Participatory Web2fordev is a circle

By Brenda Zulu

Participatory Web for Development is circling the point in a spiral formation. This was noted in a key note address delivered by Association for Progressive Communications (APC) Anriette Esterhuysen, Executive Director at the opening of the conference on Web2fordev at the Food Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Rome, Italy which started today and will end on September 28.

She also observed that mainstreaming of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) in development was a victory for many of the people who have embraced technology but as with gender mainstreaming, there was a risk that it can be mainstreamed to the extent of being marginalised.

Anriette observed that basic challenges remain in the words of one of the contributors to the Web2fordev d-group discussion that took place before the conference: “As soon as a few rural communities begin understanding the basics of the internet and world wide web, a new tools box with new knowledge emerge. It’s like running a race in which there is no finishing line. If you are a participant in this you can't help but feeling a sense of fatigue,” Charles Dhewa wrote.

She noticed that in her experience working with online databases and email systems in the late 80s the term ICT4D did not exist. APC, which emerged at the same time, called itself a ‘network’, supporting ‘global computer communications for environment, human rights, development and peace’

She added that even the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Networking Programme, which, like APC, and a partnership built early pre-public internet e-mail networks for Universities and development NGOs did not use the term.

She said that the term was associated with the telecom boom of the 1990s, the telecom policy reform process: privatisation, liberalisation, opening of markets to international operators.

“It was this time that various ‘high-level’ initiatives and new buzz-words emerged… the Digital Opportunities Task Force, the United Nations Information Communication Technologies (UN ICT) Task Force, and, the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS),” Anriette said.

She however noticed that there were Pros and Cons to people’s approach to technology.
The tendency to technology-driven hype, notions of “leap-frogging over development challenges.”

She explained that this often diverted attention from investment in more traditional and not mutually exclusive information and communications infrastructure such as libraries, community media, and the people and skills needed to maintain such infrastructure.

She observed that this was in many ways ‘disconnected’ from development. ICT4D experts rarely had experience in development work and many development people were skeptical, even suspicious, of ICT4D efforts.

On the Prons, Anriette says it put the lack of access and infrastructure on the development agenda, and the growing gap between those with access to ICTs and those without and also raised awareness of how not addressing this gap could deepen existing social and economic divides as more and more transactions, decisions took place.

She also noticed that it focused attention on the need for ICT skills and capacity development, but… there was a hidden ‘con’ in this observing the puritanical approach.

“The standard ICT4D approach to capacity building in the use of ICTs in developing countries was quite puritanical,” she said. This she explains was not surprising. “Development is serious work, poverty is real, people’s lives and livelihoods are at risk but, it produced an approach to ICT appropriation and skill development which unintentionally contributed to maintaining the digital divide.”

Anritte explained that for many people from the developing countries, in places like South Africa, Kenya, Ghana with relatively good access, their first introductions to ICTs was through some very ambitious ICT4D project, where, with limited resources and access they had to demonstrate the ‘impact of ICTs on poverty alleviation’. Every project was a pilot, with an uncertain future. Not exactly an environment that was conducive to creative learning.

In contrast, she said people in the developed World appropriated ICTs in more ‘selfish’ ways. Personal, private e-mail, Computer games and in a few years, online shopping and dating, music and TV downloads. She observed that these online actions were still not possible for many people in the developing world because even there is access, there is lack of bandwidth.

But, in the developed world children and teenagers had the opportunity and freedom to explore technology in ways that produced a generation of creative geeks; the geeks behind the development of Web 2.0 and social networking platforms.

Today she noticed that the hype is over following increased access has increased, and new solutions are emerging: mobile phones as handheld internet devices, fuel cells, more effective solar technology, and computers that consume less energy.

She added that there has been a shift away from approaching at ICT4D as a stand alone sector and that a more mature approach has evolved, with the use of ICTs being integrated into development work e.g. in the agricultural sector. “This event, the stories and experience that you will share, will illustrate this.”

She added that the integration or mainstreaming of ICTs in development is a victory for many of the people who have embraced technology. We don’t have to spend quite as much time on the bread vs. computers argument.

Her thought on Web 2.0 was that it was both new, and not new. She observed that social networking was definitely not new, that is what people have been doing with ICTs for as long as they existed and yet it is exciting to learn new skills, play with new tools and concepts. It can be alienating, but it can also encourage new creativity.

She described Web 2.0 as a user driven trend in platforms, tools and approaches that respond to the power and potential of online networking, and to some of the pitfalls.

She said Web 2.0 had a few characteristics which included a user driven attempt to organise the proliferation of online content (tagging; content pooling and aggregation) This means that who the users are matter… and we know that most internet users are not people like us, and the communities we work with.

She explained that Web 2.0 goes much further than the web in removing traditional barriers between producers and users of content (wiki-pedia/blogs) adding that it creates new opportunities for journalists, and it create new journalists (interactive publishing, citizen journalists). It is built on a culture of sharing (social bookmarking; open source; content pooling). It providers easy-to-install and -use web-based applications (adblocks; plug-ins; translation tools).
It assumes stable, permanent internet connections… yet, if used creatively it can work really well for people who don’t have this (sharing bookmarks can cut down online time; so can content aggregration tools).

Working with images, sound, video becomes so much easier and this has enormous potential for use by people who are not literate, for people with impaired sight, and use in cultures or contexts where text is simply not a popular why of interacting (podcasts, video sharing; farmer blogs)

On challenges Arietta explained that the participatory web does challenge us to network in more open ways, to share content, ideas, stories... to be more active in building and organising the information commons. It requires us to trust (in the words of one of the participants in yesterday’s learning sessions)

It is easier to trust if you are organised and approaching social networking from a position of skills, security and knowledge of what you are doing…. We need to make sure we understand the risks of the way of networking, of the extent to which we make personal and institutional information available.

Risks to privacy, and personal security, to distortion and removal of information.
We need to be aware of the ‘business backend’ of social networking platforms, the constant buying and selling that would not be happening if someone was not planning to make lots of money from Web 2.0.commercial uses.

But all these risks do not outweigh the benefits.. And the flexibility of the tools, the fact that many use free software, means we can create our own platforms (and we saw some of these demonstrated yesterday â€" e.g. MyHeadlines and the Farmer blog from India)

She called on the participants to approach capacity development differently. Learning to use these tools has to be based on experimentation, trial and error, taking risks. In ICT4D we tried to build skills before providing access to tools… now we have to do it the other way round. Access has never been more important.

“We must appropriate the participatory web as individuals (use Facebook if you like it, even if Microsoft has just bought a share in it), but also as networks, institutions, disciplines. We have to confront the fact that it can create new forms of exclusion, and that lack of access to infrastructure remains a huge barrier.

We need to use it in ways that interfaces with existing patterns of communication and information use, with telephony, radio, mp3 players. We need to be wary of the commercialisation and lack of cultural and linguistic diversity of some social networking platforms. We can create our own.

And… remember that social networking for development is ultimately not about people becoming more empowered in the use of ICTs, but become more empowered in their daily lives.