Community-based networks and innovative technologies: new models to serve and empower the poor

This report looks at innovative combinations of community-driven enterprises and the new wave of wireless and related technologies.

The report concludes that these emerging options could make a significant difference to network access, delivery of services and economic and social opportunities for poorer rural communities. They can:

• drive down costs and make maximum use of community resources, enabling the emergence of new business/development models that are both more economically sustainable and more empowering than anything else available
• through a high degree of community control, significantly enhance the viability and development impact of ‘hybrid’ public/private/community networks and service solutions.

No single model of local ICT network and service development is suitable everywhere, and efforts at transplantation have had mixed results. The research suggests that community ownership works best where there is quite a high level of community institutional organisation (NGOs, CBOs etc.), strong leadership for the initiative itself, significant support in the local political context (partly to negotiate openings at other political levels), and where the demand for ICTs emerges directly from the experience of community social, economic and other needs.