Rural Tele-centers: A Cross Regional Learning Exchange

Introduction

A team of NGOs, government officials and Bank staff from East Africa participated in a study tour of Sri Lanka and India to develop cross regional partnerships to integrate indigenous knowledge & practices into East African Projects through knowledge sharing and learning exchanges. As part of cross-country exchanges, the team visited rural Tele-centers, health projects that use ICTs, E-Commerce centers and the E-governance capital of India. The focus was on the use of ICTs  for community data collection, documentation and information sharing to improve access to information for decision making, market access, health and agricultural sectors. In this debriefing, the clients reflect on the lessons learnt from the Indian ICT experience, how these can be used to improve projects in East Africa and the challenges of implementation in an African context.

The video can be viewed in its entirety or via shorter clips sorted along the main themes (blue underlined) which emerged during the debriefing.  This debriefing was organized by the Knowledge and Learning Group as part of AFTQK’s knowledge sharing and learning services. Dr. Z.M.Nyiira, Director Uganda National Council for Science and Technology and the Bank team conducted the debriefing on September 28th, 2002.

Watch Full Debriefing (1:45:50 min)

1. Setting the agenda / reviewing past activities (4:50 min)
2. Kenya (19:42 min)
   1. Audio / visual materials for schools – make use of ICTs e.g. radio/videos (1:56 min)
   2. Stakeholders – share experiences via newsletter/website (2:01 min)
   3. Need for knowledge – Need to use ICT in ECD programs to provide training (2:12 min) 
   4. Women groups in Kenya are very strong (26 sec)
   5. ICTs can help reach the periphery communities (34 sec)
   6. How do we use district level resources optimally – to access information (34 sec)
   7. Levels of literacy – you have to be selective in what kinds of technology you use (27 sec)
   8. Similar IK activities taking place in Kenya – research institutions working with herbalists(1:01 min)
   9. ECD – collection and dissemination of local language materials (46 sec)
   10. Applying lessons from tele-centers  – district centers with computers/MIS link districts with HQ (2:51 min)
   11. ICDS – further than the Kenyan program (1:46 min)
   12. Participatory methodology – can Kenya replicate the community mobilization model? (3:31 min)
3. Ethiopia (15:48 min)
   1. Use of information technology – enabled rural communities to access market information and improve decision making (59 sec)
   2. ICT – ‘India has a very comprehensive approach that brings value added to health sector, learnt several lessons from this experience which we will incorporate in ICT project in Ethiopia’ (5:59 min)
   3. Ownership – Management is done by the community itself (17 sec)
   4. Exposure given to children – helps them to focus on ‘constructive elements’ (28 sec)
   5. Religious institutions – also showed their commitment to promoting IK (28 sec)
   6. Self Help Groups – helping people in remote areas access government resources (1:35 min)
   7. NGO’s – are often supported by the government … ‘which is very different from the experience of our country’; ‘this is probably a good way to reach down at the grass roots level…’ (1:03 min)
   8. Summary  – ICTs relevant for E-commerce, E-governance and IK Projects (1:12 min)
4. Uganda (36:02 min)
   1. ICT centers – can be used to transfer knowledge (2:08 min)
   2. Tele-centers and eGovernace – ‘we were impressed…but we know we cannot implement it in Uganda, we have tried it and it had failed, E-governance requires good infrastructure’ (2:11 min)
   3. MIS system – ‘ we (Uganda) ought to have done it as well…’ (1:27 min)
   4. ECD sectors – ‘communities need to be led…then they will be able to fully participate’ (2:00 min)
   5. Hyderabad – ‘still need to look at the multi-purpose health worker…’ (2:28 min)
   6. Delhi – ‘we need to emulate the examples we saw there (NIPCID)…’ (1:37 min)
   7. Motivating health workers – incentive system needed (2:22 min)
   8. Government commitment – to increase and sustain funding for child development programs (1:38 min)
   9. Contribution from the states – need to have support at the regional level (1:24 min)
   10. Gender issues  – Ministry for Gender needs to be pro-active and integrative (2:47 min)
   11. Provision of learning materials – slates for children, ‘ Museveni gave us free education’ (1:23 min)
   12. Need to lobby for integrated policy interventions (1:54 min)
   13. Using IK to teach children – ‘we cannot afford slates…but we can afford to use IK’ (1:43 min) 
5. Two way learning – what can we learn from them and vice versa? This needs to be supplemented by raising awareness on policy interventions (1:04 min)
6. Steps being taken in Uganda for community mobilization (1:55 min)
7. Feeding programs – had a fundamental impact on children; need to replicate in Uganda (1:23 min)
8. Food security – ‘soil erosion is the backbone of food security’ (1:41 min)
9. Most important challenge is the entry point for implementation (1:17 min)
10. Closing remarks (1:10 min)