Open Society Foundation of Southern (OSISA) has been involved in Information Communication Technologies for development.  The foundation has recently played a role in supporting the first Digital Citizen Indaba on blogging prior Highway Africa conference in Grahamstown, South Africa. Programme Manager, Ms Thandi Mbvundula shares some of the challenges and opportunities of Web 2.0 in Africa.

Interviewee: Programme Manager, Ms Thandi Mbvundula

Interviewer: Lillian Malete, Nkgowa Media

English

Agriculture & Nouvelles Technologies : En quoi le web 2.0 peut-il devenir un facteur de développement ?
Giacomo Rambaldi : Internet donne la possibilité à des personnes qui ont accès au Net, même isolées géographiquement, d’obtenir une grande audience, d’être en contact avec des marchés lointains etc. Si on dispose de la connexion, de l’énergie et du temps à dédier à cette activité, on peut s’en servir comme « catalyseur de changement », avec très peu de ressources. Quand on parle du Sud, on évoque des intermédiaires technologiques. Il y a des ONG, des structures ayant accès à Internet et qui peuvent faire l’interface entre, par exemple, des producteurs, des organisations paysannes ou des groupements de femmes et le grand public qui est sur Internet. A l’heure actuelle, nous sommes dans une phase intermédiaire, mais dans une dizaine d’années ou moins, quand l’accès au Net sera meilleur dans pays du Sud, des habitants pourront avoir leur propre espace. Quelques-uns œuvrent d’ailleurs déjà sans intermédiaire.

A. & N. T. : En quoi va consister votre conférence baptisée Web2fordev ?
G. R. : Nous travaillons depuis un an et demi sur la mise en place de cet événement. Chaque année, nous organisions un observatoire TIC centré sur l’agriculture et le développement rural. Des spécialistes viennent pour discuter des innovations récentes. L’an passé, dans le cadre de notre nouvelle stratégie 2007-2010, nous avons décidé d’investir beaucoup plus dans cet événement et de le transformer en une conférence d’ampleur internationale. Après avoir échangé sur le sujet avec des partenaires dans les secteur du développement, nous avons commencé à organiser cet événement. L’objectif était de réaliser une conférence dont les grandes lignes n’étaient pas élaborées par nos soins : nous avons demandé leurs priorités aux différents publics concernés. 500 opérateurs dans le secteur du développement ont répondu à une enquête en ligne et les grandes thématiques ont été définies : l’espace virtuel partagé, les technologies appropriées pour la publication en ligne, la recherche et l’accès aux informations en ligne.

A. & N. T. : Existe-t-il aujourd’hui des freins au développement espéré ?
G. R. : Bien sûr et le premier d’entre eux est l’accès au Net. C’est une limitation importante. Mais les choses évoluent.
Quand j’étais au Kenya il y a quinze ans, il était très difficile d’obtenir une ligne de téléphone fixe. Maintenant, il y a un marché de la téléphonie mobile qui est bouillonnant et qui se développe plus vite qu’en Europe. L’accès au Web avance
relativement vite dans les pays africains. Il y a également d’autres freins comme les monopoles dans la téléphonie… Mais petit à petit, les choses vont dans le bon sens.

English

Charles Dhewla made a comment which raised a great discussion on dgroups.  It expands how web2.0 might even widen the gap of ICT for development. It also highlights how challenges such as connectivity, electricity or education limit very much the use of web2.0. Here are some interesting quotes from the discussion. The full contributions can be accessed here: web2fordev dgroup.

Charles Dhewla:
Web2.0 is a welcome development particularly for African countries where website developers are charging a fortune if one wants a simple website. This new technology has opened up new channels for sharing information. I have discovered that in most cases, a blog is more useful and user-friendly than most websites which are not even interactive.

However, before we are lost in the hype of Web2.0, let us not forget that in some parts of Africa, there are millions of people who are still to know what an e-mail is or visit a website. Let’s not promote new technology as if the earlier one is no longer useful. There are people still learning their ropes on conventional websites who need to be given time to absorb this knowledge. The pace at which ICTs are being developed and promoted does not take into account the rate at which people are able to absorb and use acquired knowledge and skills. If it takes years for educated people to learn and absorb internet use, how long do you think it will take illiterate communities, who are supposed to benefit? The workshop should make an effort to address this issue. Information and knowledge overload is a grim reality in most developing countries especially in Africa.

Ken Kubuga:
In parts of the world like Africa, Web2 is not exactly the problem. The problem is Internet availability and accessibility. I am sure a good number of us will feel charged about exploiting the opportunities associated with web2 tools during and after the conference and perhaps get back home to having to deal with Internet accessibility.

Steve Ciscler:
I’d like to remind people of the solution in the mid-90’s to low bandwidth and the desire to use the web: accessing it via email. There were whole manuals to do this, and I met a researcher from Guyana who did literally everything via email at 9600 bps. You can see some of the instructional texts at the bottom of this page: http://www.expita.com/ While most of us would not do this, there may be a resurgence in using these techniques from mobile phones: access the web using SMS.

Makelesi Kora-Gonelevu:
Lets not forget the Pacific where the islands are spread over vast amounts of water. The problem here too would be internet connectivity.

John Tim Denny:
On the one had we need the dreamers to come up with what it will be in the future, yet at the same time we also need some sort of bridge between what we must do now to directly assist in the most basic steps to set the stage… the step from not having electricity to Web 2.0 is like sending a man to the moon.. what is in between?

Rachael Kadama:
I would like to include another dimension to this discussion, if tomorrow we all got reasonable internet access and availability, what kind of impact to development are these tools likely to bring to us?

The availability of relevant content is what worries me and where I think the web2 tools have the opportunity to lend us a hand in developing it. whether we have no access , little access or abundance of bandwidth, people in both rural and urban areas only need this access to get some kind of content / information. We need to look into how these tools can deliver some of the lacking content or strengthen content development, communication, collaboration etc.

Tobias Eigen:
For me the most important part is that Web 2.0 helps to make the case for justifying the Internet for busy and cash strapped organizations. With a little knowhow and an hour or so of Internet connectivity, it is possible to get a professional looking blog up and running. With minimal care and feeding, that blog can be filled with compelling stories and photographs, as exemplified by some of the blogsdescribed in the comments to my blog already. Blogs are really just one example - a wide range of new “Web 2.0 hype enabled” software and services really have made it easier for African organizations to make use of the Internet once you get online.

Koin Etuati:
I think the Web 2 is ideal for us that work on gathering and sharing information on new technologies/concept - either with energy, agriculture, health etc. Because we want to use this technology to share and gather new ideas/concept with our counterparts, in the respective islands in the case of the pacific region. We put the information together, get innovative financing schemes to put this information on the ground.

Edward Addo-Dankwa:
If we are going to wait for all people to learn and be familiar with conventional things before new technologies are introduced, then we will never develop. New technologies are mostly built on the conventional ones. In fact Web 2.0 according to many people, is not new. They are the old conventional things that have been improved. They are supposed to have made it easier for people to appreciate and use those technologies better. Technology does not take into consideration individual people’s rate of learning. In fact our people don’t need to start learning from the begining.

Anke Weisheit:
Connectivity is a major challenge for economically poorer countries to access, participate in the electronic media, especially internet, and e-mail communication.
Some internet connectivity information in Uganda
1-hour internet in a cafe in
Kampala 1500UGX = 0.85USD
Mbarara 3000UGX = 1,72USD
Village 6000UGX = 3,42USD

Jonathan C Onyekwelu:
Bandwidth cost is probably the same for Africans and Europeans or Americans but the earning power is about 500 times higher in both continents than in Africa. Providing the right bandwidth that will guarantee the right internet speed will cost Africans a fortune!
It might be interesting for us to know that a lot of Universities and research institutes in Africa cannot afford the luxury of fast internet connection. In fact most have epilectic services, which is often times frustrating. You will have to wait for hours to connect and when you are finally connected, downloading data is another nightmare. If this is the case with the elites, then what will the story for rural communities for whom we are trying to evaluate the efficacy of web2fordev?

The latest ICT-Update from CTA has an interesting feature about podcasting in Africa. One article deals about Pambazuka News and their experiences of podcasting. Besides the potentials…

Podcasting has the potential to enable activists and ordinary citizens engaged in the struggle for social justice, to plan, produce and edit their own ‘broadcasts’ without an interpretive or interfering intermediary, as happens so often in the mainstream media (whether written or broadcast). Given such developments, we felt it was important to encourage and support others in Africa who might either be using, or wanting to use new media, to make their voices heard.

it also describes the challenges to produce and broadcast podcasts in Africa.

When we started, we naively thought that all we needed to do was to have someone read out some of the excellent articles published in Pambazuka News. We published a couple of podcasts of this kind, but the results were lacklustre. It was clear that what is produced for one medium (the written word) cannot be translated into another medium. The requirements of each medium are radically different.

Link to the whole article
Another article is titled: “Extending networks with podcasting in the Caribbean”
Pambazuka’s podcasts

I heard about this project from a blogger - White African and have been wondering why the view point seems to be rural and not developmental. Am just asking, or maybe I am getting it all wrong. There is the need for such (Web 2.0) projects in Africa and it is both nice and encouraging to know that there are Africans initiating such projects.

However, it is obvious that there are grave limitations that are hindering the progress of such projects. Personally, I think South Africa seems to be the leader when it comes to African Web 2.0 because of the rising implementation of Web 2.0 projects by South Africans, with the likes of Afrigator, Muti, Zoopy, Iblog and the like. As I said, it is encouraging that these projects are being implemented. They have one of the best internet infrastructures in Africa although they are definitely lagging behind the West and the US. I am Nigerian and currently run a web 2.0 project Meshedlinks. The greatest challenges from my little experience remains the availability of a solid Internet backbone in the country. To consider rural Internet coverage while the urban (developing community) areas remain poorly connected might not necessarily be the best step to take by the government (or whoever - investors or otherwise) to connect the developing communities.

The poor exist in both the urban and rural areas. And from this part of the world, if it comes to connectivity to the world (via the Internet) then the so-called “rural” communities have to constitute the urban and rural areas in my locale.

Hello Christian,

Many of your questions seem to be based on the premise that “web2.0″ is a single, identifiable phenomenon. In fact, it is many different things, though they all share some common features e.g. user-generated content.

With that caution in mind, please find below some brief answers to your questions:

Christian Kreutz (CK): What are the key challenges to be tackled for web2.0 for rural development?
Lawrence Agbemabiese (LA): In the short-term, poor rural connectivity and connectivity costs relative to average rural incomes. However, the technological and economic issue aside, I think the biggest potential challenge/threats will be legal in nature–things like copyright infringement battles with Microsoft, royalty rate increases (which for example recently caused the shut-down of last.fm, government control over content (like what YouTube seems to suffer constantly nowadays) etc..

CK: Is free and open source software the main driver for web2.0 technology?
LA: Yes, especially from the perspective of low-income developing country users.

CK: Does web2.0 is all about connecting people or does it really involve knowledge sharing?
LA: It is a lot more than connecting people. I think the most important potential value of web2.0 is “collective intelligence” although for this to be realized, a lot more work is needed on means to “filter” useful/relevant data from the junk.

CK: Is connectivity one of the main issues around web2fordev or only a shortterm challenge?
LA: Definitely short-term, I predict that 10 years from now the connectivity challenge–even at the most remote sites on earth–will be
history.

CK: How can developing countries realize their own web2.0 applications?
LA: Is this absolutely necessary?! One thing about web2.0 and the internet in general is that it offers at last the real opportunity for
collective intelligence to transcend national boundaries (and hopefully, one day language barriers as well…!). But anyway, there is already a lot of promising ‘developing country’ web2.0 applications starting to appear out there. Muti, for example is one, and there is also Afrigadget and a few others.

CK: Does the increase of social networks enhance potential for learning?
LA: Definitely.

Well those are my thoughts.

Cheers,
Lawrence

I really like the dropping knowledge initiative and think that through questions a lot can be expressed. The basic idea behind Dropping knowledge is that only by posing the right questions can a global conversation be started which can change the world to the better.

That’s why I want to start here with some questions, which can be discussed during the conference:

1. What are the key challenges to be tackled for web2.0 for rural development?
2. Is free and open source software the main driver for web2.0 technology?
3. Does web2.0 is all about connecting people or does it really involve knowledge sharing?
4. Is connectivity one of the main issues around web2fordev or only a shortterm challenge?
5. How can developing countries realize their own web2.0 applications?
6. Does the increase of social networks enhance potential for learning?
7. …

What are your answers? Do you have more questions?

Thanks in advance!

Hey Folks. Here are some interesting information and discussions that are going on in the English web2fordev Dgroup which should not be held back from the broader audience. Have some insides into web 2.0 and low bandwidth! Cheers Anja.

Steve Cisler:

I’m running an online project called KnowledeX whose members include social entrepreneurs around the world. It runs on JotSpot a full-featured wiki now owned by Google. I have a number of participants in Africa who have some difficulty connecting. I think the problems that arise are not just due to local low bandwidth (or electricity problems) but the number of hops from the user in Northern Nigeria and the server in California. He reported a two hour wait to get on, but later it dropped to a mere then minutes–more than most of us would wait, I think. If there is a lot of negotiation between the user and the site, common to apps written in Ajax, I think that the online experience will be frustrating for some. This may limit the usefulness of some of the more promising apps. And that does not include large files of video or static images, both of which can be a barrier.

Tobias Eigen:

Hi Steve. [..] I agree very much with your assessment, and really from my point of view the answer is the same as it has always been. When developing Internet tools and services for people in “low-bandwidth countries” it is important to offer a range of options for participating that include offline tools and “low bandwidth” access to content. If we do, in the end everyone will benefit - even those in rich countries with always on internet connections.

Web 2.0 encourages developers and providers of services to rely on “web applications” and to create “rich internet applications” using AJAX etc. It’s great to use java to avoid making people install software on their computers in order to participate - and to make it easier to upgrade applications iteratively. Here’s a good link to Youtube video explaining the technical background.

This is all well and good, but in the process we shouldn’t forget those that need the service and don’t have fast or reliable internet connections, and we shouldn’t assume that we all will always have access to the Internet. [..] The answers for providing many options for participating in Web 2.0 sites seem to be in RSS feeds and “open APIs”. Feeds allow us to subscribe to websites via a number of means including email and newsreaders, which both can be downloaded using offline tools. [..]

“Low bandwidth” pages are also facilitated by Web 2.0, and are being rapidly developed mainly because people in rich countries want to access the same information on their mobile phones. Part of the opportunity of web2fordev I think will be to inquire into the barriers that people (and in particular civil society organizations) in low bandwidth countries still face to making the most of their limited Internet connectivity, and to investigate how they can harness Web 2.0 technology to overcome those barriers.

If you have read this far, then you might be interested in learning more about Kabissa’s “African Web 2.0 Ambassadors” proposal which we pitched at the Netsquared conference last month.

Steve Cisler:

Tobias, Many thanks for a very informative post. That explained a lot and makes it seem like the barriers are not as great as I had imagined, though I have had an experience with a whiteboard/conferencing system called ‘elluminate’ where the participant in Ecuador had to spend a long time just downloading the java file over a slow line but was able to make use of the advanced features once installed.

Tobias Eigen:

Hi Steve. [..] Strictly speaking, though, the most powerful benefits of Web 2.0 for our purposes seem to be more in asynchronous communications - where people communicate and collaborate by posting content to websites and are reading it and using it in creative ways. They can do this on their own time and in a combination of online/offline strategies.
Synchronous communications with tools like elluminate, skype, text messaging, SMS, VOIP etc etc are a different beast altogether and the frustrations of low bandwidth are more painfully apparent to everyone involved!
However sometimes they do seem to be merging into Web 2.0, resulting in meaningful opportunities. Take for example the recent integration of Skype and Evoca.

Recently I met Toni Eliasz from Ungana-Afrika in Pretoria. We discussed over web2.0 in the context of development. His thoughts were interesting on that of the potential and challenges of the collaborative web, given his experiences in South Africa and the region. Ungana is a NGO which devotes its work to find solutions for the capacity crisis.

A ‘capacity crisis’ is a mild expression to describe the skill levels and understanding of information and communications technologies (ICTs) within non-profits and small-to-medium enterprises in Africa. It will take a decade before the young, technologically literate generation can address these challenges.”

No surprise Toni highlighted first, challenges regarding web2.0 for rural development:

• The general problems of connectivity, such as the lack or high price for access. For example, a 3 GB ADSL connection costs up to a hundred dollars in South Africa, which is 15 times the price compared to Germany.
• Web2.0 requires often bandwidth or instant access for videos, podcasts or tools such as google docs.
• Before investing time and resources into web2.0, there is a question to be answered, ‘How do these tools benefit local communities and how can they contribute to development?’
• The computer and its appliances are complex and often need to be demystified for beginners, and like everywhere else, training is needed and that can also take quite some time.
• To use web2.0 tools such as wiki, blogs etc., requires well written documentation and training.
• The lack of technical expertise, which is often required, is currently very expensive and very limited outside of urban areas.
• Like many other ICT4D projects, the question for sustainability is important and yet not proven for concepts based on these new tools.

For Toni many challenges have to be overcome first before web2.0 can be adapted in rural communities or small organizations. I stated that there are examples such as the the Nata Village Blog, which shows how communities communicate their messages and interact with a worldwide audience. However, we both agreed, that it is the know-how, which at this stage it is mostly limited to intermediate organizations, who nevertheless have already a real benefit from the opportunities to interact and collaborate over the web. Ungana is on the APC network and will be sharing documented work experiences and toolkits, especially from their eRider project, to local technology service providers and networks to make quality support and capacity-building programs a reality.

We both agreed, in terms of connectivity, that the mobile phone is very promising. Whereas widely distributed and affordable Internet access will still take many years to arrive in Africa, first, interesting applications to link the mobile phone and web have to be offered. In South Africa for example Mixit is a big web driven mobile chatting portal. It got so far over 4 million subscribers. Toni concluded that ideas and its implementation have to be localized. As an example, two weeks ago a workshop in Kenya launched the development of a mobile advocacy toolkit, which is focusing on the needs of the organizations from the developing world. Homegrown approaches, which emphasizes the
sustainable need, are decisive.

As part of a research conducted by GINKS (www.ginks.org) in Ghana, a web-based tool (Ekumfi Atakwaa Information Kiosk) was developed to stream videos on Agricultural practices online for women farmers in a small community in the Central Region of Ghana called Ekumfi Atakwaa. These women have very little or no formal education, and are mostly peasant farmers. As part of the research project, an information center was set up at the village. This center has about 10 networked computers with an installed VSAT for internet connection. The software is currently streaming the video on the LAN. It would have been interesting having it on the internet for it to benefit more people but the general connectivity issue………….. We tried it in the initial stages but it took almost forever to upload the videos unto the server (These were very big video files). Althouth we installed a VSAT for the center and we are paying for a 128 kbps (shared) bandwidth, the speeds are just too bad. (General Service Conditions by ISPs in the developing world).

It will be interesting to use Web 2.0 tools to capture these videos for a wider dissemination. Let me confess that we have not tried that yet. My concern however is still the problem of the usefulness of online content for the rural folk. Although we have trained these women to use the tool themselves, and are using it effectively, they are most impatient with the loading time (20 - 30 sec). They prefer to play the videos on a DVD player because that one plays almost instantly. I wonder if they will be patient enough to wait for the long download times associated with links in out part of the world. One sometimes have to click the refresh button a number of times to get a full download.

As I said earlier, I have had just a little experience with the Web 2.0 tools, but I am aware of its power. What I will like to people to devote some efforts to, in its development is the issue of low bandwidths in developing countries. There are arguements that the target is for Web 2.0 is not “a direct access of the poor to the new technology“. I agree with the assertion that it should be seen as a framework of the service landscape in rural areas in general. My concern once again is that these service providers and informediaries, like myself, who will access these tools for the benefit of the rural poor themselves have to contend with the low bandwidths. It is therefore my opinion that these tools are developed such that they are accessible to us, “The World’s Poor”, it terms of its use of resources like bandwidth and computer resources. My understanding of the world’s poor is not the uneducated, simple, rural people but people like us who work as intermediaries, and informadiaries, trying to make life a little confortable for our unfortunate brothers and sisters “down there“. I believe sincerely that where all have failed, ICT has the capacity to save them.

Cheers
Eddie

This has been some of the main questions on the minds of many internet users. The issues of whether Web 2.0 is a new development or a reparkaged set of already existing tools is not relevant to many people in the catagory if “the world’s poor”. To these people, the most important thing is whether these tools can realy help alleviate their poverty. Many of these people are themselves not interested in the tools, but how these tools can be used to help them out of their poverty. From my own point of view, working with the rural poor and exploring how ICT could be used to reduce their poverty, I think we should be exploring the possibilities of using these tools to effectively raise the livelihoods of the poor farmers and traders who are in the majority. Issues of poor connectivity in major towns and communities in developing countries bring up a serious challenge to the promoters of any new technological advancement in the world which in most cases are targeted at reducing poverty. Can we look again at the issue of connectivity, especially in areas where dial-up is even a problem. How can these people effectively use the wonderful features that Web 2.0 offers?

Food for thought

Net2Con: Surfing the rolling cloud of connectivity: ICT and the developing world

Partha Sarker has inspriring thoughts in his presentation about web2.0 for development:

Does web 2.0 is completely irrelevant to the majority of the world ? No! Both have common underlying principles- sharing, collaboration, harnessing collective intelligence, peer to peer communication etc..

Podcast from this presentation
Presentation for download

Internationalization of the Social Web: An Interview with Teresa Crawford
Crawford’s view on the web2.0 for civil society and activism.

Everything You Need to Know About Web 2.0
A nice collection around the buzzword and what it means.

The Power of the Social Web for African Civil Society
A listing about the promises and pitfalls of web2.0.

Development 2.0: A New Paradigm for the Non-Profit Sector?
Very interesting article about web.2.0 and its implication on development aid.

I was curious when an article titled Web 2.0 can benefit the world’s poor appeared on Scidev.net. The authors Waleed al-Shobakky and Jack Imsdahl see in new web applications, such as Google docs, a great potential for developing countries. They write, “Web 2.0 can help these students create documents, track their families’ or villages’ business affairs in spreadsheets and save and store data online. Users only need access to the Internet to benefit from these applications.”

No doubt these applications will change the old concept of purchasing software for each computer. But what is the real benefit of having documents online? I think these applications have great potential to collaborate. But the article doesn’t stress enough the “capacity crisis” that developing countries are facing in the context of information and communication technologies. In Africa problems of simple training to use computers, affordable access, and having enough bandwidth, need to be solved. Furthermore, these online applications need instant access to the Internet which is only available to a minority.

A more helpful approach is open office, so people can work without an Internet connection. Another one is Jahazi, which has developed a USB flash stick full of applications. Also, Google wants to bridge this connectivity challenge with its latest tool called Gear, which will allow to work with online content while being offline.

But what strikes me the most about the article is that it leaves out the biggest opportunities about web2.0 and development. The potential lies in its users and what they do with these tools to communicate, share knowledge and create social media. New social networks are established online, which facilitate interaction and collaboration in an unprecedented way. Blogs, wikis or free sources are the drivers of web2.0.

The authors see language as an obstacle, but on the contrary, I believe that web2.0 with its open source dimension offers software in all kinds of languages (e.g. wordpress and drupal). This is a key factor to create own communities in local or regional contexts (e.g. the union of the Urban Poor from Indonesia, Afrigator, Egypt blog review). However, to which extent this can benefit the poor, will be further discussed on the web2fordev conference.

Crossposted: www.crisscrossed.net