Can ICTs fight poverty in Africa?

Over half of the population in Africa cannot read or write. Information needs are critical both for personal development and educational achievement. However, few practical activities supporting information and communication technologies (ICTs) to enhance such skills are in place in African schools.

A report fromthe UK Imfundo project argues for a pro-poormodel of ICTs for Development (ICT4D) which goes beyond traditional concepts ofliteracy as functional reading and writing. The InformationTechnologies and Education for the Poor in Africa (ITEPA) component ofImfundo attempts to understand the current state of practice in the use of ICTsamong very poor people in Africa (South Africa and Ghana in particular), innon-formal education and community development settings.

Most ICTs challenges are notsimply related to cost or absence of reliabletelephone and electricity networks. Rather, many ICTs for development projectsare not sensitive to demand, do not share experience and conclude when fundingends. Some ICTs literacy courses are of poor quality. Poorly managedschool programmes have curbed initial ICTs enthusiasm. Many projects failbecause of unrealistic goals imposed by donors. Measurable targets are oftenlacking, and meaningful data are not obtained to determine what a project hasachieved.

Interviews with a wide range of usersand promoters of ICTs showed that:

• ICTs are often imposed without communityinvolvement reinforcing dependency and creating elites.
• Some initiatives are set up to dump outdated,surplus and unusable equipment.
• Funds are spent prematurely to fit theartificial time frames of government and donor plans.
• Rural communities are often unrealisticallyexpected to adopt ICTs in a few months.
• Donor agencies and national governmenteducation agencies may be in conflict with each other.

South Africa is one countrywhere significant progress is being made. Interactive radio instruction iseducating rural students – using a methodology that requires learners to stopand react to questions and exercises through verbal response while the radioprogramme is on the air. The emergence of telecentres,teleboutiques and cybercafes even in poor areas indicates interest and demand.Recently, a Bridges to the Future Initiative (BFI) project has begun to createmultimedia to promote literacy and lifeskills learning among poor rural youth.Another BFI project is in the planning stages in Ghana, where the focus will be onmulti-lingual materials for teacher training.

Across Africa, reform of telecommunications isneeded to tackle the difficulties of obtaining connectivity in rural areas andallow for greater freedom to experiment with innovative solutions for ICTs.Commitment to ICTs is needed for development across a wide range of sectors,not just within government. Policy focus needs to shift away from small-scale,one-off interventions, and move towards creating sustainable programmes foradvancement. Initiatives which introducelocal-language based ICTs applications – for a range of educational, vocationaland health promotion purposes – are essential to promote an indigenous ICTssector.

The ITEPA teamsuggests the need for:

• early development of a shared vision between funders,implementers and users of ICTs projects
• wider promotion and use of open source software
• action research on how ICTs can support existinglocal information and communications flows and entrepreneurs’ ability torespond to local needs
• remembering that access is only part of the process:training is of little value when not quickly and regularly reinforced
• avoiding the temptation to fast track ‘successful’small-scale pilot projects and roll them prematurely
• higher education institutions to do more topromote staff and student ICTs literacy.

ICTs are becoming more affordable and thedigital divide is narrowing. Since 1975 the cost of sending digital datahas decreased by a factor of 10,000 and computing power per dollar invested hasincreased 10,000 times. Pro-poor approaches to ICT4D areneither quick, nor simple, nor cheap – but they are critical to realisinginternational education goals in Africa.