[WSIS CS-Plenary] [WSIS THETHA] CINSA membership - let us hear your voice

Mon Mar 29 09:10:42 BST 2004

Newsletter no 1SADC Community Informatics Newsletter no3, March 2004
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EDITORIAL

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What is CINSA?
The Community Information Network for Southern Africa (CINSA) is a project
supporting community ICT initiatives in the SADC region. The aim is to build
a sustainable network of community ICT projects in the 14 SADC member
states - Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Malawi,
Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, Seychelles, South Africa,
Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. CINSA is currently funded by the Open
Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA), and the International
Development Research Centre (IDRC).

CINSA supports community ICT projects / initiatives ---- such as
telecentres, community multimedia centres, community radio stations,
community information resource / access centres and the like. Its mandate is
to serve those projects / initiatives located within the SADC region
through:

Ø       Research

Ø       Networking

Ø       Facilitating training

Ø       Service brokerage

Ø       Facilitating technical support and project evaluation, and

Ø       Creating an online (and soon offline) information resource base.

CINSA has set up three nodal points in the SADC region, one in Zambia
(hosted by the e-Brain Forum) and one in Tanzania (hosted by TANGO), in
addition to the secretariat (hosted by SANGONeT, which is also the project
implementing organisation) in South Africa. The regional nodes focus on
information gathering from a regional perspective, and on strengthening the
network by building local capacity. They are a catalyst for spearheading
local community ICT network activities and supporting ICT advocacy campaigns
in the region.

Why should you join CINSA?
Individually, CINSA network members / partners benefit through:

Ø       a wealth of expertise and knowledge generated by the network

Ø       harnessing the intra-network experience into specific actions

Ø       discounted rates from specific service providers including
communication networks and training providers

Ø       specific ICT skills training and research opportunities

Ø       publicity in the form of the portal, listserv, newsletter and
presence in a SADC-wide database

Ø       project management support, and

Ø       recommendation for funding to donors

Thus CINSA has provided and facilitated both technical and ICT-related
policy advocacy training to managers and people involved with the
initiatives; continues to provide space for members to publicize and network
themselves; provides specialized project management (sustainability
consultancy, project ideas, proposals developments and providing websites)
and other brokerage services (discounted fees from suppliers and service
providers including energy / equipment suppliers, internet service providers
as well as training providers.

CINSA is also working on producing CD ROMs as a flagship project to provide
network members with resources 'feedback of experiences' offline. Another
service envisaged is the facilitation of donated websites to members. CINSA’
s future focus will be to transform or incubate ‘member projects’ into
technology skills pools, community telecommunications providers and resource
/ training centres. For more information on specific activities undertaken
by the network kindly please visit our portal http://www.cinsa.info

Membership and requirements
Any community initiative that uses the tools of ICT for development
qualifies to become a member of CINSA. Currently membership to CINSA is free
i.e. there are no fees set for joining the CINSA network, just submit your
information by calling the Project Manager CINSA, Mr.. Ngunga Tepani on (+27
11) 403 4935 or email to; ngunga at sangonet.org.za

If you live or happen to be in South Africa, you may want to visit us at
SANGONeT, Ground floor, 76 Juta Street Braamfontein Johannesburg, South
Africa.

A community ICT project is a community-level initiative that provides broad
access to the benefits of ICTs to support community development.
Organisations that qualify as CINSA members include:

Ø       community ICT projects such as telecentres; community radio
stations, MPCCs, CMCs, etc.;

Ø       ICT-related networks;

Ø       ICT-related research organisations and

Ø       training institutions

CINSA partners include:

Ø       donors,

Ø       ICT service providers,

Ø       regulatory bodies and

Ø       non-ICT networks like NGO coalitions

Your feedback or support
If you are interested in becoming a member of CINSA or our partner, we would
appreciate your feedback on what would be the criteria and a suitable
membership fee. We are suggesting US$ 100 per annum with full, free benefits
to all the services CINSA is or will be offering. Kindly please send your
comments / feedback to sadc-idiscussion at lists.sn.apc.org

Interested donors, funders and sponsors kindly please donate to us by
contacting the Project Manager ngunga at sangonet.org.za

We look forward to your involvement,

Ngunga Tepani

Project Manager CINSA

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OPPORTUNITIES ABOUND FOR COMMUNITY ICTS!!

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CINSA is looking for organisations to serve as case studies.  Please contact
Sandra Roberts on sandra at sangonet.org.za if you would like your organisation
to serve as one, or can recommend an organisation to us.  REMEMBER that you
can always place information about your organisation on our portal in the
database and under the projects and experiences section.

CINSA has a limited number of copies of the ABC Ulwazi publication Community
Radio: the people’s voice available for community organisations that would
benefit from them.  In addition, we also have a limited number of the OSISA
publication Cyber law for Civil Society: A Resource Guide for South African
organisations.  Please contact Ngunga Tepani on ngunga at sangonet.org.za if
you would like a copy of either. The OSISA publication is also available
from http://www.osiafrica.org

We invite submissions for the CINSA Database from CICT initiatives, please
email cinsa at sangonet.org.za if you would like to be included.  Currently, we
are still experiencing technical problems with the database itself, but if
you email us, we will contact you once it is up.  The database provides the
option of you entering your own data into it, so you can say exactly what
you want.

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JOIN CINSA

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CINSA would like to invite Community ICTs to join us, free of charge to
access all the benefits of belonging to CINSA.  We have hard copy and online
tools to help community ICTs survive and prosper.  Additionally, we provide
specialised project management and brokerage services and would like to
invite interested parties to contact us.  We are looking for new members for
our network (no membership fee is currently payable) and want to help
community ICTs with research, training, skills exchange, service brokerage,
facilitating technical support and project management assistance.  To join,
email ngunga at sangonet.org.za

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NEW ADDITIONS TO THE CINSA PORTAL:

Advocacy

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ICT A RIGHT, A MEANS OR AN END TO DEVELOPMENT?

This article by Michael Boadi gives some critical thoughts on ICT as a
medium of communication and providing access to communication, which is a
right.  Ghana is taken as the case study in this article.

http://cinsa.info/portal/index.php?option=articles&task=viewarticle&artid=13
1&Itemid=60

For more new additions, please go to
http://www.cinsa.info/portal/index.php?option=displaypage&Itemid=59&op=page&
SubMenu=

Research pieces

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REVIEW OF BASIC ICT SKILLS AND TRAINING SOFTWARE FOR EDUCATORS IN AFRICA

By Tina James, et al.

This study aims to assist African educators by identifying suitable training
materials to develop basic information and communications technology (ICT)
skills. Such skills include basic computer literacy, the use of e-mail and
the Internet, software for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, and
the creation of Websites. This study looks at 'content-free' ICT software
tools and applications i.e. tools that can be used to develop appropriate
content. Examples would include standard office packages such as word
processing, spreadsheets, databases, the creation of Web-based materials,
and presentations. It is restricted to materials available on the Web, via
CD- ROMs or on diskettes. The study tests the appropriateness of ICT skills
software for use in an African context, addresses the needs of African
Educators requiring professional development. This is taken to include those
in pre-service training, as well as those educators in in-service training
who may have been 'left behind' by the digital revolution. The study also
set out to develop an evaluation framework that could be used by other
evaluators to assess the appropriateness of basic ICT skills software in
their own environments.

http://cinsa.info/portal/index.php?option=articles&task=viewarticle&artid=13
7&Itemid=3

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ICT & DEVELOPMENT - HELP OR HINDERANCE

By Richard Curtain

>From the executive summary:

Can Information and communication technologies (ICT) make a valuable
contribution to achieving development outcomes? If so, how can this best be
done? The use of ICT to improve how goods are produced and services are
delivered is a feature of everyday life in high-income countries. The issue,
in relation to developing countries, is not whether it is worthwhile trying
to make use of ICT. As ICT, used appropriately, have the potential to vastly
improve productivity, the issues for developing countries is how best to use
ICT to achieve development objectives, given the operating constraints that
may apply. These operating constraints vary greatly form country to country.
The challenge for the development community both those designing /
administering donor aid programs and those delivering them, is to work out
appropriate ways that ICT can be used to provide more leverage for the
development efforts now being made.

http://cinsa.info/portal/index.php?option=articles&task=viewarticle&artid=13
4&Itemid=3

For more new additions, please go to

http://www.cinsa.info/portal/index.php?option=articles&Itemid=3&topid=5&Item
id=3

Gender and ICTs

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GENDER, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, AND DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: AN ANALYTIC STUDY

By Nancy Hafkin & Nancy Taggart

This is a 2001 major study on ICT and Gender by Nancy Hafkin and Nancy
Taggart, Academy for Educational Development. According to the authors, "the
time is ripe to act to ensure that women in developing countries can enter
the information age. Although women in developing countries have had little
contact yet with the new technologies, it is clear that these technologies
offer substantial possibilities to improve the lives of women and their
families. There are opportunities in employment, particularly in the area of
IT-enabled services and in entrepreneurship, both in applying IT to existing
businesses and in starting new businesses based on technology services.

http://cinsa.info/portal/index.php?option=articles&task=viewarticle&artid=13
5&Itemid=64

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Kgautswane Community: Advancing Rural Women's Development

By Antony Trowbridge

This submission, on behalf of the community of Kgautswane, offers evidence
of how their women have succeeded in meeting the following key objectives:

  a.. To share experiences how ICTs have been used to facilitate rural women
’s participation
·         To share experiences how organisations have combined for
empowering rural women.
·         To debate issues of governance and other factors that impact on
quality of life
  a.. To identify challenges for making ICTs accessible to rural women
·         To identify how ICTs have been used to deal with real issues
·         To share best practices on working collaboratively

·         To analyse and strategize future directions and initiatives for
participation
  a.. To explore and strategize the strengthening information and
communications
  b.. Training and Capacity Building for Management for Development
  c.. To share experiences how ICTs have been used to facilitate rural women
’s participation
http://cinsa.info/portal/index.php?option=articles&task=viewarticle&artid=14
3&Itemid=64

For more new additions, please go to

http://cinsa.info/portal/index.php?option=articles&Itemid=64&topid=3

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OTHER QUALITY INFORMATION

CINSA collects specific community ICT news from a number of sources and
places it on the portal for your convenience.  We have also added a new
section that you may wish to contribute to: Projects and experiences. Here
YOU can share your successes and challenges for the benefit of others.

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Free Banner Advertising

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CINSA is introducing banner ads on their site and welcome applications from
businesses with social responsibility programmes and other interested
parties.  This is a chance for you to showcase your work to a growing
SADC-wide community ICT audience, as well as, academics and ICT
practitioners.  This will be free of charge for the first three months
should you be interested. If you are interested please email
ngunga at sangonet.org.za

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Upcoming ICT events:

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IMPLEMENTING THE WSIS ACTION PLAN CONFERENCE

A unique conference for policy-makers, ICT activists and action-oriented
private sector organisations, hosted by the Commonwealth Telecommunications
Organisation. Presentation proposals are invited, covering the topics
outlined above. Proposals should be sent to Sean Moroney, AITEC Africa
(sean at aitecafrica.com), including a brief outline and the presenter’s CV
summary.

DATE: 25-26 March 2004

VENUE: Safari Park Hotel, Nairobi,

For more information email sean at aitecafrica.com or visit www.aitecafrica.com

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KENYA NATIONAL ICT CONVENTION

Intended to develop a detailed consensus between government, Civil Society
and the private sector on the country’s national ICT policy. In addition,
the Convention with showcase East African national and regional ICT projects
in order to attract donor support or private sector investment, this
conference is not limited to region or country.

DATE: 22-26 March

VENUE: Also the Safari Park Hotel

For more information visit www.aitecafrica.com or email info at aitecafrica.com

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BUILDING & BRIDGING COMMUNITY NETWORKS: KNOWLEDGE, INNOVATION & DIVERSITY
THROUGH COMMUNICATION
The Committee of the “ Building & Bridging Community Networks: Knowledge,
Innovation & Diversity through Communication” conference issues a call for
your participation in an exciting opportunity to network with others engaged
in: community networking, community informatics and community technology
research, practice and policy. This international conference will help a
range of people with different roles to share their knowledge about: the use
of community technologies to build and sustain healthy communities; and the
development of networks to achieve this goal.

DATE:  31st March – 2nd April, 2004
VENUE: Old Ship Hotel, Brighton, East Sussex, England

For more information visit
http://www.cmis.brighton.ac.uk/research/seake/cna/

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CERTIFICATE IN TELECOMMUNICATIONS POLICY, REGULATION AND MANAGEMENT

Offered by the LINK Centre, School of Public and Development Management,
University of the Witwatersrand  - Southern Africa's the leading research
and training body in the field of information and communications technology
policy, regulation and management.  It provides an essential background to
the understanding the regulatory and policy issues and challenges in the
rapidly changing telecommunications and broadcasting sector.

DATE: April and June 2004

VENUE: Johannesburg

For more information visit http://link.wits.ac.za

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NEPAD AND ISSUES AFFECTING THE YOUTH: SOUTH-NORTH RELATIONS AND THE DIGITAL
DIVIDE

The aim of the conference is to provide an insight on the pros and cons of
the achievements of the NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa's Development)
objectives and also, how the European Union-Africa partnership can address
and meet the challenges of the importance of Information Technology (IT) in
youth education, as a development priority for both the African and Western
communities.

Date: 18-19 June 2004

Venue: Europa-Universität Viadrina, Frankfurt/Oder, Germany

For more information visit http://www.ayf.de/Int-Conf-04.pdf

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THE 8TH WEST AFRICA INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGIES CONFERENCE
AND EXHIBITION - AITEC WEST AFRICA 2004

AITEC GHANA, Ministry of Communications and Technology and Leaders in West
African ICT industry will host The 8th West Africa ICT conference and
Exhibition to facilitate a knowledge and information sharing platform on the
future of ICT in West Africa and its developmental impact.

Date:   1-2 June, 2004

Venue: Accra International Conference Center, Accra-Ghana

Call for Papers

Individuals and organizations are invited to submit proposals for Conference
and Workshop Presentations at AITEC WEST AFRICA 2004. The theme for AITEC
2004 is:

"BUILDING PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP AND CREATING OPPORTUNITIES THROUGH ICT"

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OEKONUX CONFERENCE

In Project Oekonux [http://www.oekonux.org/] and in the neighboring
OpenTheory [http://www.opentheory.org/] different people with different
opinions and different methods study the economic and political forms of
Free Software.

An important question is, whether the principles of the development of

Free Software (without exchange in the core, self-organized, common and
unlimited participation in the production knowledge) may be the foundation
of a new economy, which is no longer based on the dogma of economic
scarcity. New economy may also mean the basis for a new form of society.

Date: 20-23 May 2004

Venue: Department of Philosophy at Vienna University

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YOUR EVENT HERE 
.

Send us your events to appear in this newsletter, in particular some
countries in SADC are currently highly underrepresented, please help us
address this.

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FEEDBACK

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Joseph George attended the Mpumalanga provincial Thetha (Thethas are
SANGONeT ICT discussion forum for the civil society currently being run in
South Africa only but intended to be replicated into other countries in the
SADC region) in Nelspruit on ICTs and the Global Information Society.

The theme for this Thetha was “ICTs and the Global Information Society” – as
it was for the two previous provincial Thethas. Mr. Andre Vianello, a Deputy
Director in the Provincial Government of Mpumalanga gave a presentation. A
man with some 30 years experience in IT and industry certification from
CISCO, Novell and Sun, he has been in government for the past 8 years. He
shed light on the provincial government's strategy on ICTs - he mentioned
the challenges faced and clarified how the concept of e-governance is being
considered at provincial level. He also spoke about the provincial
government's new website due to be launched in late March.

Dr Lulama Makhubela, Director of Research and Development, National
Development Agency (NDA) who has published more than 30 research journal
articles and contributed to three books, worked with WSIS in Paris, at the
UNESCO headquarters and at different times in the EU, Canada and the US gave
a very good insight into the development imperatives of ICTs. She spoke at
length on the social issues that need to be addressed through application of
ICTs and raised several important points in relation to ICTs and
development.

Mr. Danny Moalosi, Programme Officer, National Community Radio Forum (NCRF)
had an excellent interactive presentation on Community Participation through
ICTs with specific reference to broadcasting. He gave a brief history of
community radio in South Africa and shed

light on the diverse forms of current media ownership. He explained the
three tiers of broadcasting - Community, Public, and Commercial as laid out
in the 1993 IBA Act. He made a powerful statement on using limited ICT
resources to achieve results and exhorted the audience to do the same.

The next Thetha will be held on Tuesday, 6 April 2004, from 09h00-13h00 at
SANGONeT's new offices at 76 Juta Street in Braamfontein. Its theme will be
"Survival & Prosperity in the NGO Sector - The Role of Technology in
Strengthening Organisational Capacity". If you are interested in
participating in the Thetha, please contact Martha Thibedi or Refilwe
Rakhibane at SANGONeT before 2 April 2004: Tel: (011) 403-4935 / E-mail:
thetha at sangonet.org.za

Participation in the Thetha is free of charge. For more information on
Thetha - The SANGONeT ICT Discussion Forum, please visit the SANGONeT
website http://www.sangonet.org.za

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Sandra Roberts attended the Dimitra/ Womensnet conference on ICTS in the
Service of Good Governance, Democratic Practice and Development for Rural
Women in Africa.

Held near Lanseria airport outside Johannesburg, the conference brought
together a large amount (about 50) of largely international women who were
tasked with finding ICT strategies that would benefit rural women.  She
found the experience incredibly beneficial for networking and knowledge
sharing.  We (CINSA) organised for interviews to be taken from various
people attending the conference.  These are available online at:
http://www.cmfd.org/sections/ruralwomen.html

Knowledge sharing was for her the greatest benefit as she learned a good
principle about setting up Community ICT organisations: do the groundwork,
use organisations that are already successful in the community and get
buy-in from the community.  If there is no buy-in possibly ICT is not the
solution for that community.  ICT is not the ‘cure all’ for every situation.
A simple concept, but Community ICT projects would probably be a lot more
successful if more people applied it in practice.

SHARE YOUR EXPERIENCES OF ANY ICT EVENT WHICH YOU HAVE ATTENDED RECENTLY,
EMAIL sandra at sangonet.org.za

**************

JOBS

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GOT JOBS OR VACANCIES TO ADVERTISE, EMAIL sandra at sangonet.org.za

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OPPORTUNITIES

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Prix Arts Electronica: To mark its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2004, Ars

Electronica has expanded its international competition for cyberarts to
include a new category called "Digital Communities."  The category
encompasses the wide-ranging social consequences of the Internet as well as
the latest developments in the domain of mobile communications and wireless
networks.  40,000 Euro in prize money will be awarded to six exemplary
initiatives that are furthering the development of an Open Society.  The
deadline for submissions is March 26, 2004.  For more information visit
http://www.aec.at/en/prix/index.asp

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CALL FOR PAPERS:

The Community Informatics Research Network Inc. (CIRN) calls for papers to
its 2004 Inaugural Conference and Colloquium with the overall theme,
'Sustainability and Community Technology: What Does this Mean for Community
Informatics?, at the Monash Centre, Prato, Italy, 29 September - 1 October,
2004. www.ciresearch.net/prato2004

Papers (full length for blind peer review and discussion or position papers)
from researchers and practitioners are invited. Possible topics include:

  a.. Defining 'sustainability' in a community technology context: is it an
adequate concept? What are its meanings and how are they relevant?
  b.. Are there alternate concepts, which are more practicable, and how are
they linked to the life of communities and community networking?
  c.. Sustainability and the Digital Divide: Friend or Foe?
  d.. The political economy of community technology sustainability:
dependency on government, and funders' understanding of 'sustainability'
  e.. Community Technology Sustainability in different spheres: developed,
developing countries: are     there universal principles?
  f.. The sustainability criteria of national and international financial
institutions and donors: Explanations and Critiques
  g.. Indigenous and first nations people and the sustainability of
community networks
  h.. Gendered technology and the sustainability of community networks
  i.. Is there a connection between sustainability and 'social capital'?
  j.. Time, virtual space, geography and network sustainability
  k.. Power relationships in networking and their impact on sustainability
  l.. The policy dimensions (dementia) of sustainability

## A special issue of Community Informatics: A Global E-Journal will be
prepared as part of this event and contributors to the event will be
encouraged to submit their papers for either the peer-reviewed or the
commentary section of the journal.

Please submit your 2-page application by 1 April 2004 to: Marcus Foth at
m.foth at qut.edu.au

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CALL FOR PROPOSALS

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THE THIRD RESEARCH ON KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS (ROKS) COMPETITION

DEADLINE:  MARCH 26

"Understanding the Social and Public Policy Dimensions of Transformative

Technologies in the South"

The Research on Knowledge Systems (RoKS) initiative of the International
Development Research Centre (IDRC) in partnership with the Rockefeller
Foundation <www.rockfound.org> is launching a competition to support
research on the social equity and public policy challenges of transformative
technologies faced by developing countries. The focus is on how social
equity and the human condition is being affected by emerging technologies,
as well as on what mechanisms and learning processes are in place or have
been developed to assist governments and public stakeholder groups engaged
in the decision-making processes associated with these new technologies. We
recognize that new knowledge is not neutral and is embedded in specific
social contexts; it can offer opportunity, but can also constrain human
activity.

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OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS

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The latest issue of the Southern African Journal of Information and
Communication in now available.  It demonstrates the research benefits of
our association with prominent international academics. In this issue
Professor Dale Hatfield has written a stimulating paper on Spectrum Commons,
and Vodacom Visiting Professor William Melody has again published his annual
address on The Next Generation Internet and Its Governance.  He has also
worked with local LINK associates and staff to present a fascinating
assessment of The Significance of the VANS Sector.

More information http://link.wits.ac.za/

DATABASE

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The CINSA portal will soon publish a database of community ICTs, ICT
practitioners and ICT service providers, if you wish to appear on this
valuable publicity resource, please email cinsa at sangonet.org.za

**************

If you would like any of the items mentioned in this newsletter and have no
access to the Internet, please email cinsainfo-owner at lists.sn.apc.org
including the title of the item you wish to receive.

****************

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