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Community ownership of ICTs: New possibilities for poor communities Print E-mail
Sunday, 06 November 2005

By Sean O Siochru

It is now widely acknowledged that a liberalised market fully in compliance with their own rigid prescriptions can fail in certain circumstances, one of which is delivering network access to low-income rural areas. Despite significant growth in infrastructure and access to telephony, and to a lesser extent the Internet, poor communities in the South remain well beyond reach. This is one of the main sub-themes of the WSIS, integrally linked to intense debates about financing mechanisms and the Digital Solidarity Agenda. This paper examines a solution that combines a century old institutional form with the latest technological innovations. A combination of community-owned information and communication technologies enterprises and the new wave of wireless and related technologies together may offer significant potential to extend networks and offer new services to poor communities in rural areas.

This paper is one in a series of WSIS papers produced by CHOIKE.ORG

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