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Village Computing: State of the Field Print E-mail
Written by Victor van Reijswoud   
Monday, 14 May 2007
Grameen FoundationThe Village Computing Consortium - in partnership with Telecentre.org - has published a critical assessment of village computing initiatives. The report provides a comprehensive overview of the state of the field, its challenges and elicits recommendations to improve access of rural communities to information and communication technologies.

Over the past decade or so, many initiatives have been undertaken around the world aimed at bringing the benefits of the information age to these communities. Known variously as information kiosks, telecentres, community technology learning centres each has its own distinct characteristics. The term village computing is used by the author as a blanket term to refer to all initiatives that incorporate shared-use computing devices - including PDAs, PCs, and cell phones - to enable access to information and services in rural and peri-urban communities around the world.

Village computing initiatives have experimented, with varying degrees of success, with a variety of approaches (e.g., business models, service offerings, target populations, technologies employed) in service to their constituents. In the report Village Computing: A State of the Field, Thomas Bell of the Grameen Foundation evaluates the developments and identify trends in the field of Village Computing at a macro-level in order to determine the possible future directions.

The assessment of the field was performed through a two-phased consultation process with experts in the field. In the first phase, questionnaires were administered to over 70 participants from a range of area specialisations and geographic focus with intimate knowledge of and experience in village computing. In the second phase a subset of the participants and advisors met to discuss salient themes that arose from the questionnaires. The report attempts to divine from the participants’ commentaries and subsequent discussions a picture of the particularly relevant themes shaping the growth and development of village computing around the world.

The report is structured roughly along the lines of the questionnaire and discusses technology and infrastructure, policy, business and financial strategies, funding, and content and services in five different chapters. The list of the participants in the two phases of the research as well as the questionnaire are added in two appendices. Each chapter begins with a summary of the main themes. This is followed by a more thorough examination of the primary issues. Finally, each section concludes with a number of recommendations.

The author repeatedly emphasises the appropriateness of technology and business models used in village computing projects. Many problems with village computing stem from the fact that technology and socio-financial models are used that were driven by the demands of the developed world and not that of the poor in rural communities around the world.

In chapter two the role of policy is highlighted. The report recognises that village computing has a low priority in most country ICT policies and in many cases restrictive regulation hinders the growth of village computing. In particular licences requirements on the delivery of wireless services and high costs and unavailability of services as a result of telecom market monopolies. The report stresses the importance of three policy directions:

  1. Provision of public funds to expand rural infrastructure
  2. Liberalisation of the telecommunications sector
  3. Development of online content and services

However, an important precondition to success, according to the report, is that local communities and grassroots organisations start to understand the importance and possibilities of ICTs and get actively involved in policy dialogues.

The most interesting aspect of the report is that it grows beyond private opinions of the authors. The consultation process that lies behind the results presented in the report has been intensive, although with a too limited number of people and hardly no users of the village computers, and gives the report a state-of-the-field status. This is highly needed. The theory on village computing or telecentres in the developing world is fragmented and supported by a relatively small number of case studies. At the same time, the rate of success is low. Too many people in Africa know about telecenters 'that have been there'.

Although the recommendations in the report are often high-level and directed at changing the mindset of the decision and policy makers, rather than providing concrete guidelines for the people who are directly involved setting up or running village computing projects, it provides a comprehensive overview of the issues. It is clear that village computing is not dead and the need to include rural communities in the information society is higher ever. Quotes of the participants in the consultation process are added in the margins of the reports and some of them provide excellent material for the speeches that are needed to get village computing back on the agenda of the donors and governments.

Download full report Village Computing: A State of the Field - directly from the Village Computing website here...