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Project Summary

Workshop on Sustainable Rural Telecentres in Africa

Cresta Hotel, Lusaka, Zambia

Workshop: 17 - 19 June 2008
In the last decade, international and regional policies have addressed the opportunities and importance of ICT interventions in rural areas in developing countries in general and in Africa specifically in order to sustain economic development. In this context, telecentres or community information centre initiatives set up in a cost-effective way, are recognized as “key instruments” improving shared access to and use of information by the poorest in rural areas in development countries.

These centres were set up as pilots with different methodologies and services: often seen as information kiosks with a mix of ICT tools such as radio, photocopier, telephone, fax and Internet connection, they sometimes focus on a specific service such as telemedicine or money transfer. They are thus not only a medium of communication but also a development enabler.

The workshop is a joint venture by CTA, InfoBridge Foundation, Zambia Association for Advanced ICT, IDRC and IICD. It will take place at the Cresta Hotel in Lusaka, Zambia from 17-19 June 2008.

The organizers have conceived and designed the event as a breeding ground for new partnerships and collaborations. The workshop will serve as a platform for sharing experiences among participants and will take stock of the results and impacts of the Telecentre experiences to provide a framework for upscaling in a learning mode.

Some 50 participants will be invited including Telecentre managers from selected African countries, Telecentre and ICT4D specialists and key strategic partners from organizations supporting Telecentre initiatives in Africa and elsewhere in the developing countries.

The presentations and case studies during the workshop will focus on the following areas:

  • Appropriate technologies for rural Telecentres in Africa: Low-cost, easy-to-implement technology platforms, affordable and stable Internet connectivity, suitable energy solutions.
  • Appropriate demand–led content development & information services: need assessment, monitoring user satisfaction, improvement of services, well-packaged, easy-to-replicate community services, local knowledge and repackaging of information
  • Ensuring sustainability: development of a conducive (socio-economic, technical and policy) environment for Telecentres: need assessment and local setting, capacity building for Telecentre managers, affordability/accessibility by end users, appropriate business models, innovative social appropriation mechanisms, innovative ICT policy environment etc.

A number of cases of the ‘Practitioners Group’ thus will serve as the basis for the Workshop programme. These cases will bring a range of different guidelines, technologies, and practices that will be discussed in workshop sessions given below and from which the most appropriate solutions will be selected and further elaborated.

The programme will then consist on three main sessions:
  • Problem analysis, based on main challenges and key issues identified by the participants.
  • Brainstorming & Problem solving, providing the most appropriate and feasible solutions for the identified list of challenges and key issues. Elaboration of a selected number of cases in predefined format to facilitate comparison and evaluation by participants.
  • Synthesis, in which key success (& failure) factors, appropriate models, technologies and services for sustainable Telecentres in Africa will be presented using the above elaborated cases.

After the workshop, we hope that participants will have gained insight into the reasons for success and failure of rural Telecentres and acquired knowledge on how to design and set up sustainable Telecentres in Africa. We also expect, using different formats (including video), to publish a guide on how to set-up sustainable rural Telecentres.

The information provision on workshop themes will continue through a dedicated website of SATNET on the sustainability of Telecentres in  Southern Africa.  This website will link up with existing platforms on Telecentres.

The partners involved in this initiative will share the results of the workshop and where possible introduce appropriate technology, services or business models. In this context, CTA is prepared to collaborate with institutions interested to launch pilot Telecentre projects in a African countries.

Updates on the event and announcements will be posted on
http://www.share4dev.info/telecentres/


A. Koda Traore
On behalf of the Conference Steering Committee

Programme Coordinator

Telephone: +31 (0) 317 467138 (direct); Fax: +31 (0) 317 460067
Skype: callto:cta-koda-traore

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