Beyond being ‘open for business’: monitoring the impact of telecentres

Telecentres can provide computer services and connect people on low incomes who could never afford a private connection. Some 10,000 telecentres were planned for Latin America and the Caribbean for 2003-04, to supplement the existing 5,000. But how many are still working? And what has been their impact on the communities they serve?

Most state-sponsored telecentre initiatives in Latin America and the Caribbean are primarily targeted at inhabitants of small towns in rural areas, as these areas can rarely be served on a purely commercial basis.

Not all the centres that have been established are still open, however. Within a year of opening only 72 percent of 1,281 Community Technology Centres in Argentina were still working. No one knows how many are open today. Between 1994 and 2001 Canada’s Community Access Program funded the establishment of over 8,000 telecentres, yet today very little is known about what happened to them.

As these programmes are still very young there is limited information about what is sustainable in the long term. Few programmes have sufficient monitoring and evaluation, so there is a danger that lessons will not be learned and disseminated. Since the main service provided by telecentres is communication, the rapid expansion in mobile coverage to rural areas will further slow demand and limit computer-based telecentres’ prospects for sustainability.

Telecentres should increase the welfare of their low-income target population, be relatively easy to replicate, and have good sustainability prospects. In South America noteworthy efforts to increase the impacts of telecentres have on needy people include:

• establishing telecentres with the dual purpose of serving a school and the wider community
• supporting micro and small entrepreneurs by expanding existing services
• sponsoring community information and communication technology projects
• promoting community networks to encourage social change
• sponsoring network formation through minimum subsidy schemes to encourage alliances between different sectors of society
• using community radio stations in conjunction with telecentres and internet-aided information exchange networks to reach remote rural villages.

Many telecentre experiments presently underway in Latin America and the Caribbean are generally well conceived and could be replicated regionally or wider. Unfortunately, there is little dialogue between countries so experiences are not well known. Even worse, few programmes have provision for serious independent evaluation. To build on current successes and improve telecentres’ sustainability:

• More careful professional scrutiny regarding the impact and sustainability of telecentres is needed. An open debate is needed on practical programme design and operational issues with government agencies, academia, private companies and civil society institutions.
• In urban areas with good infrastructure, promotional campaigns can encourage private telecentres.
• In rural areas and small towns, state support is critical in the initial set-up phase. In very small or remote communities a support strategy should focus on viable alternatives, such as rural radio.
• The state can encourage and nurture local partnerships that lower costs and increase the customer base.
• During consolidation, the state can provide government content and services online and continue to support consumer base expansion.

Source(s):
‘A Public Sector Support Strategy for Telecenter Development: Emerging lessons from Latin America and the Caribbean’, by Francisco J. Proenza, UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs  ICT Task Force Series 4, 2003 Full document.

Funded by: UN ICT Task Force

id21 Research Highlight: 23 November 2005

Further Information:
Francisco J. Proenza
Food and Agriculture Organisation
Viale delle Terme di Caracalla
00100 Rome
Italy

Fax: +39 06 570 53152
Contact the contributor: francisco.proenza@fao.org

Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)

United Nations Information and Communication Technologies Task Force

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'Overcoming rural India’s lack of communications infrastructure'

'Getting the poor connected – can public-private partnerships help to overcome the information divide'