africa, was responsible for project development and implementation as well as support for strategic planning activities. Was appointed by the South African Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology to serve on the ICT working group for the national Foresight initiative, which developed a technology strategy for ICTs. Served a two-year term on the ECA's African Technical Advisory Committee for the African Information Society Initiative (AISI). Has operated as an independent consultant since 1997, prior to which she held various management positions at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in South Africa. Pioneered the ICT for Development Program at the CSIR. Recently formed a partnership with Jonathan Miller and Philip Esselaar to form Trigrammic. Taholo Kami Taholo Kami has been active in the ICT arena in the Pacific since 1997, prior to which he completed his MBA (with an e-commerce emphasis) in the United States on a Fulbright Scholarship. His activities in the Pacific are far ranging: from assistance to large-scale farming projects in Tonga and a number of other SMME activities, to involvement in strategic ICT development projects. Taholo has extensive experience in training and capacity building examples include courses in e-commerce, financial management, IT for Pacific Island decision makers, national biodiversity strategies, sustainable development. In addition he has development a number of Websites, the Pacific ICT portal and the SIDnet network. The latter involved the establishment of a sustainable development network serving 42 island member states. He has been involved in a number of strategic consulting activities such as being the strategy advisor to the 2003 PNG Council of Churches General Assembly, and team member in the FWC Education five-year plan (2004 2009). His business experience has included the establishment of a number of enterprises he is presently the Director of Eco Consult Pacific (Suva) Yacine Khelladi Yacine Khelladi is an economist and international consultant based in the Dominican Republic. He specializes in: project design, management and evaluation in the field of ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) and Sustainable Development. Areas of competency include national ICT policies, capacity development, social impact monitoring and evaluation, telecenters, culture, identity and community empowerment, sustainable and community tourism, e-commerce, knowledge networking and organic agriculture. Presently he is Coordinator of Fundacin Taiguey, a small NGO dedicated to the implementation of appropriate technologies and participative methodologies for community development in the Dominican Republic; and Manager of El Tiznao, an experimental organic farm in the south of the Dominican Republic. He has undertaken a wide variety of consulting assignments, including, for example: ICT expert and Team Leader for a feasibility study on The future of the ICT regulatory and institutional framework and establishment and development of the Information Society in the Caribbean. Community Outreach Specialist in the context of technical assistance to the Government of Jamaica for an IDB funded ICT project. v
Diagnostic and Design of Community (Eco)tourism Development Plan for the Lakes Area both sides of the Dominican-Haitian border for the bi-national "Transborder Environmental Program", a project implemented by The Ministry of Agriculture of Haiti and the Ministry of Environment of the Dominican Republic. Setting up the Caribbean ICT stakeholders Virtual Community (CIVIC) and Coordination its Thematic Working Groups for the development a Regional ICT action plan for the Institute for Connectivity in the Americas (ICA). General coordinator for the organization of the first ICT Caribbean Regional Consultation - Barbados October 18-30 2002 for the Institute for the Connectivity in The Americas (ICA.
Vidyaratha Kissoon Vidyaratha Kissoon has had experience with project management in the private sector in Guyana and more recently in working on projects related to ICT use in the public sector in Guyana. This work is a part of the Sustainable Development Networking Program (SDNP) initiative. The activities, which have been worked on include collaboration with government and non-governmental stakeholders to raise awareness of ICT benefits, and to examine ways of accessing ICT resources and managing them. This has included working with partners to develop Websites, training plans for staff, policy and management awareness. He also remains part of the Caribbean ICT community, sharing information and knowledge with the group. Other areas of work include collaboration with civil society groups in Guyana in their own use of ICTs whether as tools for dissemination of information, earning income or to improve administrative efficiencies. There is an interest in promoting social cohesion in Guyana and a new initiative at http://www.sdnp.org.gy/csoc is a prototype of information sharing. The SDNP initiative has been consolidated into an NGO called DevNet, which is currently implementing a planning phase for a Guyana Country Gateway. Jonathan Miller Thirty years in the ICT sector, first in research and management positions in IT and Operations Research in the manufacturing and oil industries, and then for many years on the faculty of the UCT Graduate School of Business, teaching and conducting research in the ICT sector. Author of 40-50 refereed and professional publications. With Philip Esselaar formed Miller, Esselaar and Associates in 1998. Recent assignments include work on the South African Electronic Commerce Green Paper, a study into research support for the ICT policy process in the SADC region, drafting an ICT Policy for Namibia, ICT surveys in Rwanda, Tanzania and Mozambique, contributing to the ECA Post-ADF99 process and working with the Medical Research Council on the design and development of an HIV/AIDS web portal. Played a volunteer role in major national projects, including the Foresight long range scenario planning study for information and communications technologies and the development of a national policy for the IT industry (SAITIS). After being conference facilitator for the British Council sponsored international conference on Building Information Community in Africa in 1999, Jonathan was contracted to take on a major BICA outcome and founded CentraTEL (www.centratel.com), an NGO committed to supporting the worldwide multi-purpose telecentre community. This in turn led to the production and wide distribution of a CD with information for operators, government agencies etc. He chairs the Board of the International Computer Driving Licence (ICDL) Foundation, an NGO delivering international certification of basic computer skills to South African learners and is on the Board of the Cape IT Initiative (CITI), an NGO committed to building an ICT cluster in the Western Cape. Jonathan gained his PhD on the subject of Information Systems Effectiveness. He is the immediate past President of the Computer Society of South Africa (CSSA) and a Past President of the Operations Research Society of SA. Jonathan vi
was elected Computer Person of the Year by the CSSA, Western Cape, in 1994 and became a Fellow of the CSSA in 1999. David Souter Twelve years experience in ICT sector, eight in ICTs and development issues; academic and previous work experience in international development. Now consultant and academic specializing in the relationship between ICTs and social and economic development. Currently Visiting Professor in Communications at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland, and codirector of Masters Program in Communications Management (for developing country students sponsored by UK government and Vodafone Foundation through Chevening Scholarships). Formed consultancy ict Development Associates ltd in 2003. Recent and current projects include work for JICA and OECD on the relationship between ICT investment and economic growth, for DFID and its partners as component advisor in two components of the CATIA program, for CTO on relationship between ICT access and rural livelihoods, for Uganda Communications Commission on impact of Rural Communications Development Fund. As Chief Executive Officer of Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO), 1995-2003, led CTOs reconstruction from telecoms sector partnership to international ICT agency, working closely with global ICT bodies, regional associations, national governments, ICT businesses and civil society organisations in Africa, Caribbean and Pacific regions of the Commonwealth. Designed and managed capacity-building programs for CTO and in DFIDs Building Digital Opportunities program (2001-2004), and undertook individual CTO consultancy projects in many countries and regions during that time. Member of UN ICT Task Force Working Group 1 and of European Commission Advisory Group on ICTs and Development. Member of editorial committee of info journal and guest editor of its issue on WSIS (forthcoming). Prior experience includes D.Phil. in African history; four years as development policy advisor to the UK Labour Party and five years as head of research for the UK National Communications Union Kate Wild Kate Wild has more than thirty years of experience in the broad area of information and development. She joined IDRC in 1970 as one of the early members of its ground-breaking information sciences division. Her work then focused mainly on bibliographic information systems and their role in building resources for decision-making in developing countries. In 1979 she joined the International Labour Office where she was responsible for leading the development of the International Labour Information System and eventually for managing the ILOs computer systems, statistics and library and documentation activities. Kate rejoined IDRC in 1995 in its Regional Office for Southern Africa in Johannesburg. There she was IDRCs representative on the National Telecommunications Policy Project and was instrumental in the initial design of IDRCs Acacia program in support of the use of ICTs for community empowerment in Africa. She has also been associated with the UN Economic Commission for Africa as coordinator of its inaugural African Development Forum on the challenge to Africa of globalization and the information society and with the Mozambique Acacia Advisory Committee as it defined the basic elements of a national ICT policy for the country. In 2002 Kate returned to Canada and is now an independent consultant based in Toronto working on a variety of international projects in the area of information and communication for development. Recent consulting assignments have included: leadership of the Global Digital Opportunity Initiatives project to finalize Mozambiques National ICT Policy Implementation Strategy; advice to the Ottawa-based Micronutrient Initiative to strengthen the effectiveness of its information, communication and capacity building strategies; discussion papers for the United Nations Information and Communication Technology Task Force on e-strategies and the vii
achievement of the Millennium Development Goals; participation in the KPMG team developing the initial phase of the CATIA project. Earlier advisory experience included a number of evaluation assignments including for UNDPs SDNP program, UNESCOs IT program and the International Bureaus for Educations information initiatives. Kate has wide experience of conceptualizing, evaluating and managing information projects in national and international environments. Over the years she has contributed to many reports and publications in the broad area of information, communications and development.
viii
LIST OF ACRONYMS
ACP ADB AKC BDO CD-ROM CIP CROP CSO DOI ECOSOC EDF EC EU GIS GPS ICT ICT4D IDRC IT MDG NGO NIP OECD OJEC PMU PRSP RIP SADC SDC SDNP SIDA SMME SMS TB UNDP UNTFFM USAID USP UWI VSAT WSIS WTO African, Caribbean and Pacific countries Asian Development Bank Atos KPMG Consulting Building Digital Opportunities Compact Disk - Read Only Memory Country Indicative Program Council of Regional Organizations of the Pacific Civil Society Organization Digital Opportunity Initiative Economic and Social Council European Development Fund European Commission European Union Geographic Information Systems Global Positioning Systems Information and Communication Technology Information and Communication Technology for Development International Development Research Centre (Canada) Information Technology Millennium Development Goals Non-Governmental Organization National Indicative Programs Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development Official Journal of the European Communities Program Management Unit Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper Regional Indicative Programs South African Development Community Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation Sustainable Development Network Program Swedish International Development Agency Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises Short Messaging Systems Tuberculosis United Nations Development Program United Nations Task Force on Financing Mechanisms United States Agency for International Development University of the South Pacific University of the West Indies Very Small Aperture Terminal World Summit on the Information Society World Trade Organization
ix
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
A. Introduction and Objectives
The European Commission (EC) intends to include within the European Development Fund a program to support the mainstreaming of ICTs into development planning and implementation. Mainstreaming implies shifting the locus of decision-making on investment in ICTs from the ICT sector to mainstream development actors and institutions. To achieve this objective, the EU contracted infoDev to undertake a feasibility study in the ACP countries and to develop a financial proposal for presentation to the EU and the ACP secretariat. InfoDev in turn contracted Trigrammic to carry out this work. The consultant team consisted of a network of consultants based in Africa (Senegal, Ethiopia, South Africa), the Caribbean (Guyana, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic), and the Pacific (Tonga). Two international development consultants from Canada and the UK also formed part of the team. The study was based on extensive desk research and a process of consultation in the ACP countries, with key players in the ICT arena as well as with a number of sectoral experts and ICT specialists working within international organizations. Concepts, ideas, possibilities and assumptions for the proposed ACP ICT program were tested with those consulted as well as within the consultant team. The emphasis was on finding niches where the ACP ICT program could provide leverage, and where it could support or create synergies with existing or planned initiatives. An interview framework was designed to guide the activities in the various regions. In addition, e-mail and telephone discussions were pursued in selected countries where visits could not be carried out. The desktop research covered most countries in the regions, allowing a broader perspective to be gained. Separate regional reports were produced, with Africa split into three separate studies - West and Central Africa; East Africa; and Southern Africa. The results of both the desk research and the consultations were used to identify ongoing areas of activity, gaps and areas of opportunity. These results were used to shape the proposed ACP ICT program. The results of this study were presented at a workshop held in Brussels on December 14, 2004. Suggestions were received from the EU, the ACP Secretariat and participants who were selected mainly from donor agencies, the UN and regional organizations. This version of the report reflects the discussion at the workshop and the consultant teams reaction to it. The report and financial proposal, and the accompanying annexes, present the views of the Trigrammic team on the priority needs identified and on how the new proposed program - the ACP ICT program should be designed and implemented to address these needs. The European Commission will make the final determination about the design of the Program. The proposed new program aims to finance meaningful ICT for development initiatives within the current EDF 9 (2002-2007) and to build capacity to more effectively leverage funding from EDF 10 and other bilateral and multi-lateral sources to carry out integrated projects and programs. The purpose, goal and objectives of the ACP ICT program are set out below.
xi
THE PURPOSE Strengthen the capacity of development initiatives to reduce poverty and support achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
THE GOAL Mainstream ICTs into national and sectoral policy and planning (agriculture and rural development, health, education, ICT business)
OBJECTIVES To support closer integration between development planning (national and sectoral plans and Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs)) and ICT planning (e-strategies, ICT policies and telecommunications policy) To build the capacity of development actors in ACP countries to implement the integration process at national, sectoral and local development levels, and to more effectively leverage funding from EDF 10 and other bilateral and multi-lateral sources to carry out integrated projects and programs To strengthen the enabling environment for the ICT small business sector
THE PROGRAM APPROACH Capacity building Mainly at level of public service but processes involve stakeholders from private sector, academia and civil society; capacity building will be in the context of planning e.g. capacity building across ACP countries - e-strategies and national plans and the production of integrated strategies and manageable implementation plans; main target audience: officials from ministries of finance and planning and sectoral ministries; capacity building within focus sectors key decision makers exposed to ICT tools design iterative, integrated strategy
PROGRAM INSTRUMENTS Learning networks; training curricula, training materials, training tools; documentation of best practice; model applications; action research; policy analysis; indicators
xii
Taken together activities developed within this framework should lead to significant increases in the design and implementation of demand-driven ICT applications and the introduction of services that meet specific development goals. The program clearly will not exist in a vacuum. Its chances for success will be greater if it responds to current development thinking as framed by the MDGs and it builds upon lessons learned during the last decade of ICT for development experience. The ACP ICT program must not only respond to lessons learned from recent development experience but must avoid duplication of programs funded by other donors.
B.
The Development Challenges
The potential of ICTs in development is widely proclaimed but poorly understood. As a result there is a mismatch between the rhetoric of international statements and national estrategies, and practical achievements on the ground, in particular in relation to poverty reduction. Policy and programs are often developed on the basis of assumptions rather than research. While there are many examples of successful application of ICTs, their appropriateness in any given context needs to be proved. Successful ICT for development programs face a number of challenges which were identified through the teams consultation process: Little integration between strategies and programs aimed at expanding information and communication technologies and skills and broader development strategies and programs; A high reliance on donor funding for ICT activities which may encourage donor dependency; Minimal prioritization within existing e-strategies and ICT policies, also often a reflection of reliance on donors for funding; Limited human and institutional capacity and the consequent inability of countries to absorb more resources for ICT initiatives; Weak linkages between policy, strategy and implementation; Unrealistic targets due to lack of integrated resource planning and project management across sectoral and ICT implementation strategies; Tensions between economic and social goals which result in a tendency to work more in urban than rural areas and on technical rather than social solutions; Reluctance to recognize the key role of women in reducing poverty and moving towards achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); The pace of technological change which may make technical solutions obsolete even before funding decisions are made; Policy barriers to the establishment of small ICT businesses; and the Difficulties of measuring the impact of ICT initiatives on development outcomes.
C.
C1.
The Proposed ACP ICT Program

Program Focus
Under the proposed program, funds will be made available and proposals sought for the implementation of building activities aimed at exploiting the enabling features of ICTs within mainstream capacity development planning and decision-making. The emphasis will be on involving non- ICT development players (in finance and planning, agriculture and rural development, health and education) in decisions on whether and how to apply ICT to issues of xiii
national and sectoral development. Mainstreaming implies shifting the main locus of decisionmaking on ICT investment from the ICT sector to mainstream development actors. Main beneficiaries of the capacity building programs will be public servants at national and local levels but, since the context for capacity building will be development planning processes, private sector and civil society actors will also be involved. Capacity building programs can be single or multi-country. Demand should originate with local institutions or groups of such institutions from different countries. C2. Program Components
The program will target proposals that build capacity: To integrate ICTs in national planning, including national poverty reduction strategies; To integrate ICTs in sectoral planning in particular in: agriculture, food security, natural resource management, and rural development; education; and health; and Address barriers to the ICT small business sector. The consultant team recommends that the available funds be sub-divided into three component areas, as follows: 1. 2. 3. National planning; Sectoral planning; ICT small business sector.
National planning is the mechanism which addresses broad poverty reduction and economic growth issues and allocates funds inter alia to ICT initiatives of national scope. It is important that officials responsible at this level understand both the potential and the limitations of ICT as a development tool. All three components will support information sharing and the creation of learning networks both within countries and across ACP countries
Mainstreaming ICTs into National and Sectoral Planning
Component1. Mainstreaming ICTs into National Planning and PRSPS
Component 2. Component 3. Mainstreaming ICTs into Sectoral Planning Supporting ICT Small Business
The program will stimulate a more demand-driven approach to the design and implementation of ICT programs with demand originating with development actors and local communities. Rather than relying on the ICT sector to drive the definition of ICT strategies, systems and applications, the program will support the mainstreaming of the information and technology component into the most critical development sectors in order to increase the relevance and value of ICT solutions.
xiv
Local small business is key because it is potentially the best instrument for creating locally relevant products and services based on both technology and content or information. C3. Program Outputs and Outcomes
In line with the overall goal of the program to build capacity to exploit the enabling features of ICTs within mainstream development planning and decision- making, the program will deliver: i) Effective and inclusive policy and program development processes that open up opportunities for local community leadership as well as the national planning community to explore the potential and limitations of ICT systems and tools in the context of their own problems and goals. Sectoral strategies that draw on relevant ICT strategies and tools. Sectoral analysis of national e-strategies to focus resources on high-value achievable goals and targets, integrated with national and sectoral development strategies. An enabling environment for small ICT entrepreneurs to participate more fully in ICT for development initiatives.
ii) iii) iv)
These outputs will enhance the capacity of policy-makers, program managers and practitioners including those in the mainstream development sectors - agriculture, health and education to identify aspects of their work amenable to cost-effective ICT support and develop strategies to improve the quality of project and program delivery. This will lead to better targeting of ICT resources and more effective outcomes in areas directly related to poverty reduction. In addition, small ICT business stands to gain from efforts to strengthen the enabling environment for entrepreneurship and from the creation of new opportunities in the mainstream development sectors identified above. C4. Program Activities
The key to achieving the results noted above is to bridge the gap of understanding and objectives between the mainstream development sectors and the ICT sector. This will be achieved through initiatives aimed at building capacity to integrate ICTs into broad national planning exercises and into sectoral planning in the agriculture, health and education sectors. Initiatives will incorporate action research and policy analysis components as required. Most of the program budget (80%) will be invested in national and sectoral planning activities. In the case of the ICT small business sector, a small proportion of the funds will be made available (10%) and proposals sought for: i) ii) iii) iv) Analysis of existing policies to identify blockages inhibiting the growth of ICT entrepreneurs. Removal of policy constraints that limit the establishment and growth of small ICT businesses. Helping small ICT entrepreneurs to recognize ICT opportunities within other sectors. Engaging small ICT entrepreneurs in dialogue with national and sectoral planners to identify and implement ICT applications and systems to address national development priorities. Target Beneficiaries
C5.
The long-term beneficiaries of the national and sectoral planning components of the program are the poor communities who will benefit from more integrated policies and more relevant ICT applications. To make that happen will require programs targeted at a range of policy xv
makers, program implementers, practitioners and community leaders in traditional development sectors who, along with their ICT colleagues, will be immediate beneficiaries of the programs proposed. The program assumes that beneficiaries at all levels will be found in both governmental and non-governmental stakeholders. The component of the program aimed at improving the enabling climate for small ICT businesses will benefit small-scale entrepreneurs seeking opportunities in the ICT sector and their clients. Within governments, particular Ministries that are likely to be targeted will include: Planning and Finance for Component 1; Ministries of Agriculture, Rural Development, Education and Health for Component 2; and Component 3 will involve close interaction with the Ministry responsible for Industry and Trade. C6. Program Management Structures and Governance
While there are clear advantages in assigning management responsibility to organizations with technical understanding of the development sectors in which proposals are sought, there are also advantages in terms of program consistency and administrative burden in assigning a single agency. Management of the Program will be devolved by the European Commission to one management agent managing all the program components. The management agent will be responsible for the selection of implementing agents.
IMPLEMENTATION STRUCTURE
European Commission & ACP Secretariat
Advisory Committee Management Agent
Implementing Agents
Implementing Agents
Implementing Agents
Implementing Agents
The EuropeAid Cooperation Office of the European Commission will establish a panel to assist in the evaluation of proposals to act as management agent. This panel will include representation from the ACP Secretariat and external advisors with expertise in the selected sectoral areas (agriculture and rural development, health and education) and in the application of ICTs in development. Following selection of the management agents, the panel will continue to act as an advisory committee to support the work of the EuropeAid office and management agents for the duration of the Program. It will review management reports on implementation of the Program
xvi
submitted by the management agents, with particular attention to results of the monitoring and evaluation component. C7. Costs
The total budget available for the ACP ICT Program is 20million over a period of four years (2005-2009). This budget is sub-divided into three separate budget components, within each of which resources will be focused on the application of ICTs within a specific development sector. The total funding available within each budgetary component of the ACP ICT Program is set out in the following table: Budget Component Component 1: national planning Component 2: sectoral planning Component 3: ICT small business sector Management agent costs (10%) Total Budget 8m 8m 2m 2m 20m
Maximization of potential synergies between projects will be encouraged, resulting in a coherent program which adds value in its totality to the achievement of program objectives rather than a mere collection of individual projects.
xvii
1. Introduction
The overall purpose of the proposed ACP ICT program is to strengthen the capacity of development initiatives to reduce poverty and support achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Its goal is to mainstream ICTs into national and sectoral policy and planning through a shift in the locus of decision-making on ICT investment towards development actors and institutions. This report first examines the broader development context in which the program will be implemented; it reviews some of the lessons learned from a decade of experience of ICT for development and situates the proposed program within the framework of EU development policy (Section 2). The findings, lessons and problems identified through the regional research are described in Section 3. The program has been designed on the basis of both desk research and extensive consultation within the regions that make up the ACP as well as with development and ICT specialists working within international organizations. Section 4 draws on the global and regional analyses: To identify the many dimensions of the problem that need to be addressed; and To propose an opportunity for the EU based on linking ICT efforts firmly into both broad development and sectoral planning and decision-making processes at all levels from community to national. In Sections 5, 6 and 7 the opportunity is translated into program terms. Section 5 sketches overall program philosophy and objectives, purpose, beneficiaries and outcomes and identifies key assumptions and risks. The broad goal of the program is to mainstream ICTs into sectoral and national policy and planning. Section 6 describes the components in which the program will operate: national planning, sectoral strategies (agriculture and rural development, education, health); and the small ICT business sector. It sets out objectives for each component. Section 7 details the types of activities the program will develop in order to achieve its objectives. Capacity building is the main program instrument which will be supported by action research, policy analysis and the application and development of appropriate indicators. Section 8 focuses on all aspects of governance and management and includes proposals for allocating funds and selecting management and implementing agents as well as criteria for identifying promising project proposals. The final section proposes a monitoring and evaluation approach.
2. Factors Influencing the Design of the EUs ICT Program for the ACP Countries
2.1 The Development Context
When the internet burst onto the development scene few donor agencies had a history of addressing information and communication issues as a central component of their development programs. Most were initially cautious in their exploration of the opportunities embedded in the new technologies. A few organizations led the way in defining programs shaped very much by their own philosophies. The UNDPs SDNP Sustainable Development Network Program had its roots in the sustainable environment movement that emerged from the 1992 Rio Summit 1; USAIDs Leland Initiative supported connectivity by building strong partnerships between the public and private sectors; the Canadian International Development Research Centres (IDRC) Acacia initiative was a multi-faceted program addressing policy, technology, capacity and content issues with a strong research focus. These and other programs seeded much valuable activity on the policy and regulatory fronts and in many application areas. They demonstrated the challenge of uniting the diverse skills of the telecommunications, information and development sectors. The approach through most of the 90s was essentially experimental, underpinned by the belief that the liberalization of the telecommunications sector and the empowerment potential of ICTs would overcome the major traditional constraints on development (infrastructure and institutional and human capacity) and allow countries to move quickly into an era of greater prosperity. The keyword was leapfrogging. As the decade progressed more and more donors joined the ICT for development bandwagon and governments were encouraged to reform their telecommunication sectors and introduce independent regulation. The end of the decade brought the promise of greater resources for information society initiatives in developing countries from the G8 countries, following commitments made at their 2000 Okinawa Summit. On the wave of the technology boom the wide-ranging G8 Digital Opportunities Task Force was created. It began its work as the boom receded and there were calls for more sober assessments of the potential of ICTs. A positive result of the excitement of the 90s was the involvement of stakeholders from civil society and the private sector in ICT for development debates. The United Nations ICT Task Force, for example, through its multistakeholder membership, has added valuable perspectives to the attempts now underway to capture lessons from a decade of experience and identify fruitful avenues for future exploration. A more negative consequence of the enthusiasm was perhaps a tendency to exaggerate the benefits that ICTs could bring and draw attention away from persistent constraints on development. The beginning of the new Millennium saw the first session of the UNs Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) dedicated to exploiting the potential of ICTs for development giving the whole gamut of information and communication for development issues a higher international profile than ever before. And it saw the General Assembly endorse the MDGs time bound measurable targets calling for progress towards poverty, gender equity, education, health, sustainable environment and development partnership goals within a fifteen-year time frame. Achievement of the MDGs will increasingly provide the yardstick against which all development efforts including ICT for development programs will be judged. While there was reference in the MDGs to the broad benefits that could accrue from use of the new information and communication technologies, work on global development issues and global ICT issues was pursued largely on parallel tracks with little integration between the processes. This mirrors
1
One interesting offshoot of SDNP is SIDSNet The Small Islands Development Network which looked at the potential of internet technologies to overcome the isolation of small island states particularly in the Pacific.
globally the situation that the consultant team has identified in its discussions at the country level. The heightened political awareness of the role that ICTs could play in integrating countries in, or excluding them from, the emerging global information society and economy led to the convening of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva in December 2003. A follow up session in Tunis in 2005 provides an opportunity to transform the principles that emerged from the Geneva discussions into visible results by, in the view of the EU, responding to the challenge to make ICT available and affordable and to spread access to applications.2 One important outcome of the Summit was the creation of a task force to review the adequacy of existing financing mechanisms to meet the ICT for development challenge. UNDP took the lead on the Task Force in collaboration with the World Bank, the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs and other key organizations. The basic objective of the Task Force3 was to identify sustainable ways to ensure the continuation of current trends and innovative approaches to accelerate the use and availability of ICT resources to a wider range of developing countries and to a broader sub-set of the population in individual countries. It therefore casts its findings and conclusions within a broad economic, social and political context. Although the Task Force report was published only in December 2004 and there was little opportunity for exchange of ideas between the Task Force and the consulting team responsible for this ACP ICT study, there is broad consistency of findings with respect to the implications of the dynamic nature of the ICT sector, the need to establish ICT within a supportive development policy environment and the integration of ICT into broad national development and poverty reduction strategies. In particular the UNTFFM report reinforces the importance of capacity building particularly within the public sector which is the main emphasis of the recommendations of the ACP ICT study. The UNTFFM also pinpoints lack of capacity in countries and in donor organizations as a barrier to the preparation and approval of effective ICT programs. The EU program proposed here responds to a strong set of imperatives within the Task Force report as well as to the other challenges identified above that have emerged through the last few years of international debate on ICTs and development. It will expand opportunities for partnership between the worlds of development policy and practice and the ICT sector and support the integration of ICT into national and sectoral planning through the development of collaborative capacity building models that ideally will extend to the level of local decision-making.
2.2
Capturing the Lessons for ICT Programs
Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions Towards a Global Partnership in the Information Society: Translating the Geneva principles not action Brussels 13.07.2004 COM (2004) 480 final
The Report of the Task Force on Financial Mechanisms for ICT for Development: A review of trends and an analysis of gaps and promising practices, December 22, 2004
http://www.itu.int/wsis/tffm/index.html 3
By the end of the nineties it had become clear that ICT projects were not delivering the expected development benefits. While there continued to be significant interest in exploring the potential of ICTs for development, organizations driving the global ICT agenda began to review initial experiences and look for firmer conceptual foundations for their programs. The Digital Opportunity Initiative (DOI) report, Creating a Development Dynamic4, was one of the first systematic attempts to capture lessons from a decade of ICT for development work. The DOI report tackled the issue of whether ICT is a tool best suited to economic or to social development and argued that both economic and social development benefit would derive more from investment in ICT as an enabler of development in other sectors than investment in the ICT sector itself. This conclusion was reinforced by debates in a series of fora organized by the World Bank, OECD and UNDP in 2001 and 2003.5 While some still argued the importance of connectivity as an empowerment tool, discussions reflected an increased emphasis on the value of integrating ICTs as an instrument within broader national development processes, in particular those designed to address the MDGs through Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs). In practice however there appears to have been little interaction between those developing ICT or estrategies and those engaged in PRSP processes making the link between the different worlds of development and new technologies has proved difficult. Building on a growing consensus, a report prepared for the World Banks InfoDev program 6 highlighted the need for more rigorous analysis of the constraints placed on the lives of poor people by lack of ICTs and called for greater strategic focus on change agents in the communities where projects are located. It concluded that ICTs could only contribute effectively to development and poverty reduction as tools of broader strategies and programs for building opportunity and empowering the poor. As with earlier assessments the conclusion was that the importance of ICTs in the context of development derives from their role as tools to further the achievement of development goals. The result of this series of reviews of early ICT for development programs has been an emphasis within donor agencies on attempts to mainstream ICTs into key development sectors, in which the aim is to promote the achievement of sectoral development goals rather than goals defined in terms of distribution of and access to telephones and the internet. 7 Education, health, enterprise development and government receive particular attention, but there has been relatively little emphasis on agriculture or rural development. This interest in mainstreaming ICTs, and in particular in trying to establish the impact of ICTs on the achievement of the MDGs, has spawned work on new ICT indicators. In Africa Scan ICT a joint program of UNECA, IDRC, NORAD and the EU is working to build national capacity to collect and manage key information needed to support growing investment in ICTs and transition towards an information society within the region. 8 Internationally, the UN ICT Task Force9 (through its ICT Indicators and MDG Mapping Working Party) is leading the effort to define indicators that identify the contribution ICT can make to each MDG. Significant challenges remain with respect to building consensus on agreed approaches and operationalizing the
4
Creating a Development Dynamic Final Report of the Digital Opportunity Initiative July 2001, Accenture, Markle Foundation, UNDP Reports of Joint OECD, UN, UNDP, World Bank Forums in response to the G8 Dot Force: Digital Opportunities for Poverty Reduction (March 2001); and Integrating ICT in Development Programs (March 2003) Information and Communication Technologies, Poverty and Development: Learning from Experience A background paper for the InfoDev Annual Symposium, December 9-10 2003, Kerry McNamara OECD Development Assistance Committee Donor ICT Strategies Matrix 2003 Edition, December 2003 www.uneca.org/aisi/scanict.htm www.unicttaskforce.org
7 8 9
proposed indicators. Measuring the impact of ICTs on development outcomes and thus identifying mainstreaming best practice will continue to be an important aspect of ICT for development work for many years. New and essentially experimental approaches to measurement will be needed. The increased focus on specifying the contribution of ICTs to concrete sectoral development goals increases also the requirement for mutual understanding between development practitioners and ICT specialists in the search for measurable and replicable solutions to real problems. Review of experience has also led to a consensus that the sustainability of development initiatives depends on local human and institutional capacity, along with local commitment to, and ownership of, programs. It is impossible to deliver the benefits of development programs whether the specific benefits relate to health, education, agriculture or other sectors on a long-term basis, through programs designed and funded from the outside. Capacity constraints need to be addressed from the perspective of individuals and institutions and of broader needs for social cohesion.10 For ICT programs this means that they should, inter alia: Facilitate access in formats and languages that are locally understood; Foster voluntary learning, with accent on acquisition rather than on transfer; Not be imposed from outside but develop within the context of skills and understanding existing in the context in which they are applied; Respond to explicitly stated and clearly understood needs of users; Be locally managed and owned.
2.3
Capturing Lessons for ICT Projects and Applications
While the broad reviews cited above have led to a shift in the focus and direction of ICT for development programs lessons have also been learned from more targeted research and analysis. 2.3.1 ICT and Gender
ICT and gender cuts across all other ICT work. The World Bank recently commissioned a study to examine the extent to which gender considerations were incorporated into Bank-supported ICT policy projects11 addressing telecommunications infrastructure, the social aspects of ICTs (freedom of information, pricing, privacy, security) and applications areas (education, health, tourism, labor, industry). Little evidence was found that gender concerns had been taken into account. The study concluded that if gender was largely invisible at the policy level it was unlikely to be dealt with at the implementation stage. The message of the World Bank study is that e-policies and strategies that do not focus on the gender issue are not gender neutral in their implementation they tend to reinforce existing social and economic structures which inhibit the full participation of women, as the following example demonstrates.
10
Stephen Browne, UNDP; ICTs and Poverty Reduction: two conceptual approaches in A Dialogue on ICTs and Poverty: The Harvard Forum, 2003, www.idrc.ca Nancy Hafkin et al, Engendering ICT: Ensuring Gender Equality in ICT for Development, Draft for World Bank, 2003
11
In arguing in favour of ICT programs that take account of the gender dimension, the importance of gender equity to the achievement of the MDGs needs to be emphasized more than it is at present. 2.3.2 Policy and Regulation
Investment in Infrastructure Access to basic ICTs (especially telephony and internet) and the opportunity to use many ICT applications require infrastructure, in particular telecommunications network infrastructure. This is expensive, but technological change (notably modern wireless networks) has greatly reduced costs and made network deployment commercially viable in most environments, even those characterized by low incomes. Development agencies, including the World Bank and bilateral agencies, have accordingly withdrawn from infrastructure investment, though this is still an appropriate area of investment for multilateral development banks such as the Asian Development Bank (ADB) or quasidevelopmental finance houses such as Actis (formerly the Commonwealth Development Corporation). The Promotion of Access Development agencies have continued to play a part in promoting access to ICTs with the aim of making at least basic voice telephony more widely available, both geographically and within poor and disadvantaged groups. Interventions of this kind include: support for the development of universal access strategies and other enabling environment changes, policy interventions to promote diversity in service provision (e.g. liberalization of broadcast radio and of VSAT use), promotion of telecenters, etc. Such interventions are concerned with ICTs per se and the empowerment opportunities they create for citizens rather than with the application of ICTs in development. There is a significant debate about the relative merits of different ICTs in this context (broadcast radio versus telephony versus internet) but also a growing consensus that benefit can be gained by combining them to strengthen local voices and increase local access to information. Interventions in the Policy and Regulatory Framework: an Enabling Environment for ICT Access and Deployment Activities in this area have included extensive promotion of the liberalization/privatization model of telecommunications restructuring and support for the introduction of independent telecommunications regulation, in the belief that this form of restructuring will leverage private sector funding to extend ICT networks. It has been particularly popular with development agencies as it is relatively cheap and easy to implement, leading to significant oversupply in some areas. Support for policy development has extended beyond the telecommunications sector to the wider area of information and communication technologies with the rapid expansion of work on ICT policies and e-strategies. These build on the restructuring of the telecommunications sector and attempt to exploit the social as well as the economic benefits of the information society. Because they are often externally funded exercises, estrategies may fail to establish real national priorities but respond rather to opportunities for donor support.
2.3.3
ICTs, Economic Growth and Poverty
The macro-level case for ICT for development rests on the thesis that ICTs promote productivity and economic growth and enhance the social and economic welfare of individuals and communities. This is difficult to prove firstly because of the lack in research of a standard definition of ICTs and secondly because it is not easy to disentangle the impact of investment in ICTs from other investments. Recent OECD work 12 (echoed by work within the World Bank13) shows that a connection can be demonstrated in industrial and more developed countries, but that it is highly dependent on network externalities (and so on the initial scale of connectivity) and on complementary factors (such as the availability of an educated workforce, open economic structures capable of supporting innovation, capital for investment, and propensity to adaptation in business practice). These network externalities and complementary factors are substantially less evident in the poorer developing countries, which suggests that more caution should be applied to prevailing assumptions that ICT investment will necessarily lead to economic growth. The demand for a stronger poverty and MDG focus in ICT programs will be accompanied by a requirement for more effective measurement of impact. There is anecdotal evidence of the success of some community access or telecenter initiatives particularly those managed by the private sector in creating income opportunities in rural areas 14 but an evidence based link is more problematic. The same is true for programs that promote ICT tools to support small-scale entrepreneurs. Information describing project results has tended to be more promotional than analytical15; the variety of ICT initiatives and the link between them and different dimensions of poverty are sufficiently complex that we simply do not know whether the digital revolution has reduced or exacerbated poverty overall or for specific groups of poor people. Better understanding of causal pathways and more precise data are needed.16 2.3.4 Sectoral Applications of ICT
ICTs and Education The education sector has always been eager to apply new technologies to the learning enterprise. Internet connectivity in northern schools has grown quickly. In the South it was conceived as a way not only of delivering cost effective education but also of building skills in the broader community and empowering girls.17 Programs have been mounted within countries (SchoolNet Namibia), regionally (SchoolNet Africa) and globally (the E-Schools initiative supported by the UN ICT Task Force). Evidence of impact on educational outcomes is scarce. Experience to-date suggests a need for long term studies integrated within school connectivity programs - to assess changes in educational outcomes and the ability of students to find opportunities for employment, business development or further education.
12
OECD, DAC Network on Poverty Reduction - ICT and Economic Growth in Developing Countries, DCD/DAC/POVNET(2004)6 Contribution of ICT to Growth, Global ICT Department, The World Bank Group, June 2003 Tlcenters au Sngal, http://ariane.mpl.ird.fr/textes/enjeux/g-zongo/g-zongo.htm Akhtar Badshah, Conclusion, in Connected for Development, ICT kiosks and sustainablility, ICT Task Force Series 4, p225 Marty Chen, Harvard University, WIEGO; Has the Digital Revolution Reduced Poverty or Exacerbated it? in A Dialogue on ICTs and Poverty: The Harvard Forum, 2003. www.idrc.ca www.world-links.org/aidsweb/
13 14 15
16
17
With the expansion of connectivity at all education levels come: Demands for new approaches to teacher training; Demands for more participative, research-based learning approaches; The need for expanded bandwidth to support collaborative research, data exchange and networking; and Sustainability challenges related to the cost of connectivity and of replacement computers.
These and other issues indicate that school connectivity must be seen as part of a total education strategy and not as an intervention that can be isolated from mainstream educational planning and financing. ICTs and Government e-Governance The use of information technology within government is important not only as a way of improving efficiency and service delivery but also for the increased transparency that it can introduce into government decision-making and the additional channels it can offer for communication between citizens and the different levels of government. 18 Government can be a role model for good citizenship. There is a long history of donor support to the computerization of government processes to improve efficiency and accountability but the internet introduces a new dimension of communication between citizen and government and enhanced service delivery opportunities. But e-governance is complex; it involves the redesign of back-office processes that support service delivery and often cut across different government departments. One recent study suggests partial or total failure rates of e-Government projects of 85%.19 Fortunately it also offers a diagnosis and steps that can be taken to overcome major design and implementation problems. The gaps between objectives and outcome result often from the limited knowledge on the part of all those involved of the total picture (bureaucrats dont understand systems and technology; IT systems experts dont understand government). The gaps need to be measured and reduced by building greater understanding across implementation and design teams. E-governance applications often progress through a number of phases A recent Handbook published by InfoDev and the Center for Democracy and Technology identifies three: Publish which provides access to government information without the requirement to travel to government offices or negotiate with officials; Interact which offers citizens the opportunity to communicate with their representatives and comment on government processes; and Transact which allows users to conduct business on-line.
All phases require planning, resources, political will and more active citizenship; by proceeding step by step it may be possible to obtain more positive results than those cited above if civil servants and ICT specialists can communicate effectively with each other to identify problems and design solutions.
18 19
E-government an e-primer UNDP 2003 Richard Heeks, Most eGovernment-for-Development Projects Fail: How Can Risks be Reduced? IDPM, University of Manchester, UK, 2003 http://idpm.man.ac.uk/publications/wp/igov/igov_wp14.shtml
ICTs, Agriculture, Rural Development and the Management of Natural Resources Given the overwhelmingly rural nature of most poor countries this sector has provoked relatively little interest on the part of the ICT community. International efforts have focused on access to information and the provision of internet access to rural development projects.20 This has been paralleled in some cases by the development of web sites in national agricultural and fisheries departments and research institutions but there are few ICT-based programs that target the rural poor and the extension workers charged with providing them with information support and advice. Geographic information systems (GIS) are powerful tools for the management of natural resources. They rely on increasingly detailed satellite imagery to map resources, populations and physical infrastructure. Mapping is often a prerequisite for the establishment of ownership through land registries or other tools. While this process may be politically fraught, once ownership has been assigned it can provide the means through which communities and individuals can access the additional resources required to underpin new development initiatives. While spatial systems are useful for micro-level planning they also have regional application and may be particularly useful in disaster response (drought, floods), which often cross national borders. ICTs and Health While there have been experiments with sophisticated tools for remote diagnosis in poor countries these have been difficult to sustain because of high connectivity costs and problems of maintenance. Within rural health care circles there tends to be more interest in communications (telephones and e-mail) for the exchange of information and advice, than on telemedicine based on more sophisticated technologies that are difficult to maintain and of use to only a handful of highly trained professionals. Many relevant ICT applications in health have focused on linking practitioners in developing countries to international information sources and expertise through internet connections, email lists, CD-ROMs and, increasingly, hand held computers. While clearly of benefit, the effectiveness of these initiatives may have been limited by the imbalance between information derived from developed and developing countries in the global medical knowledge base. Traditional medical practice and local knowledge of the pharmaceutical properties of plants is not well represented. Nor is information that could be used to address major public health problems by providing support to health practitioners particularly in rural areas. In particular there is little evidence of a sustained effort to identify ways in which ICTs can be deployed in the fight against HIV/AIDS, the major public health challenge in many ACP countries.21 That there are innovative and cost effective health initiatives in developing countries is witnessed by the forthcoming issue of the British Medical Journal that will focus its November 13, 2004 issue on developing country interventions that show promise for the developed world. Ways can be found with ICT support to ensure that such information is also communicated to those who can apply it in the developing countries.
20
www.fao.org/waicent, www.enrap.org An exception is the joint UNDP/Microsoft Southern Africa Capacity Initiative (SACI) which seeks learning center applications that can help offset the capacity lost through the AIDS pandemic. SACI is too new to show results yet.
21
ICTs and SMMEs Early approaches to ICT for small business focused on building capacity to incorporate automation of processes into business planning models designed to serve mainly local markets. The arrival of the internet (and subsequently a variety of e-commerce models) allowed even small businesses to think in terms of reaching global markets. E-commerce is growing in developing countries including in the small-scale business sector. There is anecdotal evidence of success in Africa in particular in connection with the marketing of handicrafts and products and services targeted to the Diaspora. E-commerce growth is not as fast as the overall growth of internet use it is limited by low credit card use, lack of products and services adapted to local markets, poor transport and logistics and the cost and quality of internet connectivity. 22 In general, locally conceived, demand-driven initiatives are working probably because they reflect a concrete understanding of the environment in which they are functioning; externally driven applications are not.23 2.3.5 Broad Lessons
Overall the experience to-date with ICT applications in development sectors has tended to relatively small experimental projects; experience has demonstrated that: National e-strategies and national plans and poverty reduction strategies are only very loosely linked at best; ICT applications are not well integrated into sectoral strategies and therefore are not always responsive to the needs of sector policy makers, professionals and practitioners; They are not embedded in local communities, practices and cultures and therefore respond only in a limited fashion to the needs of poor communities; and E-strategy processes have not led to a real prioritization of applications in terms of the development sectors likely to contribute most future benefit.
2.4
The EU and ICT for Development Programs
The ACP ICT program must not only respond to lessons learned from recent development experience but must also fit with existing EU policies and programs, and key global ICT initiatives presently underway e.g. UN Task Force on Financial Mechanisms (UNTFFM). The 2000 Communication on Development Policy (COM(2000)212) established a clear philosophy for European development policy. It brought greater coherence to EU development aid by specifying a clear focus on poverty reduction (and, by interpretation, on the MDGs). It also established clear principles giving ownership of programs to national partners; encouraging greater coherence with EU political, trade and humanitarian policies; and ensuring complementarity with the development policies of member-states and with other multilateral agencies.
22 23
E-Commerce and Development Report 2002, UNCTAD, Geneva, UNCTAD/SDTF/ECB/2 Crocker Snow Jr, Tip-toeing across the Digital Divide, Special Report for the UN ICT Task Force
10
Within that broad focus it identified six priority areas:24 Trade and development; Regional integration and cooperation; Support to macroeconomic policies; Transport; Food security and sustainable rural development strategies; Institutional capacity building, good governance and the rule of law;
and five crosscutting themes: Good governance, human rights and the rule of law; Gender equality; Environmental sustainability; Effect on poverty reduction; Human and institutional capacity building. These priority areas and cross-cutting themes address broad development policy. The Commissions 2001 Communication on ICTs and Development (COM(2001)770) places the role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) within this broad development approach, recognizing that ICTs provide an important tool for more efficient and effective aid delivery and that they have a significant impact on social and economic development, including the achievement of the MDGs. In its documentation to the World Summit on the Information Society, the European Commission has particularly emphasized four areas of ICT activity: ehealth, e-learning, e-governance and e-business. The EU approach to the role of ICTs in development is consistent with that increasingly adopted by other bilateral and multilateral donors, including EU member-states. Their approach focuses in particular on the application of ICTs in mainstream development sectors, focusing especially on their potential to support delivery of outcomes in health, education, agriculture and poverty reduction. Alongside this mainstreaming, some development agencies have also put significant effort into supporting the development of positive enabling frameworks for ICT, notably through the restructuring of the telecommunications sector and the development of national ICT policies and strategies. The European Union has established ICT partnership programs with a number of developing regions in particular the Asia-IT&C Program in the Asia/Pacific region, the @LIS Program in Latin American and the Caribbean, and the EUMEDIS Program in the Mediterranean region. These programs emphasize the building of sector relationships between their regions and the EU. The ACP program under consideration here will complement these regional programs by focusing on what can be achieved by institutions in ACP countries themselves rather than through their partnerships with EU country institutions. In seeking to frame a program for the EU the consultant team faced the challenge of applying the limited funds available for ICT in EDF 9 strategically to leverage much more substantial funding in EDF 10 funding that would go beyond a demonstration of the potential of ICTs for development to deliver an effective ICT contribution to poverty reduction and the achievement of the MDGs across the ACP countries as a whole. Agriculture, rural development and the environment; education; and health are the sectors where expanded, targeted action will be required if progress is to be made on the MDGs. These sectors were identified as important areas for increased ICT investment based on their
24
Areas in bold indicate overlaps with the proposed ACP ICT program
11
importance to development and to the MDGs. If ICTs are to be mainstreamed into development thinking and decision-making these sectors will provide the acid test of success. Local innovation and entrepreneurship in the ICT sector itself will be needed to effectively marry ICT potential to local development reality hence the need for support to local ICT entrepreneurs through the reduction of bureaucratic barriers to the initiation of local ICT businesses. These areas of focus are consistent with the EU concerns and those that emerged, with EU support, from WSIS in 2004. Food security and rural development are EU priorities; health, education and business development are WSIS priorities. But the 20 million euros available in EDF 9 will not be sufficient to support strategic investment and build a foundation for future programming across all these sectors unless the program is given a very specific focus and approach, which is outlined in detail in Sections 5, 6 and 7. The ACP ICT program will be unique in the emphasis it gives to national planning and sectoral ICT capacity building as a critical tool for mainstreaming. It will Complement the programs of other donors none of which focus on the integration of ICT strategies, including within the key development sectors: agriculture, rural development and natural resources; education; and health; (see Annexes I and II on the ICT programs of donor organizations); Lay the foundation for coordinated, ACP-wide approaches to human and institutional ICT capacity; Produce agreed strategies (national, sectoral and potentially also at the local or community level) which can be submitted for funding.
3.
Identifying the Problems and Opportunities: Findings from the Regional Research
Section 3 aims to synthesize the key development priorities and initiatives in the ACP countries, framed around the MDGs, PRSPs, national and regional ICT policy processes, estrategy developments and projects currently being implemented. The synthesis is based on inputs from key players in the ACP countries who were asked to talk about the challenges and opportunities as they saw them - their insights, assumptions, concerns and aspirations regarding ICTs at the country and regional levels. The overview provides pointers to some of the key foci that have been used to guide the development of the ACP ICT program, which is discussed from Section 4 onwards. Experts were drawn from the ICT sector, government and parastatal institutions, universities, NGOs and a few regional and international organizations. The consultations did not attempt to cover all ICT projects funded by donor agencies or national governments but rather to build on snapshots of the situation captured through desk research. The difficulty of identifying sectoral experts with the necessary knowledge of ICTs became a key challenge, highlighting what is obviously an important need in future program development - the development of a new generation of professionals conversant with ICTs but whose core activities are not in the ICT sector. Annexes IV - VI provide detailed reports from each of the ACP regions three studies for Africa East, West and Central, and Southern Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific. Lists of those consulted are also included. 12
a)
Policy and Regulatory Frameworks
Most of the countries in the ACP region are at various stages of developing national ICT policies and e-strategies; few have however taken cognizance of poverty reduction requirements. Likewise many of the PRSPs have not integrated ICTs into their plans. The result has been a disjuncture between the goals and objectives of the Solomon Islands The People First various ongoing processes, lack of synchronization and Network. www.peoplefirst.net.sb prioritization of overlapping activities, and separate streaming of sectoral and ICT policy processes, resulting PFnet uses an email system connecting in sub-optimal utilization of human resources and underfourteen remote island locations in the Solomon Islands. Using a simple exploitation of synergies and commonalities between computer, short-wave radio, and solar them. That in turn has resulted in a poor record of power. It aims to facilitate point-todelivery on well-intentioned policies that could have point communications between a helped the poor. cybercaf in Honiara and a network of The lack of liberalization of the telecommunications market continues to be the major priority across the regions. Exclusivity periods for many monopoly operators are ending, regulators have been exposed to capacity building initiatives to strengthen the requirements for independent regulation, and some privatization has been achieved. The development of universal access policies and strategies is receiving attention as part of the overall ICT policy frameworks. Little of this thinking has however made itself visible in the poverty reduction strategies of many countries. The continued high level of national telecommunications costs, particularly for those in rural areas, remains a problem and pricing structures are not always transparent to the user. The inadequacy of existing universal access policies, the lack of monitoring and reinforcement of universal access obligations where these exist, and the lack of capacity or will to penalize those who do not deliver on such obligations has resulted in little movement to improve access to telecommunications for poor and rural communities. b) Infrastructure
email stations hosted in provincial clinics, community schools, or other accessible and secure public facilities. It also develops PFNET a popular website that is being promoted as a development portal.
The lack of telecommunications infrastructure is regarded as a priority issue in all ACP countries. This applies particularly to the availability of connectivity outside urban areas, in remote rural areas and small islands. The use of new technologies, particularly wireless, has reduced the costs of infrastructure deployment in most areas. In many ACP countries, teledensity is still among the lowest in the world and the current performance indicators hide the huge divide in telecomms penetration in rural and urban areas. This limits the possibilities for applications in areas such as health and education. The lack of emphasis on old technologies such as radio should not be underestimated and requires more attention. Examples can be drawn from the recent hurricane disaster in the Caribbean where radio often remained the only viable medium. Radio programming for the poor still remains the most practical option for providing access to information to the poor in both urban and rural environments in many ACP countries. c) e-Government
Good progress has been made in terms of the development of e-government strategies, with most at an early stage of the publish/interact/transact model. Many governments now have web sites and some have moved ahead in implementing various components of e-government systems e.g. payroll systems, web sites, connectivity between government ministries, and financial management systems. Less has been done on directly improving government services 13
to the public, particularly in rural areas. There tends to be limited recognition within egovernment programs of the need for the restructuring of back-office processes and for planning across government ministries. d) Agriculture, Rural Development and Environment
Little emphasis has been placed on ICT in agriculture and fisheries, despite the large majority of the populations in most ACP countries dependent on these activities for their livelihoods. Some pilot projects have been undertaken, for example the use of Global Positioning Systems (GPS) for fisheries management, and the use of handheld-devices and short messaging systems (SMS) to provide market prices to rural farmers. Natural disasters such as drought, floods and hurricanes are common throughout the ACP countries. But disaster management initiatives that leverage ICT applications for weather forecasting, land planning and management of disaster relief efforts have not received much attention. The recent Asian tsunami disaster illustrates well the consequences of the lack of warning systems, particularly to remote rural villages with few telephones and less internet access. Anecdotal evidence suggests that some Indian villages with functioning telecenters were able to warn citizens and urge evacuation. It is now well established that information on crops, inputs, prices, markets, weather conditions, environmental issues and their policy implications and credit facilities is vital to the lives and livelihoods of the poor. ICTs present opportunities for compiling, organizing, synthesizing and gaining access to massive amounts of data on environment and in understanding the interrelatedness of environmental, economic and human systems and processes, and form a basis for environmentally sound decisions. Information technology also creates powerful new opportunities Satellife / Healthnet for public participation in sustaining agricultural and other (Uganda) The Faculty of Medicine of primary production, and reducing risks of disastrous floods as Makerere University in well as wildfires, mudslides and other natural disasters. Farmer Uganda, in collaboration with associations and support services such as extension agents also SatelLife/Healthnet and the need information to provide technical assistance on farming International Development Research Centre (IDRC) has techniques and resource management. However, at a more been experimenting with the general level, there are a few ICT programs that explicitly focus use of mobile networks, on the rural poor and the flow of information between handheld devices and researchers and farmers. computers to relay medical e) Health
information to the Ministry of Health headquarters. Healthnet has also made significant investments in facilitating sharing of knowledge among medical professionals by establishing mailing lists.
The requirement in the area of health reinforced strongly particularly in the African regional studies is for less emphasis on costly and sophisticated projects (telesurgery, radiology, diagnosis) and more on simple and affordable, relevant and practical solutions for underserved communities. The area of traditional medicine is virtually ignored and needs to be incorporated into health information delivery systems. Simple systems may include, for example, the use of cell phone messaging systems to help HIV patients manage medication schedules as is used in South Africa for tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. A number of telehealth projects have been successfully undertaken, for example telediagnostics projects in Senegal and the northern Pacific Islands. Generally these have been small in scale and limited by capacity, commitment and funding constraints. The high cost of broadband has also constrained the types of projects that can be undertaken, particularly those requiring the transmission of high-resolution images.
14
f)
Education
The education sector has been the focus of many projects throughout the ACP regions SchoolNet initiatives proliferate, although many have not moved beyond the pilot phase and most have not moved beyond ICT literacy training and access to the internet (in limited cases). Many schoolnet projects are operating outside the existing ministries of education and few have taken the step of adopting successful pilots as a springboard for large-scale implementation through their ministries. This will make it very difficult for any schoolnet project to move beyond being merely a series of pilots and being included as a budget item in national education programs. Distance learning initiatives have received particular attention in the Caribbean and Pacific regions. Tertiary institutions have been the target of a number of donor-driven initiatives e.g. the Partnership for Higher Education in Africa, which aims to improve access as well as provide content to selected African universities and the African Virtual University. Most national e-strategies make explicit reference to programs of ICT in education and there are interesting examples of educational programs in the regions. In addition some countries specifically make reference to the development of ICT literacy e.g. Mozambique, which is developing a curriculum for ICTs for teachers, to be followed by implementation in secondary schools. Education at the tertiary level is a particular challenge in the Pacific where islands are widely dispersed. The University of the South Pacific (USP) has established USPNet, a dedicated VSAT telecommunications network funded by the Governments of Japan, New Zealand and Australia, together with the 12 USP member countries. USPnet enables direct satellite links between the three country campuses of USP and nine USP centers in the remaining member countries.
The EDUCONS Project (Suriname) EDUCONS, an educational network, was started in 2003 as a partnership between the private sector, government and education. It has set up a network of 22 Knowledge Centres in schools and community centres throughout the country. It has: trained more than 20000 students, teachers and government workers in the use of ICTs; established STUDINET, an online campus offering courses in education; and developed educational material for the agricultural sector in collaboration with the Minister of Agriculture.
The impact of ICT education on job creation in the region has not yet been investigated, but interviews and observation show that the psychological influence of ICTs on young people is overwhelming, with the emergence of numerous private sector institutions in countries such as Kenya, South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania and Mauritius. g) Enterprise Development
E-commerce and the use of ICTs in enterprises has been low, largely due to the costs of IT equipment and limited access by small enterprises to appropriate ICT training. The impacts of zero tariffs on equipment and software in some countries, e.g. Uganda, has resulted in increased computer use and understanding of software to support business practices. Few ACP countries are as yet signatories to the Declaration on Trade in Information Technology Products (ITA).25 Several countries report the establishment of incubator centers to promote small business, for example Jamaica and Mozambique. Others such as Uganda and Kenya are planning such centers. All include the promotion of ICT businesses within the ambit of the incubators. Incubators are also seen as a mechanism to retain scarce ICT skills in the country, a particular problem in the Caribbean.
25
http://www.wto.int/english/tratop_e/inftec_e/inftec_e.htm
15
Some countries have targeted the development of SMMEs across various sectors but also specifically within the ICT sector. Both South Africa and Mozambique are examples. But many countries have included ambitious ICT sector components their ICT strategies without taking account the limitations of infrastructure, banking and trade facilities and market size. The lack of suitable financing often limits the abilities of SMMEs to undertake new developments. h) Human Capacity
Wikyo Akalas Online Business (Kenya) The Wikyo Akala Project uses discarded rubber tires to make sandals, providing new job opportunities for the more than 500 000 inhabitants of Korogocho, a shantytown outside Nairobi. The key component to the Wikyo Akala Project is its Ecosandals.com Web portal, which has proved to be widely popular throughout Africa and abroad. As a sustainable and community-based project it engages the youth of Korogocho in productive income generating activities while fostering the recycling of environmental waste.
in of
Capacity deficiencies in ICTs range from lack of understanding of the strategic value of ICTs among decision makers in the public and private sector, to a lack of critical mass of those with technical and project management skills. The lack of human resources, particularly those with a deep knowledge of ICTs, was frequently cited as a major limiting factor in delivering on project objectives. This includes ICT literacy education in schools (and among teachers), universities and the work force; support for new and planned distance learning and e-learning initiatives; and strengthening the ICT knowledge base in governments, particularly in the areas of health, agriculture and education. The lack of project management and implementation skills has resulted in an inability to deliver on policies and strategies that have not taken into account the limited skills pool. The ACP countries are scattered with projects that have been unable to deliver, resulting in unspent donor and government funding, and little to show. Governments have found it difficult to retain skilled ICT professionals in the face of competition from the private sector. This has implications for successful implementation of e-government projects. i) Empowerment of Women
Although a number of very effective internet-based womens networks function in Africa there is still a concern at the lack of broad-based initiatives aimed at the empowerment of women, and the absence of gender dimensions from policy, planning and decision-making. This is much less of a concern in the Caribbean where women traditionally play a stronger leadership role although there is not much evidence there either that women are appropriating ICTs to their own ends. The critical role of women in poverty reduction is not taken as a point of departure in the design of ICT programs anywhere in the countries surveyed. Women are rarely targeted for special programs of ICT training or offered small business opportunities, for example on the Grameen model, although MTN in Uganda has recently introduced this model and appears to be having success with it. j) Links with Regional ICT Programs and Proposals
In Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific work is underway to build regional frameworks to support the development of an ICT sector and the expansion of the use of ICT tools through a mix of activities. These are aimed usually at the harmonization of regulations and standards and by increasing the market size for ICT products and services. Frameworks are at different stages of development and it is not always clear how quickly they can be put in place.
16
The Caribbean Information Society Program developed through an EC feasibility study is at the proposal stage it reflects an economic perspective but addresses sectoral planning and capacity building - as does this present study - which takes the MDGs and poverty reduction as its main starting point but also includes proposals related to ICT business activity. These two programs are likely to be mutually supporting. COMESA is the location of a regional program for East Africa the development of which was also requested by the EU. This program focuses on strengthening the various components of the ICT sector and building its capability to work effectively with governments and the broader population to design and deliver policy reform to extend infrastructure and reduce costs. As it moves forward it will facilitate the sectoral initiatives that will be supported through the EU ACP program. A similar program is housed within SADC but because of its very limited capacity it has difficulty analyzing and securing approval for program and project proposals. In the Pacific, ePacifika is a UNDP/Government of Japan project supporting the development of national ICT strategies in 14 countries of the region. An ITU project is supporting reform of telecommunications legislation in most countries. A regional Pacific Islands ICT Policy and Plan was developed by the Council of Regional Organizations of the Pacific ICT Working Group and endorsed in the 2002 Pacific Forum Communications meeting. These initiatives need to be recognized in the projects proposed for funding under the EU ACP ICT program particularly those that include components aimed at the integration of ICT plans within national Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers or national development plans. The original intention of the ACP ICT program was to provide additional support for program activities alongside the existing and planned regional and national programs. The program was intentionally designed not to focus on regional initiatives but rather on ACP-wide activities that would enhance ongoing projects and programs. Regional programs did not emerge prominently in the interviews and generally these appeared to be seen as separate and even disjointed in some cases from national activities. This is an area of concern that could be addressed through the strategies developed within the proposed program which should identify regional linkages. Annexes 4 6 include references to regional activities, although minimally so.
4.
Statement of the Problem
There is no question that there are many positive ICT experiences in many development contexts. There are many connected schools, many teachers who are exploring new pedagogical approaches and an increasing number of information services connecting health professionals. However, these experiences tend still to be relatively isolated and the results anecdotal with few examples in the rural sector. While the various analyses of ICT and development experience highlighted earlier in this report have certainly increased understanding of how to relate ICT to good development practice there is a need for more learning about how to integrate good ICT practice within large-scale national programs to improve the delivery of agricultural skills and capacity, health and education services. Because successful experiences have not been taken to scale, they have not managed to address the needs of the large rural population in developing countries. This is at the root of the sense that ICTs have not delivered their promise. The research undertaken by the consulting team has identified a number of common challenges (which are sometimes also opportunities) that seem to face a wide range of ICT initiatives. These are discussed in more detail in 4.1 below. They lead to the conclusion (sketched in 4.2) that the EU can maximize its contribution to ICTs 17
for development in ACP countries by building closer links between national and sectoral development planning and ICT activity along a multiplicity of dimensions.
4.1
a)
Challenges
The skilled resource pool is very limited
Lack of both human and institutional capacity is widely acknowledged to be both a cause and a symptom of poverty. It constrains development in all sectors, including ICTs. Building human resource capacity cannot be achieved in three to five year cycles but has to be viewed as a long-term objective that is likely to span the project lifetime of more than one typical donor funding cycle. The need for a generational vision within countries, one that views capacity building over a 10 20 year cycle is far more likely to see positive results. Not enough attention is paid to growing a new generation of leaders, widening the circle of individuals and institutions involved in ICT, and deepening the knowledge of existing ICT experts through a variety of learning, mentoring and internship arrangements. One of the challenges of the new program will be to develop an expanded pool of human ICT resources, drawn from other sectors as well as from the ICT sector, who from within those sectors can achieve the required objectives of mainstreaming ICTs. Developing sectoral leadership with a solid knowledge of ICTs and their benefits, will result in better local ownership of programs widely recognized to be a key indicator of success. b) The lack of absorptive capacity in developing countries
The counterpart to limited capacity is the difficulty of absorbing additional resources for ICT programming. The expansion of donor activity into ICT for development and the trend towards mainstreaming of ICTs in traditional development sectors have put considerable pressure on scarce skills in countries. Both specialized ICT skills and more generic planning, project management and implementation skills are in short supply. This has created a situation in which countries have difficulty in absorbing funds that are available for the application of the new technologies. The ACP regions are scattered with projects and programs that have not delivered on their implementation objectives, and projects that are unable to spend the financial resources allocated to them. Throwing more funding at the development of ICT programs will have little effect if the human and institutional capacity to absorb new funds for ICT programs is unavailable. c) Policy does not translate well into successful implementation
The consultations undertaken for this study highlighted the growing frustration at the country level with the inability of governments to move from policy formulation to strategy implementation. This was the common cry from decision makers as well as from those working at the grassroots level. This can be partially attributed to the proportionately larger investment by donors, and national governments, on policy processes and strategy formulation versus implementation. ICT initiatives have not delivered anywhere near the expected outcomes in relation to the investments made. The most frequently cited reasons are: a. Unrealistic policies; b. The lack of emphasis on developing strategic project management skills capable of implementing such strategies; and c. Lack of micro-planning skills at the community level to ensure projects are implemented. 18
The balance of funding support needs to start tipping towards better development of implementation skills, in many ways a more difficult challenge than support for policy development. d) The pilot study syndrome lack of macro-systemic approaches
The review of ICT initiatives in ACP countries reveals a large number of ongoing and completed pilot projects that were never conceived beyond the pilot project phases. Many pilots never seem to move beyond being good (or bad) pilots - the rather dismal failure of many of the telecenter pilot projects that dotted the African continent in the late 90s would be a good example. The design of many of these projects is often lacking in thought given to systemic mechanisms required for up-scaling e.g. government budgets showing line items for implementation, implementing agencies with the capacity (human, financial and management) for large-scale implementation, supporting educational institutions to provide training, etc. Planning ICT-enabled projects requires large-scale thinking and planning from inception, so that pilot projects can be conceptualized within a broader framework. e) Sectoral and ICT policies are not integrated
Telecommunications policies, ICT policies and sectoral policies lack integration, leading to inconsistencies at national levels in goal setting, prioritization, decision-making and resource allocation. With the increased mainstreaming of ICTs into sectoral implementation, the need for higher levels of policy integration becomes paramount, as does the ability to develop bigpicture thinkers who are able to streamline and prioritize implementation requirements arising from such integration. f) National economic growth priorities and social benefits are seen as conflicting priorities
Economic growth is usually concentrated in urban areas and ICT projects have tended to focus on urban and peri-urban areas, often because of the insurmountable difficulties of getting access in rural areas. This has given rise to the perception that ICTs are more likely to be a driver for economic growth rather than a tool to promote social equity. When working at the community level these tensions may be artificial and the boundaries between what constitutes economic growth and what is defined as social benefit become porous a poor farmer who is able to sell more bananas, thereby earning more income for his family, is likely to see the increased money in his pocket as a mechanism for ensuring better education and health care for his family g) Refocusing on ICTs as an enabler rather than a core activity
The push for ICTs has been driven largely by the ICT community. The excitement and potential of the new technologies has not always been shared by those in other sectors. Donor programs and projects working in the ICT area have tended to focus their attention on ICTs as the core activity, leading to a technology-push focus. The outcome has been that many of the potential applications that could benefit other sectors have not been taken up with nearly the enthusiasm one would have expected, despite evidence of major leveraging capabilities through the use of ICTs. More recently, the role of ICTs has increasingly moved towards that of being an enabler of development priorities, a means to an end, rather than the end itself. Bilateral and multilateral agencies have started moving towards positioning ICTs as a crosscutting theme in their sectoral programs. Mainstreaming of ICTs will lead toward improved service delivery in national focus areas such as health, education, HIV/AIDS, human rights, etc. Increased levels of collaboration with the ICT private sector may deliver the technology solutions required to address development priorities. 19
h)
The fast pace of change in ICTs
The pace of change within the ICT world is such that the amount of time that elapses between program design and implementation becomes a critical success factor this is particularly true with respect to programs that recommend specific hardware or software solutions in service delivery models. i) Lack of effective donor collaboration
To make effective use of scarce capacity and increase absorptive capacity donors need to take seriously the need for coordinated and mutually supporting approaches so as not to fragment the resources that are available in country. The consultations with key experts strongly reaffirm the need for the donor community to reflect on its ability to work more collaboratively on ICT projects and programs. j) Complexity in multilateral programs, including the EDF
Complex and lengthy administrative procedures and slow turn-around times of multilateral program activities, including the EDF, are problematic for dealing with projects that intend to benefit the poor and that need to deal directly with communities in alleviating poverty. The skills capacity in many ACP countries from the proposal development stage through to project implementation will struggle with the heavy administrative burden required in EU programs. k) Rural urban migration
ICTs have the potential to reduce distance and connect remote areas to global networks which can be used for communication, business, learning, problem solving, and so forth. In the north access has enabled many individuals and businesses to migrate to rural areas and carry out the same work as they did in the city. The challenge in the developing world is the reverse to use ICTs to help generate opportunities for income and employment, learning, communication and joint enterprise in rural areas to stem the tide of migration to cities that are increasingly crowded and difficult to manage. l) Giving prominence to women as key constituents
Women, in their role as manager of family resources, are key to reducing poverty. Any significant reduction in poverty through the application of ICTs must give prominence to benefits accruing to women, and must ensure their inputs into consultation and design processes. m) Creating ownership for monitoring and evaluation
There is a huge gap in most ICT programs with respect to monitoring the operations of projects/programs. Most monitoring and evaluation has been post-project and mainly for the benefit of donors. What is needed is a stronger emphasis on ongoing project evaluation from project inception to allow opportunities for adjustment as projects unfold. Because monitoring systems are not conceived as an integral part of project implementation, evaluations are carried out on the basis of limited data and information, and provide little information about project impacts. By moving the monitoring and evaluation function from the donor/development context towards national programs, there may be a stronger likelihood of ownership by national governments and other local stakeholders and a greater likelihood of creating learning opportunities through the project life cycle.
20
4.2
Opportunities for the EU Strategic choices
The proposed ACP ICT program aims to build on the EU tradition of supporting development programs in ACP countries and to complement National and Regional Indicative Programs. At the same time it will exploit the commitments of the ACP countries to design and implement meaningful ICT strategies to meet their development challenges. The relatively long cycles of EDF funding offer opportunities for generational approaches to ICT programming and capacity building that offer greater chances for sustainability than the shorter cycles of many donors. By focusing on building the capacities of countries to mainstream ICTs in national planning and in the key sectors of agriculture and rural development, health and education, the ACP ICT program will enable the EU to become a more effective, development-led operator in the ICT field in ACP countries, with a significant focus on programs responding to the needs of people in rural areas, where the majority of ACP populations reside. The program aims to increase the capacity of policy makers, development professionals and academics, to recognize and promote ICT applications in health, education, agriculture and rural development that will contribute to poverty reduction. This will facilitate the delivery of National (Country Indicative Programs CIPs) and Regional Indicative Programs (RIPs) agreed through the European Development Fund and reinforce the enabling function of ICTs. By shifting ICT applications planning into the development sectors the chances for conceptualizing pilots as part of system-wide solutions will increase, decreasing the risk of stand-alone pilots with little chance of large-scale implementation. The proposed program will operate at the level of national, sectoral and subsectoral planning in combination with its focus on capacity building this will improve the record on implementation. The EU itself will benefit from enhanced coordination in the delivery of demand-oriented ICT applications in key areas of social and economic development. Through the ACP ICT program, the EU could lay the groundwork, through potential EDF 10 programming, to play a key role in enhancing co-ordination and consistency among the many different actors. While the consulting team has identified mainstreaming ICTs into key development sectors through national and sectoral planning as its program goal and capacity building as its main instrument, legitimate questions may be raised as to what the program leaves out: why it does not respond to needs for the expansion of communication infrastructure through investment in networks and policy and regulatory tools or why it does not propose actions in other development sectors. On infrastructure: The proposed program does not turn its back on infrastructure but suggests that infrastructure proposals need to be rooted in development needs; if, for example, the national poverty reduction strategy paper called for a Grameen-type micro credit program to connect rural communities through mobile telephone networks, the ACP program could respond; it could also respond to national planning to expand communications in rural schools and health centres that could meet educational and health needs; it could meet broader community needs, for example in the area of early warning and disaster management. The private sector has shown itself willing to invest in infrastructure if there is a market for its products and services and the boundaries of that market, even in the post-boom years, have been pushed further and further into poorer and more remote regions; by focusing public funds on building capacity to apply ICT to meet sectoral needs, the 21
program will expand the user base and the market, and increase the chances for local and international private sector investment; without a user base publicly funded infrastructure may well be a white elephant. The scale and scope of EU funding even under EDF 10 cannot add significantly to the availability of communications infrastructure across all the ACP regions. There would be significant risk of duplication if it sought to do so.
On policy and regulation: DFID, USAID, the World Bank, and ITU are among the organisations promoting policy and regulatory reform and related capacity-building programs; the consultant team did not believe that the EU should concentrate on issues and institutions already receiving significant support while the need for ICT capacity in the development sectors was so evident.
On the choice of development sectors: The team believes that the sectors identified are the priorities in terms of the MDGs; agriculture and rural development have been particularly neglected by the ICT community; there is relatively little investment in ICTs in the health sector and scope for many record keeping initiatives that could have a major impact on public health; while there is more activity related to ICT in schools there is still much work to be done to integrate ICTs into teaching and learning processes on a national scale; there are global development benefits to be gained from progress in these sectors and unexploited opportunities for sharing information and experiences, regionally and across regions, about the contribution of ICT. The sectors identified are major deliverers of government services and will offer opportunities for the exploration of e-government and e-commerce approaches; The focus within the sectors identified is not on discrete ICT for development projects but on capacity building in the context of strategic planning processes which lay the foundation for future investment.
On regional programs: The terms of reference of the study excluded a primarily regional focus which other EU programs offer; the program proposed here allows for activities that involve groupings of ACP countries defined by program interest rather than geography.
22
5.
5.1
Program Philosophy and Objectives

Overall Philosophy
The internet has been compared to the printing press: it is a revolutionary instrument capable of generating fundamental change in the way societies function and organize themselves. Information and communication processes do not sit on top of other activities but become integral to them and influence their future shape and direction. The internet, and the technologies that support it, was designed to fit the needs, and extend the capabilities, of individuals and institutions in northern industrialized societies. It has increasingly been adopted in urban centers in developing countries and serves to link all regions into an increasingly global economy. But if ICT tools and systems are to play a similar role outside urban communities in the south they must be designed on the basis of a thorough understanding of the processes they are to serve processes that originate in rural and often remote communities. Systems and services rooted elsewhere will either not be used or be used under duress they will constrain rather than enhance the very considerable skills that enable poor communities to survive and develop under extremely challenging circumstances. Some of the old technologies recognize this reality, particularly, for example, through community programming on radio and TV. They can play a major role in areas where connectivity is unavailable or unaffordable. In combination with connectivity they can also be effective in grounding applications of the new technologies in the real needs of rural communities so that there will be fewer examples of projects that have not met their objectives because they were designed without taking account of local reality. Schools with computers that dont work because there are no local sources of maintenance; databases that are not used because the information they contain is in an inaccessible language; telecenters that failed because they did not provide services needed by their clients are just some examples of such failed projects. The need to reflect reality is not limited to community-based projects. It is just as important to the effective design and implementation of large-scale institutional projects which attempt to introduce automated, transparent processes into public administration the management of agriculture, health, and education departments for example. In this case, bridges need to be built between ICT specialists, government administrators and sectoral specialists. The ACP ICT program proposal elaborated further in the remaining sections of this report gives weight to developing ICT planning capacity at the national and sectoral levels. Because national plans address poverty reduction and define the boundaries of sectoral activities the program will operate at the intersection of national planning and national e-strategies, and sectoral strategies.
23
5.2
Overall Program Objective and Purpose

THE PURPOSE Strengthen the capacity of development initiatives to reduce poverty and support achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
THE GOAL Mainstream ICTs into national and sectoral policy and planning (agriculture and rural development, health, education, ICT business)
OBJECTIVES To support closer integration between development planning (national and sectoral plans and Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs)) and ICT planning (e-strategies, ICT policies and telecommunications policy) To build the capacity of development actors in ACP countries to implement the integration process at national, sectoral and local development levels, and to more effectively leverage funding from EDF 10 and other bilateral and multilateral sources to carry out integrated projects and programs To strengthen the enabling environment for the ICT small business sector
THE PROGRAM APPROACH Capacity building Mainly at level of public service but processes involve stakeholders from private sector, academia and civil society; capacity building will be in the context of planning e.g. capacity building across ACP countries through structured analysis of e-strategies and national plans and the production of integrated strategies and manageable implementation plans; main target audience: officials from ministries of finance and planning and sectoral ministries; capacity building within focus sectors key decision makers exposed to ICT tools design iterative, integrated strategy
PROGRAM INSTRUMENTS Learning networks; training curricula, training materials, training tools; documentation of best practice; model applications; action research; policy analysis; indicators
24
The purpose of this program is to strengthen the capacity of development initiatives to reduce poverty and support the achievement of the MDGs. Its overall goal is the mainstreaming of ICTs in development: the effective application of ICTs within development through collaborative planning and strategy development, led by sectoral specialists and supported by the ICT community. Mainstreaming implies that the responsibility for decision-making on ICT investment is located within mainstream development sectors and the institutions responsible for national planning and poverty reduction strategies. Specifically the program will: Finance meaningful initiatives in ICT for development within the current EDF. Meaningful initiatives are those that: o Build strategies that draw on ICT applications to support development goals; build ICT understanding within the development planning community from local level up to national policy makers; and o Build sectoral understanding within the ICT community and engage ICT specialists in the search for solutions to problems within development sectors; Support closer integration between planning for development and planning for information and communications o At national level; and o At sectoral level in agriculture and rural development, health and education; and o At the level of key problem areas within sectors where ICTs are likely to have a major leverage impact farming practices, HIV/AIDS, research networking, for example; Strengthen the capacity of development actors in ACP countries to formulate strategies incorporating ICTs for proposal to EDF 10 and other funding agencies o Within the framework of national or sectoral plans or plans for community development. Strengthen the enabling environment for small ICT entrepreneurs to contribute to, and benefit from, planned ICT for development initiatives through o Identifying and addressing policy barriers o Creating increased opportunities for growth of small ICT business.
5.3
Target Beneficiaries
The long-term beneficiaries are the poor communities who will benefit from more integrated policies and more relevant ICT applications and services originating in businesses as well as the public sector. To make that happen will require programs targeted at a range of policy makers, program implementers, practitioners and community leaders in traditional development sectors and their colleagues with ICT expertise. The program assumes that beneficiaries at all levels will be found in both governmental and non-governmental stakeholders. The component of the program aimed at improving the policy climate for small ICT businesses will benefit small business people seeking opportunities in the ICT sector and their clients. Within governments, particular Ministries that are likely to be targeted will include: Planning and Finance for Component 1; Ministries of Agriculture, Rural Development, Education and Health for Component 2; and Component 3 will involve close interaction with the Ministry responsible for Industry and Trade.
25
5.4
Outputs and Outcomes of the Program
At the level of the ACP countries: Active international networks (decision-makers, planners, sectoral and ICT specialists, academics) exchanging information and good practice on capacity-building and mainstreaming;
Specific outputs for national development policy, agriculture, health and education are: PRSPs that capture the enabling features of ICTs and can serve as models for other countries and that can be funded by EDF 10; Sectoral development strategies that establish ICT priorities on the basis of sectoral demand, serve as models for other countries and are ready for funding by EDF 10; An increased number of sectoral specialists capable of leading projects and programs that apply ICT to strategic goals and application needs in the sectors; An increased number of ICT specialists working within health, educational and agricultural government departments and services at all levels, as well as in civil society organizations; Increased involvement of local level actors and women in the design of, and decisionmaking with respect to, ICTs for development; Networks of sectoral specialists addressing ICT issues and influencing policy involving all stakeholders from local to national level.
For small ICT business, results will include: Identification of policy issues constraining small ICT business and strategies for overcoming them through policy change; The growth of the small ICT business sector to provide solutions to ICT problems identified through the integration of ICTs into sectoral planning.
The desired program outcome is sustainable capacity for ICT decision-making in national and sectoral policy and planning communities.
5.5

Assumptions and Risks

Willingness of sector specialists to enter into dialogue with the ICT specialists and vice versa to find common ground, language and vision; Ability to engage local level leaders in dialogue to assess the potential of ICTs in meeting local and sectoral needs; Capacity building keeps pace with the inflow of new funds for projects; Funding cycles keep pace with the speed of technological change; Political climate in project countries is conducive to broad-based, bottom-up and topdown involvement; Capacity building will translate to meaningful actions in mainstreaming ICTs in development, and particularly into the PRSPs and the EDF 10 program activities; Policy makers will buy into the micro-systemic approach to ICTs and implementation; Women at various levels are involved in the design, planning and implementation of the project; Mainstreaming ICTs in all key areas identified in PRSPs will be addressed in the medium and long term; 26
Regional experience sharing between countries and among a set of countries in the ACP regions will be achieved.
6.
Program Components
The program objectives need to be achieved through an efficient and cost-effective management and delivery chain, ending with specific project activities that engage directly with policymakers, planners, managers and implementing partners at national and local levels in ACP states. The program activities need to enhance the ability of beneficiaries to address the development needs of the poor (as expressed in the MDGs and in the Commissions Communications on Development Policy and on ICTs and Development). Mainstreaming implies shifting the main locus of decision-making on ICT investment from the ICT sector to mainstream development actors. To meet the overall goal of mainstreaming, three program components are proposed:
Mainstreaming ICTs into National and Sectoral Planning
Component1. Mainstreaming ICTs into National Planning and PRSPS
Component 2. Component 3. Mainstreaming ICTs into Sectoral Planning Supporting ICT Small Business
The program as a whole will be made up of individual projects within the three components. However, within each component and across them - important synergies will arise, and the extent to which project selection enables these synergies to be realized will be an important measure of the programs success. Program component 1 will support integration at the national level and an ACP-wide knowledge base and information-sharing network on the integration of e-strategies into national planning. It will be the vehicle through which the program as a whole makes a coherent contribution to development within each target sector, rather than being a collection of unrelated individual projects, and it will be a priority for the management agent to ensure that this objective is achieved. Component 1: National Planning and National Poverty Reduction Strategies This component will attempt to assess the state of the art within ACP countries with respect to the links between national development planning (including national poverty reduction strategies) and national e-strategies. It will examine the extent to which planning and financial decision-making communities (within local as well as national government) are equipped to take advantage of the benefits of ICTs to further development ends. It will document experience and establish mechanisms for sharing information and good practice and will 27
identify promising strategies to address the ICT capacity deficit within planning and finance decision-making communities. Objectives To establish an ACP-wide information sharing and learning network (or set of networks) on the integration of ICTs into national planning and relevant capacity building strategies and approaches; To undertake research and analysis to support mechanisms for: a) the integration of ICTs into national development planning; and b) the integration of national development strategies into planning for the ICT sector; and To expand understanding within planning and financial decision-making communities throughout ACP countries of the value of ICT strategies and tools.
Component 2: Sectoral Strategies: Agriculture and Rural Development; Education, Health The overall objective of this component is to integrate ICTs into national and local sectoral development through demand-driven interventions. Specific capacity building initiatives will be undertaken in the three sectoral focus areas agriculture and rural development; education; and health and will be defined by sectoral actors. Targeted efforts will focus on developing a new breed of development professionals capable of leading projects and programs incorporating ICT applications. Information sharing and learning networks will be created to support and grow these professionals. Agriculture and Rural Development The regional studies indicated that agriculture is a relatively neglected sector from an ICT perspective although there are many relevant tools for the management of agriculture, forests and fisheries and the marketing of their products. Many of the countries in the ACP regions are vulnerable to natural disasters exacerbated by changing weather patterns. ICTs can help map and build understanding at both national and local levels - of trends, for example, in deforestation and soil quality that leave countries particularly vulnerable to natural disasters. In addition, robust communications networks and services can mitigate their consequences. Rural applications of ICT help farmers to market products at the best possible price through the provision of information, services and tools that enhance their negotiating position. They may also increase options for local income generation.. Education Educators and those managing education systems have long explored ways in which technology can help open up more effective and imaginative learning approaches. The internet is only the latest of a long line of technologies which has included radio, television, video and audio recordings and computer generated graphics and presentations. Educational leaders and practitioners in both the industrialized and the developing world have been attracted by the power of the internet to expand learning horizons, particularly at the secondary and tertiary levels at least in environments where schools and universities have access to electricity and connectivity. Educators also recognize that ICT skills are an increasingly important requirement in many jobs: current and future generations of school age children in the developing world will be at a disadvantage if their schools cannot provide basic ICT training.
28
School networking projects at the secondary level are underway in many ACP countries but they are not generally embedded in the programs of educational ministries. Distance learning techniques are used to link the campuses of the University of the West Indies and the University of the South Pacific it is a particularly important tool in the Pacific because of the vast distances separating the Pacific Islands. The potential of ICTs in education is vast but so are the legitimate competing demands for investment in the sector; understanding what the technologies can contribute in realistic terms is a task for educational practitioners and administrators and perhaps also for students. The program will support initiatives that examine and explore ways to introduce educational planners and administrators to the potential of ICT to expand the geographic and conceptual boundaries of education. Health ICT initiatives in the health sector as has been demonstrated through the regional studies particularly in Africa are often linked to internationally funded hospitals and research centres which are located for the most part in urban centres. Health applications of ICT have not tended to produce models intended for wide popular use and for replication throughout the health system, as is the case, for example, in intent if not in reality, with the networked school model in education. There is no similar model for improving the delivery of health care through the networks of rural clinics which are at the front line of health care delivery. Applications have tended to test sophisticated diagnostic tools and applications more than simple tools for helping health practitioners perform their jobs more effectively in the rural clinics that are the source of health care for the majority of most ACP country populations. While there have been experiments with sophisticated tools for remote diagnosis in poor countries these have been difficult to sustain because of high connectivity costs and problems of maintenance. Within rural health care circles there tends to be more interest in communications (telephones and e-mail) for the exchange of information and advice than on telemedicine based on more sophisticated technologies that are difficult to maintain and of use to only a handful of highly trained professionals. The program will support initiatives that build the capacity of health practitioners to identify their information and communication needs and articulate them in ICT terms in public health strategies. Specific Sectoral Objectives Agriculture and Rural Development To integrate ICTs into national or local or district-level agricultural and rural development initiatives through demand-driven interventions to build capacity for policy, planning and implementation; To make a realistic assessment of the potential of ICTs to enhance achievement of development objectives and to design and implement appropriate agricultural and rural development projects and programs based on this assessment; To develop an increased number of agricultural and rural development specialists capable of leading projects and programs incorporating ICT applications; To create networks of agricultural and rural development specialists addressing ICT issues and influencing policy involving all stakeholders from local to national and regional levels. Education To integrate ICTs into education policies and strategies and to ensure synergies between these and other policies e.g. ICT policies, e-strategies;
29
To develop a critical mass of education professionals able to bring ICT skills and perspectives into policy planning and implementation; To assess the potential of ICTs to enhance achievement of development objectives and to design and implement appropriate educational development projects and programs based on this assessment; To create new networks of education professionals who interact with ICT professionals to promote the development of demand-driven ICT solutions;
Health To integrate ICTs into national health development initiatives through demand-driven interventions; To develop an increased number of health professionals and practitioners capable of leading projects and programs incorporating ICT applications, from strategic to microproject levels; To assess the potential of ICTs in achieving health development objectives and to design and implement appropriate projects and programs based on this assessment; To create networks of health specialists addressing ICT issues and influencing policy, involving all stakeholders from local to national and regional levels. Component 3: The ICT Small Business Sector The development of the small ICT business sector is an integral part of the development of sectoral strategies incorporating ICTs. There needs to be a clear policy and strategy focus to ensure that small ICT entrepreneurs are involved in the development, planning and ultimate implementation of ICT projects within the other two components. As deeper awareness is raised within sectors, so the demand for ICT services should increase. Through active targeting of the ICT small business sector, opportunities for new jobs will be created alongside development initiatives. This will require an active and supportive role from government in creating the necessary policies to ensure that small (local) business is favored in any ensuing ICT implementation projects. The ACP ICT program will actively encourage the development of new economic opportunities alongside those that will create social benefit. This approach will also encourage the retention of ICT skills in rural areas through the creation of new possibilities for the small ICT business. This component of the program is strongly linked to Components 1 and 2. The mainstreaming of ICTs into sectoral development will depend in large part on the ability of local entrepreneurs to identify and exploit opportunities to develop ICT-based products and services to respond to needs in the agriculture, education and health sectors. The program will support initiatives that help bureaucrats understand the importance of reducing barriers to entrepreneurial development in the ICT sector. Objectives To review the existing policy environment, through research and analysis, to determine the areas where blockages exist that inhibit the growth of the ICT small business sector; To develop mechanisms for removing policy obstacles that inhibit ICT entrepreneurs from growing their businesses; To stimulate dialogue among the ICT sector, government, and the health, education and agriculture sectors to develop new networks and partnerships; To create opportunities for the ICT small business sector in the areas of health, education and agriculture through various means such as pilot projects, the establishment of incubator centers, the development of new technologies to address the needs emerging from health, education and agriculture / rural development. 30
7.
Program Activities: the Capacity Building Approach
The capacity to understand ICTs, and engage with key ICT players, is limited both within national planning communities and within the sectors identified as priorities. Likewise the ability of key ICT players to understand mainstream development objectives and engage with key sectoral players is limited. Capacity building has therefore been identified as the main program instrument that will be used to achieve the objectives identified in Section 6 for the three program components. Within each of the three components, funds will be made available and proposals sought for the implementation of capacity building activities aimed at mainstreaming ICTs into development planning and decision-making. Where feasible the outcome of the capacity building activity will be plans that can be fed into national, sectoral or local decision-making processes and then proposed for funding to EDF 10 and/or other appropriate sources. These plans could include proposals to stimulate small ICT business. Main beneficiaries of the capacity building programs will be public servants at national and local levels but since the context for capacity building will be planning processes, private sector and civil society actors will also be involved. Capacity building programs can be single or multi-country. Demand should originate with local institutions or groups of such institutions from different countries. The capacity building programs proposed for funding may incorporate research components which help governments document ICT processes and measure their impact on poverty, education and health. They may also include formal processes for incorporating ICT applications and systems within professional education programs in the agriculture, health and education sectors. Alliances of public service commissions and regional universities to expand knowledge and training on the ICT for development link can also be a promising avenue for exploration. Capacity building needs to focus on:
Negotiating skills so that all players (from community leadership upwards) can contribute equally to the dialogues; understanding the information elements and information intensity of the activities and processes within the relevant sectors; Strategic ICT Skills - Understanding of the types, benefits and impacts of various ICTs and ICT applications; Establishing, maintaining and actively using learning networks involving national, sectoral and ICT players, and academic institutions supporting national and sectoral planning activities; Integrated planning skills so that decision makers can develop implementable and realistic plans incorporating ICTs into development initiatives; Project management skills to improve the level of design, planning and implementation of programs and projects which will incorporate ICTs. This should particularly emphasize skills required to manage and implement large-scale projects.
Actions
Identification of target groups (national planners, academics, leaders in health, agriculture, education, and ICTs) and the design of appropriate awareness raising or skills-based programs; Implementation of workshops within PRSP processes, involving players across and between various levels of decision-making, including national and local government and community leadership; 31
Incorporation of programs within public service training departments that builds increased awareness of the contribution of ICTs to strengthening management and service delivery e.g. through demonstrations, showcasing of successful projects, hands-on training, etc; Develop curriculum and training materials for use in tertiary institutions to support integrated ICT/national/sectoral planning this could take the form of formal training as well as shorter courses for decision makers; Develop mechanisms for including appropriate project management skills, from strategic to microproject levels, within ICT and sectoral training programs.
Outcomes Capacity in:

Exploiting ICT strategies to support national and sectoral development goals; ICT skills in the three key sectors and the development of a new generation of professionals able to integrate ICTs effectively into their sectoral activities; Sectoral awareness within the ICT sector to enable the identification of development application opportunities; Various project management skills from strategic to micro-planning; Tertiary institutions capable of delivering relevant training to support integrated ICT / planning; Utilizing ICT applications focused around opportunities identified by the sectors; Generic negotiating skills to level the playing field so that local and community leadership can contribute meaningfully to the dialogue on the contribution of ICTs.
8.
8.1
Program Governance and Management

Overall Mechanism
Recommended objectives for the ACP ICT program are set out in Section 5.2 above. The Program provides resources to build capacity within key development sectors - including policy makers, community leaders, and development and ICT professionals - in the search for solutions to real problems. This should have immediate impact in implementation of existing EDF 9 resources but should also have lasting impact on the capacity of both ICT and mainstream policymakers to develop more strategic future initiatives that take advantage of ICT potential in mainstream development areas including initiatives to be included in EDF 10 Country and Regional Programs and initiatives supported by other bilateral and multilateral institutions. The following sections of this report, which are elaborated in the associated financial proposal, are concerned with the mechanisms and processes required to deliver significant outcomes along these lines with the resources available for the ACP ICT program (20million over four years). Overall management of the ACP ICT Program will be undertaken on behalf of the European Commission and the ACP Secretariat by an external management agent responsible for the selection and oversight of implementing agencies and projects within the three budgetary components.
8.2
Management Mechanism
The management mechanism for the ACP ICT program must fulfill the following objectives: 32
It must provide mechanisms that will enable the efficient selection of projects and implementation agents that meet overall program objectives; It must ensure efficient and equitable allocation of funds in conformity with EU procurement rules; It must facilitate rapid disbursement of funds to implementation level; It must minimize expenditure on overheads by both management and implementing agents and maximize the value of available funds used for program activity; It must be accompanied by effective monitoring and evaluation procedures.
The following options were considered for overall program management: 1. 2. The establishment of a program management unit (PMU) within the European Commission; Outsourcing of overall program management to one or other of the following: a. One or more bilateral development agencies of EU member-states; b. One or more trust funds established in accordance with EU agreements with the United Nations and/or the World Bank; c. One or more outsourced management agents other than trust funds - whether governmental, intergovernmental, private sector or civil society - selected by competitive tender; A combination of the above.
3.
The consultant team does not believe that the establishment of a program management unit within the Commission would be the most effective way to deliver the objectives set out in Sections 5 and 6 above. Establishment of an internal PMU would require recruitment and training of new personnel, with inevitable delays in implementation of the program. Appointment of an external management agent, by contrast, would allow the project selection process to begin immediately after selection of the management agent; enable the program to benefit from the experience and established expertise and resources of the management agent selected; and facilitate ACP involvement in the management process. The consultant team also does not believe that significant benefits would arise from the outsourcing of program management by the European Union to a member-state bilateral development agency or agencies, or that this is likely to attract the interest of such agencies. The consultant team therefore recommends that overall management of the ACP ICT program should be outsourced to one external management agent. This management agent will have responsibility for the allocation of funds to implementing agents and individual projects. Recommendations and options concerning the requirements for and selection of both management agent and implementing agents/projects are discussed in Sections 8.5 and 8.6 below.
33
8.3
Management Role and Costs
The consultant team has considered the appropriate level for management costs within this program. The funds available (20 million over four years) are relatively small, both in the context of the European Development Fund and in comparison with those in other EU ICT partnerships with developing countries (such as the @LIS and Asia-IT&C programs). It is important, therefore, to keep management costs to the minimum necessary to be consistent with effective program design and management and the fulfillment of EU procurement requirements. For this reason, the consultant team recommends that the whole budget managed by the management agent should be disbursed in one tranche, through a single project selection process, at one point in time, as early as possible in the four-year program delivery period. The role of the management agent will consist primarily of: Establishing procedures for the selection of implementing agents and projects which are consistent with those described in Section 8 of this report; Managing a process for the selection of implementing agents and projects consistent with EU procurement requirements; Disbursing funds to implementing agents for project delivery; Monitoring and evaluating project and program delivery as appropriate; and Reporting on the program to appropriate bodies with the EU (the ACP Secretariat and the EDF Committee).
The consultant team therefore recommends that the budget for management agent costs should not exceed 10% of the funds available (i.e. 2million).
8.4
Allocation of Funds
The consultant team considered the following options for areas of focus for the ACP ICT program: Allocation of funds to specific regions within the ACP (such as Southern Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific); Allocation of funds to cross-regional groupings (such as small island states or countries emerging from conflict); Allocation of funds to specific stakeholder groups (such as the private sector and civil society); Allocation of funds to specific thematic areas of ICT for Development activity (such as health, education or agriculture and rural development).
The proposed ACP ICT program aims to support projects that may involve a number of countries but would not necessarily be regional in scope. Regional activities funded by the European Development Fund (EDF) in ICTs or any other development sector most logically belong within the Regional Indicative Programs (RIPs) agreed between regional organizations and the European Commission. Any regional allocation of funds within the ACP ICT program would need to be justified in relation to relevant RIPs, and to be fully consistent with them and with any regional ICT-related activity undertaken through them. Regional program planning is already underway in the ACP countries: 34
A program has been proposed within the Caribbean Regional Indicative Program which is consistent with the objectives set out in Section 5 above, i.e. which aims to build capacity in the planning, programming, design and delivery of activities that make use of ICTs for development, within and beyond the ICT sector. However, while project proposals in the Caribbean region need to be assessed in the light of this regional program, should this be approved, the consultant team does not believe this suggests that funding for the Caribbean should be separated out from the overall ACP ICT fund. Some ICT-related activities are also being undertaken within the context of African RIPs. However, these are less obviously comparable to the objectives spelt out in the ACP ICT program than is the proposed Caribbean regional program. The consultant team similarly does not believe that they offer a strong case for the allocation of the ACP ICT program on a regional basis within Africa. Some of the characteristics of the Pacific region, particularly its 'small island states' character, suggest that this region would benefit from a similar regional focus to that encompassed in the proposed Caribbean program. There is also a risk that the small scale of Pacific ACP partners may result in the region generating relatively few proposals for activity within a program covering the entire ACP group. The consultant team considered the option of allocating a small proportion of the overall ACP ICT fund specifically to the Pacific region, with the aim of either a) implementing activities already established as priorities by Pacific ACP countries, or b) financing a study comparable to that recently conducted in the Caribbean and subsequently implementing projects identified by that study. The views of the Pacific Forum Secretariat, as the EDF partner for the Pacific Regional Indicative Program, could be sought on this option, though it would be more appropriate for it to be undertaken through the Regional Indicative Program than through this ACP ICT Program.
The consultant team considered the possibility of allocating funds to cross-regional groups with particular requirements, such as small island states or countries emerging from conflict. A good case could be made for such allocations in principle, where the cross-regional groups in question have strongly distinctive characteristics and where individual countries would benefit from a cross-regional approach. The consultant team does not recommend allocating funds specifically for stakeholder groups. Although it is important to ensure that all stakeholder groups are included in projects funded through the program the consultant team believes that this is better achieved through multistakeholder activities than through projects directed at individual stakeholder groups. The consultant team recommends that the available funds should be sub-divided into three component areas, as follows: 1. 2. 3. National planning; Sectoral planning; ICT small business sector.
National planning is the mechanism which addresses broad poverty reduction and economic growth issues and allocates funds inter alia to ICT initiatives of national scope. It is important that officials responsible at this level understand both the potential and the limitations of ICT as a development tool. The components will also support information sharing and the creation of learning networks across all ACP countries. The sectors chosen as focus areas for this program agriculture and rural development, health and education - are fundamental to human development and poverty reduction, and together they represent a substantial proportion of the objectives set out in the MDGs. The health and education sectors have already been the subject of significant ICT4D initiatives, and would 35
benefit from a more integrated sectoral/ICT approach to program and project development, particularly one in which wider understanding of sectoral problems and ICT potential was shared between sectoral and ICT policymakers. Agriculture and rural development has seen much less extensive ICT4D activity, but provides income and employment to a majority of households in the majority of ACP states. Well-targeted ICT4D initiatives in this sector could therefore have a significant impact on the quality of life of many of those states' most vulnerable people and communities. Much less attention has been paid to the enabling framework for small businesses using ICTs or operating in the ICT sector, including policy and regulatory questions affecting the costs of hardware and software importation, licensing, requirements for setting up a new business, business taxes, etc. The consultant team believes that significant impact could be achieved in enhancing the capacity of policy frameworks to promote successful local small enterprise, particularly ICT-based enterprise, through projects focusing in this enabling area, and therefore recommends that this should form the fourth sectoral allocation of funds within the program. The consultant team believes that it would be advantageous to focus a smaller proportion of resources on the third component: employment generation and entrepreneurship, within the ICT sector itself, and on the development of the enabling policy and regulatory framework required for this. Much international attention, including donor funding, has been and continues to be directed towards telecommunications policy and regulation in ACP countries, mostly focused on the establishment of competitive telecommunications markets and the deployment of new technologies in telecommunications infrastructure and access. The consultant team does not believe that it would be possible to add significantly to this area of activity with the funds available for this program, and that there would be significant risk of duplication if it sought to do so. The following overall allocation of available funds is recommended as follows: Sectoral allocation National planning, including an ACP-wide information sharing mechanism Sectoral planning ICT small business sector Management agent costs Total Management costs could be distributed as follows: Budget component Management of procurement / Invitations to Tenders (10%) (EU selection of management agents) Project selection, management and administration (60%) (divided pro rata according to scale of budget for each component) Collaboration between implementing agents / set up learning networks and mechanisms for dialogue among project implementers (10%) Monitoring and Evaluation (20%) Total 36 Budget 200 000 1 200 000 200 000 400 000 2m Budget 8m 8m 2m 2m 20m
8.5
Selection of Management Agent(s)
The consultant team recommends that the single management agent should be selected primarily on the basis of its broad developmental expertise and the range of its geographical coverage within the ACP group. Any management agent will be required to demonstrate: A record of high-quality and expeditious program management; Demonstrated commitment to poverty-focused development and delivery of the MDGs; An understanding of and expertise in poverty-related development in general or, in the case of proposed sectoral management agents, of poverty-related development in the relevant sector (health, education, agriculture and rural development, ICT small business sector); Understanding, but not necessarily specialist understanding, of ICT-related issues; The capacity to extend program reach beyond national to district and local level; Proven capacity to work with diverse stakeholder groups and in a multi-stakeholder context; Expertise and experience in project selection and management; In-house monitoring and evaluation capability; and Wide geographical reach across the ACP regional groups.
Potential management agents should be assessed against these criteria, as well as in relation to their proposed management structure and costs, which should fall within the 10% budget ceiling described in Section 8.4 above. The European Commission could appoint a management agent either: 1) By establishing a trust fund with one or more United Nations or World Bank agencies; or 2) By appointing another outsourcing body, through a process of competitive tendering, to intergovernmental organizations as well as other organizations including private sector and civil society organizations; The consultant team considers the legal status of the management agent to be less important than the following three factors in determining where management responsibility should be allocated: The ability of the proposed management agent to meet the criteria set out above; The timescale within which selection of a management agent could be completed and the management agent could initiate the selection of implementing partners and projects; and The commitment of the management agent to the program focus on the integration and mainstreaming of ICTs rather than on the promotion of ICTs in development.
The balance of advantage between options 1) and 2) is narrow. Establishing a trust fund with a UN or World Bank agency may have administrative simplicity provided that the terms of any trust fund could be agreed quickly, but the range of organizations available as potential management agents would be less diverse than with option 2). The consultant team recommends a process for the selection of a management agent which would allow for selection of the best option in terms of program delivery from either category of potential management agent, i.e. either a trust fund/funds or an alternative outsourced management agent/agents
37
Irrespective of the legal status of the management agent selected, the consultant team recommends that the terms of reference should define with precision the areas and types of activity that should be eligible for selection and funding of implementing agents and projects, the requirements for ensuring program balance and synergy (between regions and different project types), and for monitoring and evaluation. These issues are discussed further below. Finally, dialogue between the ACP, the European Commission and the management agent(s) should be integral to the program management structure. The EuropeAid Cooperation Office of the European Commission will establish a panel to assist in the evaluation of proposals to act as management agent. This panel will include representation from the ACP Secretariat and external advisors with expertise in the sectoral areas covered by each budget component and in the application of ICTs in development. It will also form an advisory committee to support the work of the EuropeAid office and management agents during the duration of the Program.
8.6
Selection of Implementing Agents
The management agent will need to distribute funds to implementing agents and projects through an invitation to tender process which is consistent with EU procurement requirements. The quality and focus of this process will be crucial in determining the quality and value of the ACP ICT program as a whole. It is essential, therefore, that processes and procedures for project selection designed to meet the objectives set out in Section 5 above are built into the terms of reference issued to management agents. The consultant team considered options for the process of selecting implementing agents and projects compliant with EU requirement procurements. It is the consultant team's understanding that these must be consistent with those that would be implemented by a project management unit within the Commission or, should a trust fund act as a management agent, procedures used by the organization managing the trust fund that are judged to be consistent with EU procurement requirements. The consultant team recommends that separate tendering processes should be undertaken to identify potential implementing agents and projects within each program component. This will give greater focus to the program and to proposals submitted by potential implementing agents. It would be desirable, but not essential, for these processes to be simultaneous; it is important, however, that they should be expeditious, and therefore none should be delayed because others are not yet ready. The consultant team recommends that the management agent should invite potential implementing agents to make proposals in one or more of the proposed components. The capacity building programs in Components 1 and 2 will have mainstreaming as their goal, will be conceived within a strategic planning context and will incorporate action research and policy analysis as appropriate. Component 3, apart from its focus on building capacity to address sectoral ICT needs from a private sector perspective, will engage ministries of trade and industry on ways to eliminate obstacles to small ICT entrepreneurship. The same principles for the selection of implementing agents and projects will apply in all three budgetary components of the ACP ICT Program. Proposals may be made by individual organizations or by consortia of organizations, and will be evaluated on an equal basis. Proposals may relate to groups of countries or to single countries. Management agents and their subsidiaries are not eligible to submit proposals to implement activities. 38
8.7
Selection of Projects
The invitation to make proposals should be addressed to governments, private sector organizations, civil society organizations, academic and research institutions and other relevant bodies. Within the broad framework of: Mainstreaming that implies priority to projects initiated within the development community; and Proposals to enhance the capacity of planners, sectoral and ICT professionals and the ICT small business sector to develop more effective initiatives; Illustrative Examples of Possible Projects
ACP-wide network sharing information on tools, programs, ACP institutions and skills for capacity building on ICT application within national and sectoral planning; Alliances among public service commissions and regional universities to develop curriculum materials and programs of workshops and seminars to support learning in ACP countries on the integration of national plans and estrategies identification and implementation of best practice plans Collaboration among ministries of health, education and local authorities for the development of training materials and the establishment of planning processes to support mainstreaming of ICTs into community level rural development Curriculum development for mainstreaming of ICTs to be used in various ACP tertiary institutions (medical schools, schools of education) to build awareness of sector professionals of benefits and limitations of ICT tools Analysis of current situation with respect to the integration of national plans, poverty reduction strategies and e-strategies in ACP countries and identification of approaches to building integration capacity within planning processes; mechanism for monitoring on an ACP-wide basis and recommending appropriate capacity building approaches Analysis of sectoral strategies to develop integrated sectoral plans incorporating appropriate ICTs in support of MDGs Analysis of specific barriers in enabling environment for smallscale ICT-entrepreneurs; multicountry mechanisms established for addressing constraints Analysis of best practice sustainable business models for bringing the ICT small business sector into ICT for development initiatives
Preference should be given to: Proposals that build on existing processes and institutional activities and focus on developing future strategies; Proposals based in ACP countries and led by organizations based in ACP countries; Proposals that bring together involvement from groups of countries where synergies can be derived from such cooperation (for example, countries within a single region or countries with common characteristics such as small island states, inter-country trade, etc); Proposals that directly promote and enhance dialogue related to policy development, planning, management and implementation between mainstream development professionals and ICT expertise; Proposals that engage stakeholders from all levels of government, the private sector, academia and civil society; Proposals that will leverage learning opportunities in support of improved planning capacity; Proposals that demonstrate a high degree of responsiveness to local needs and enable local communities to participate effectively in sectoral discussions and policy development; Proposals that demonstrate understanding of and engage with a wide range of ICTs, including traditional ICTs such as broadcast radio; Proposals that encourage small ICT entrepreneurship by identifying and resolving policy blockages, and identifying sectoral opportunities; Proposals that are sensitive to the requirements of gender representation and involvement; and Proposals that demonstrate ongoing internal monitoring and evaluation activities in support of improved project implementation and learning.
39
Preference will be given to proposals where the team leadership is comprised of individuals in non-ICT sectors e.g. planning, finance, agriculture and rural development, health and education. In order to ensure reasonable scale for individual projects but also to encourage diversity and competition between different types and locations of activity, the consultant team recommends that proposals be considered that require financial resources in the range 250 000 to 1 500 000. Proposals may be made by individual organizations or by consortia of organizations, and will be evaluated on an equal basis. Proposals may relate to groups of countries or to single countries. Management agents and their subsidiaries are not eligible to submit proposals to implement activities.
8.8
Timetable for Disbursement of Funds
If the program is to have maximum value, it is important that the funds available are disbursed quickly and at the lowest management cost consistent with procurement requirements and effective program management. The consultant team has recommended that the funds available through each management agent should be disbursed through a single tranche of responses to a single tendering process, undertaken as soon as possible following selection of the management agent(s). Experience in other ICT and ICT4D programs has shown the importance of ensuring that projects are selected and implementation begun quickly if they are to fulfill program objectives. Rapid change in technology and use of ICTs can make project design obsolete over a relatively short period of time, and it is particularly important therefore that ICT projects are delivered as close as possible to the point of design. The following timetable is therefore recommended for the disbursement of funds: Overall program design: agreement on overall program design by the European Commission and the ACP Committee of Ambassadors This process should be completed by the end of March 2005. (If not, then subsequent dates below should be deferred by the period by which this process is completed later than March 2005).26 Pre-implementation phase: agreement of financial proposal. This process will be completed by the end of June 2005. Implementation stage 1: selection of management agents This process will be completed by the end of December 2005. Implementation stage 2: selection of implementing agents and projects This process will be completed by the end of June 2006. Implementation stage 3: project implementation and delivery This will take place between June 2006 and March 2009.
26
The consultant team believes that anything that can be done to shorten this cycle will increase the effectiveness of the program
40
8.9
Program Coherence
There is an obvious risk that a program made up of projects derived solely from responses to an open invitation to tender will lack coherence, coordination and balance - in terms of regional equity, stakeholder involvement and thematic structure: that it will be a collection of discrete projects, in short, rather than a program which makes coherent, structured and equitable use of the funds available. Potential synergies between projects might also be lost, as might the possibility of adding to the programs overall impact in achieving the objectives described in Section 5 above through cooperation and partnership between projects and implementing agents. Such an outcome would be sub-optimal, and management agents should seek to ensure that project selection results not only in the selection of high-quality individual projects which will have significant impact in themselves, but also in a balanced equitable distribution of available resources and in maximization of potential synergies between projects. The outcome of the project selection process should be a coherent program rather than a collection of individual projects.
9.
Monitoring and Evaluation
Evidence from research undertaken in preparation of this proposal suggests that there is a very weak information base in many of the countries covered for planning for ICT interventions at the national, sectoral or any other level. This requires strong emphasis on monitoring, evaluation and impact assessment as part of both project design and management. Evaluation is not a summative process it must be an integral part of the planning and ongoing operations of the project. The implementing agencies have to demonstrate their ability to incorporate ongoing as well as summative monitoring and evaluation into their project activities. Candidate management agents should be able to demonstrate monitoring and evaluation capabilities and will be responsible for setting the performance indicators for the sectors for which they are responsible, and the frameworks for implementing them within those sectors. Role of the Managing Agent in Monitoring and Evaluation The management agent will assume responsibility for coordinating electronic learning networks across the various project implementation agencies. This will allow for the sharing experiences, documentation and communications. It will provide an opportunity for the ACP implementing agencies to learn from each other, and to adapt their programs as a consequence; the dynamic process of learning and project adaptation will generate a significant body of knowledge around the impact of ICTs in the sectors concerned and on the lives of people living in poor, rural communities. It thus contains the potential to contribute to poverty alleviation and the MDGs. Given one management agent, it might make sense to devolve some of the responsibility for identifying impact assessment indicators and frameworks to the implementing agencies since no single agency is likely to have enough deep understanding of all sectors covered by the program and the context in which they operate. The management agent should, however, connect to the international effort led by the UN ICT Task Force to identify indicators to measure the contribution of ICTs to the achievement of the MDGs. It should also be able to connect national project implementing organisations to national and regional work on ICT indicators led, for example, by IDRCs ScanICT program.
41
The management agent will retain responsibility for coordinating the monitoring and evaluation activities of the implementing agencies and ensure that impact assessment frameworks will adequately provide the learning required within and between the ACP ICT program components. Role of the Implementing Agents in Monitoring and Evaluation The implementing agents, as part of their proposal development, will be required to incorporate an internal monitoring and evaluation framework that can be used to determine impact assessment during the lifetime of the projects for which they are responsible.
42

Final Report ACP ICT Program 20jan 2005

Enviado por

Dados do documento

Direitos autorais

Formatos disponíveis

Compartilhar este documento

Compartilhar ou incorporar documento

Opções de compartilhamento

Você considera este documento útil?

Este conteúdo é inapropriado?

Direitos autorais:

Formatos disponíveis

Final Report ACP ICT Program 20jan 2005

Enviado por

Direitos autorais:

Formatos disponíveis

Final Report: Feasibility Study for Information Society Program in ACP Countries

THE PROJECT TEAM

The Development Challenges

The Proposed ACP ICT Program

Component1. Mainstreaming ICTs into National Planning and PRSPS

ii) iii) iv)

European Commission & ACP Secretariat

Advisory Committee Management Agent

Capturing the Lessons for ICT Programs

Capturing Lessons for ICT Projects and Applications

ICTs, Economic Growth and Poverty

The EU and ICT for Development Programs

Policy and Regulatory Frameworks

Statement of the Problem

The fast pace of change in ICTs

Opportunities for the EU Strategic choices

Program Philosophy and Objectives

Overall Program Objective and Purpose

Outputs and Outcomes of the Program

Assumptions and Risks

Mainstreaming ICTs into National and Sectoral Planning

Component1. Mainstreaming ICTs into National Planning and PRSPS

Program Activities: the Capacity Building Approach

Outcomes Capacity in:

Program Governance and Management

Management Role and Costs

Selection of Management Agent(s)

Selection of Implementing Agents

Timetable for Disbursement of Funds

Monitoring and Evaluation

Você também pode gostar