Telecentres

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Telecentres

An annotated list of key on-line sources which focus on telecentres.

Access to ICTs in Rural Areas - The African Telecentre Experience

http://www.agricta.org/afagrict-l/telecentres.htm

Author(s): Mike Jensen

Date of publication: January 2000

Summary: Links to African Telecentres

Assessing Community Telecentres: Guidelines for researchers

http://www.idrc.ca/books/focus/916

Author(s): By Anne Whyte

Date of publication:July 2000

Summary: This book, forms part of a wider IDRC's Acacia Initiative. This involves working mainly with rural and disadvantaged communities in sub-Saharan Africa. These communities have generally been isolated from the technological advances

Community Multimedia Centres

http://www.unesco.org/webworld/news/pdf/telecentre-us.pdf

Summary: A UNESCO Programme addressingthe digital divide in someof the poorest communities of the developing world.

Community Technology Centers: Impact on Individual Participants and Their Communities

http://www.ctcnet.org/eval.html

Author(s): June Mark, Janet Cornebise, and Ellen Wahl Education Development Center, Inc.

Date of publication: April 1997

Summary: Community technology centres have been established in response to concern about the growing gap between those who have access to computer technology and those who do not. These centers provide people who are already socially or economically disadvantaged with opportunities to engage with a range of technologies in a community setting. The Community Technology Centers' Network (CTCNet) has played an instrumental role in starting, incubating and supporting the development of such centers with support form the National Science Foundation as well as contributions from individuals, nonprofit organizations and agencies, foundations and corporations.

Connecting People and Organizationsfor Rural Development through Pilot Multi Purpose Telecentres

http://www.unesco.org/webworld/public_domain/kothmale_docs/Philippines.ppt

Summary:A presentation on Multipurpose Community Telecenters (MCTs) in Selected Philippine Barangays

Egypt expands digital access for remote communities

http://www.undp.org/dpa/frontpagearchive/2001/july/03july01/index.html

Date of publication: July 3 2001

Summary: To capitalize on the enormous benefits that can be reaped through the use of information technology, Egypt has decided to expand a pilot digital access project in a governorate north of Cairo to all the country's 26 governorates.

Electronic community centres - a platform to bring knowledge and information technologies to the people

http://www.undp.org/info21/present/cainet/main.html

Author(s): Dr. Hans d'Orville, Director, IT for Development Programme, UNDP (http://www.undp.org/info21/program/index.html)

Date of publication: March 8 1999

Summary: Presentation from Cainet - Cairo, Egypt

El Limon On Line !

http://www.sas.cornell.edu/cresp/ecopartners/comp/net.htm

Author(s): An EcoPartners Project (http://www.sas.cornell.edu/cresp/ecopartners/)

Summary: On Saturday August 29, El Limon went on line, becoming one of the first isolated rural communities in the Dominican Republic with public Internet access. In this cutting-edge experiment , the community will use the internet to reduce rural isolation, support agricultural change and economic development, and facilitate innovative programs like this summerís Art Week. The Rural Information Technology Institute, which promises to be at the core of El Limonís development, will be designed around the communication possibilities of the internet.

All about the El Limon Project (http://www.sas.cornell.edu/cresp/ecopartners/project.htm)

Update from El Limon (http://www.sas.cornell.edu/cresp/ecopartners/updates/Update.html)

Enchanted by telecentres: A Critical look at Universal Access to Information Technologies for International Development

http://www.idrc.ca/pan/enchanted.html

Author(s): Ricardo Gómez, Patrik Hunt, Emmanuelle Lamoureux (IDRC- http://www.idrc.ca/)

Date of publication: February 16 1999

Summary: This paper examines the notion of telecentres under a critical light, suggests a tentative typology to describe the diversity of experiences emerging, and calls attention to the need for assessment of their impact on the communities they are supposed to serve.

Establishing a Public Internet Centre in Rural Areas of Mongolia

http://www.idrc.ca/telecentre/evaluation/nn/15_Est.html

Author(s):Narangerel Dandar for an international working meeting on telecentre evaluation, held at Far Hills,

Date of publication: September 1999.

Summary: The main purpose of the project is to broadcast information and deliver Internet access to rural areas.

Evaluating Telecentres within National Policies for ICTs in Developing Countries

http://www.idrc.ca/telecentre/evaluation/nn/18_Eva.html

Author(s): Roger W. Harris, for an international working meeting on telecentre evaluation, held at Far Hills, Quebec

Date of publication: September 1999

Summary: This discussion paper addresses the significance of the telecentre movement within the national policies for ICTs in developing countries. It provides two frameworks that are used to locate the telecentre concept within the wider consideration of the deployment of ICTs for national development. It is argued that telecentres are crucial for developing countries to achieve sustainable human development through their policies for ICTs. A model for evaluating the operation and the efficacy of telecentres is also suggested.

Experiments in community access to new communication and information technologies in Bogota

http://www.idrc.ca/telecentre/evaluation/nn/09_Exp.html

Author(s): Luis F. Baron, Researcher, Center for Research and Popular Education, CINEP, Bogota, Colombia. For an international working meeting on telecentre evaluation, held at Far Hills, Quebec

Date of publication: September 1999

Summary: For more than a year and a half, working-class districts in Bogota have been the subject of three community experiments with access to new information and communication technologies (ICT). These projects involve the Neighborhood Information Units (UIBs), which represent yet another form of what is known generically as telecenters. These are places where the public can gain access to information and communication technologies: they can function as experiments in rural and urban telephone service, community radio, documentation centers and public libraries, among others.

From ISAD to the African Development Forum: the expansion of interest in ICTs in Africa from 1996 to 1999

http://www.un.org/Depts/eca/adf/kate.htm

Author(s): Kate Wild, Claire Sibthorpe, IDRC, Johannesburg

Date of publication: August 25 1999

Summary: A paper fromAfrican Computing & Telecommunications Summit, Cambridge:

This presentation will review the experience of the last three years from three points of view:

The new institutional mechanisms and partnerships intended to improve the effectiveness of donor programmes in the ICT arena.

The (mainly donor-sponsored) events that have followed ISAD with the intention of focussing political attention on the ICT and development connection.

The types of ICT projects that are emerging as priorities for support.

Gender analysis of telecentre evaluation methodology

http://www.idrc.ca/telecentre/evaluation/nn/19_Gen.html

Author(s):Rebecca Holmes for an international working meeting on telecentre evaluation, held at Far Hills, Quebec from September 28-30, 1999.

Summary: This document sets out to explore the issue of how gender can be meaningfully integrated into telecentre evaluation methodologies. It is animated by African experience and specifically by South African experience. A lack of time and resources has limited the scope of this document and it is recommended that more of both are put into further investigations of these issues. Specifically in terms of primary research with women and men working as telecentre operators and managers, with women and men in communities serviced by telecentres and an investigation of similarities of these experiences across countries and continents in the developing world.

Harnessing ICT for cities in Asia and the Pacific

http://www.undp.org/dpa/frontpagearchive/2001/june/08june01/index.html

Date of publication: June 8 2001

Summary: Plans are taking shape for a UNDP partnership with the city of Shanghai and information and communications technology (ICT) learning centres across the Asia-Pacific region to set up a training network for city governments and the local private sector.

IICD Project models: Telecentres

http://www.iicd.org/models/telecentres/index.html

Summary: This in practice plan - based on research and IICD's Community Telecentres projects- illustrates the possible answers to the guidelines by providing information on the initial set-up, the market, the technical and the financial plan in three different models.

Improving Access to Telecommunications in South Africa

http://www.idrc.ca/reports/read_article_english.cfm?article_num=267

Author(s): Alan Martin

Date of publication:August 21 1998

Summary: Yilani's village of Ndevana in Eastern Cape Province, South Africa had no public telephone. To call someone, Yilani would take a 20 minute taxi ride to King William's Town. There, he could use a payphone - and hope the person he wished to reach was available. For Yilani, a student taking correspondence courses at a technical college in Johannesburg, contacting his lecturer to discuss difficulties with an assignment could turn into a day-long outing.

Learning Lessons from Telecentres in Latin America and the Caribbean

http://www.idrc.ca/telecentre/evaluation/nn/16_Lea.html

Author(s): Karin Delgadillo, Raúl Borja, ChasquiNet Foundation, Quito, ECUADOR

Summary: This document summarizes contributions on the nature and development status of telecentres in Latin America, gathered through an online consultation process that was organized by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and facilitated by ChasquiNet, Ecuador, in July 1999, and that involved telecentre operators and researchers in new information and communication technologies. This information is expected to serve as the basis for future detailed research on the challenges and opportunities facing telecentres in Latin America and the Caribbean, and on their impact on social and economic development.

Networking/telecentres

http://www.sn.apc.org/ecis/wshop6.htm

Author(s): Johan Emberg, ITU (http://www.itu.int/ITU-D-UniversalAccess)

Summary: The telecommunication infrastructure in developing countries is concentrated to the larger cities and in many countries virtually non-existent in rural and remote areas. As regards access to information and data networks, notably the Internet, the discrepancies between the rich and the poor and between urban and rural areas are even more accentuated. The gap between those who have access to these vital resources and those who have not is widening, also in many 'rich' countries. Even in advanced countries there are large pockets of socially or geographically isolated population strata which either don't have access to adequate telecommunications or can't afford modem information and communication facilities or just lack the required skills.

On Estimating Telecentre Demand in Mexican Rural Municipios

http://www.idrc.ca/telecentre/evaluation/nn/26_OnE.html

Author(s): Scott S. Robinson (http://www.idrc.ca/telecentre/evaluation/nn/BIOS/RobinsonS_26.HTML) Professor, Departamento de Antropología, Universidad Metropolitana - Iztapalapa, MEXICO

Date of publication: September 28 1999

Summary: The challenge of creating a set of self-sustaining Telecentres in five contiguous rural municipios in Mexico necessarily involves a model for estimating demand for this model of ICT delivery. Given the socio-cultural and political conditions in these small towns and villages a series of issues come to the fore: How do we conceive demand for a service few are even aware of? How does the technology fit or conflict with traditional cultural norms and preferences? Who belong to the different local factions with potential interest in the service? What are the different political dimensions of this problem? What are the ethical responsibilities of the distinct actors involved? These are some of the questions to be addressed synthetically in this short paper.

"Partnerships and participation in telecommunications for rural development: exploring what works and why"

http://www.itu.int/ITU-D-UniversalAccess/johan/papers/guelph.doc

Author(s): Johan Ernberg, ITU (http://www.itu.int/ITU-D-UniversalAccess)

Date of publication: October 26 1998

Summary: From a Conference at the University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada:

The overall objective of the Programme is to develop best-practice, sustainable and replicable models of ways to provide access to modern telecommunication facilities and information services, particularly to people in rural and remote areas. To this end pilot projects are implemented in a number of countries in different regions, at different stages of development and with different geographical, social, economic and cultural conditions.

RadioNet: Community Radio, Telecentres and Local Development

http://www.idrc.ca/telecentre/evaluation/nn/23_Rad.html

Author(s):Emmanuelle Lamoureux, for an international working meeting on telecentre evaluation, held at Far Hills, Quebec

Date of publication: September 28 1999

Summary: With the wave of digital conversion and the massive inroads made by the Internet in the early 1990s, the Latin-American community radio movement, like NGOs and other sectors of society, began to take a closer look at new information and communication technologies (NITCs). Unlike other sectors, community radio has a technical and human infrastructure that makes it possible to screen, process, and rebroadcast information found on the Internet. In other words, it can bring the benefits of NITCs to a huge audience that would otherwise not necessarily have access to them, for economic, technological, linguistic, cultural and other reasons.

Rural South African women join information age through telecentres

http://www.lolapress.org/elec1/artenglish/step_e.htm

Author(s): Kgatliso Pleasant Masethlha,Assistant Project Co-ordinator at Vodacom Centre (Wits University, Johannesburg) and Stephanie Gingras, member of NGO ALTERNATIVES, based in Montreal (http://www.alternatives.ca)

Summary: South African women are slowly playing a leading role in the evolution and sharing of new communication technologies. Their involvement has become more apparent in the establishment and running of community based "telecentres".

Socialise the modem of production - The role of telecentres in development

http://www.idrc.ca/telecentre/evaluation/nn/10_Soc.html

Author(s): Peter Benjamin & Mona Dahms for an international working meeting on telecentre evaluation, held at Far Hills, Quebec

Date of publication: September 28, 1999.

Summary: This article questions the role of telecentres as a vehicle for development in countries of the South with particular reference to South Africa. The organisation of the emerging Information Age is, in the words of Manuel Castells, 'Global Informational Capitalism'. There are forces that increase the power of a global elite while large numbers of people are excluded. This 'digital divide' puts at further disadvantage many people in poor areas in rich Northern countries and a majority of people living in African countries.

Telecentre Evaluation Methods and Instruments: What works and why?

http://www.idrc.ca/telecentre/evaluation/nn/28_Tel.html

Author(s): George Scharffenberger for an international working meeting on telecentre evaluation, held at Far Hills, Quebec from September 28-30, 1999.

Summary: This paper summarizes the principal elements of that methodology and the lessons learned during the process of baseline data collection in Mali and Uganda. It incorporates lessons learned by Pact in similar information needs assessments/communications mapping exercises over the past year in Indonesia, Bangladesh and Mongolia.

Telecentre Research Framework for Acacia

http://www.idrc.ca/acacia/04066/index.html

Author(s): Anne Whyte, Mestor Associates, Canada

Date of publication: June 1998

Summary: The Acacia Initiative seeks to empower communities in sub-Saharan Africa to improve their own social and economic development, through the particular entry point of improved access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Acacia is designed as an integrated program of demonstration projects and research to address the four linked areas of national policy, telecommunications infrastructure, modern ICT technology, and access to information for different applications such as education and health.

Telecentres Excite Ugandans - But What About The Poor?

http://www.panos.org.uk/news/3aug98.htm

Author(s): Aida Opoku-Mensah

Date of publication: Aug. 4, 1998

Summary: The Acacia Initiative is aimed at widening access to information and communications technologies in Africa, in the form 'telecentres' that provide public access to telephone, fax, electronic mail and - most tantalisingly - the Internet.

But enticing as the project is, it raises questions as to whether poor people in developing countries, particularly those living outside city centres, ought to be charged for using information and communications services that are being increasingly viewed as a key strategy in combating poverty.

Telecentres, IT and rural development: possibilities in the Information Age

http://www.csu.edu.au/research/crsr/sai/saipaper.htm#top

Author(s): Perry Share

Date of publication: May 11 1996

Summary: Originally presented to the Annual Conference of the Sociological Association of Ireland, Dundalk:

This paper is part of an attempt to sociologically understand the telecentre experience to date. It outlines the extent of telecentre development in a number of countries; it examines the range of telecentre types and activities; suggests some explanations for the emergence of telecentres at this particular time; and places the development of rural telecentres within a discussion of the direction of rural development policy in the advanced economies. Finally it raises some questions for the future.

The Internet Comes to Rural India

http://www.idrc.ca/reports/read_article_english.cfm?article_num=552

Author(s): Keane Shore

Date of publication: November 5 1999

Summary: A pilot project is bringing the Information Age to rural Indian villagers in the form of communal telephone and Internet access. Based on the experiences to date of a half-dozen local 'information shops' in southern India, another 12 villages have requested their own information shops, if funding can be found.

The Positive Business Case for Rural Telecommunications

http://www.devmedia.org/documents/Barr%2Ehtm

Author(s): David F. Barr, from SR Telecom Inc., Canada

Summary: The greatest challenge for developing countries is to ensure that telecommunication services, and the resulting benefits of economic, social and cultural development which these services promote, are extended effectively and efficiently throughout the rural and remote areas -- those areas which in the past have often been disadvantaged, with few or no telecommunication services.

The Status of African Information Infrastructure

http://www.un.org/Depts/eca/adf/codipap1.htm

Author(s): Mike Jensen

Date of publication: June 28 1999

Summary: Paper from First Meeting of the Committee on Development Information (CODI), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia:

Communications and information infrastructure has improved dramatically in Africa over the past 5 years. The Internet, satellite television, cellular phones and itemised billing are now widespread on the continent. But what might have been unthinkable a decade ago is still a dream for the majority of Africans those who do not live in the capital cities and are not part of the elite.

Acacia Telecentre Page

http://www.idrc.ca/acacia/telecentre.html

The Acacia Telecentre Page contains a brief description on universal access, the role of telecentres, as well as other resources related to telecentres.