 Taking advantage of the completion of the initial phase of research into local access options supported by UNDP, a workshop on Promising options and critical issues for national policy and advocacy on ‘open access’ at the local & national levels was jointly organized by UNDP and APC On November 6-8 at the Information Technology Association conference centre to facilitate a dialogue and exchange on “Promising options and critical issues for national policy and advocacy on ‘open access’ at the local & national levels.”
The meeting brought together a variety of practitioners: external experts, UNDP supported country teams from four countries in Eastern Africa (Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda), APC members active in advocacy and capacity building, and selected managers of IDRC's First Mile First Inch projects. The organizations and participants were active in pilot implementation initiatives, policy-oriented research and/or advocacy on policy and implementation options that have the potential to dramatically lower the cost of developing and providing access to ICT networks at regional(1), national(2) and local(3) levels, and to enable under-served communities at the local level to drive development through acting as providers and not just users of ICT-enabled networks.(4)(5)
The aimed for outcomes included: - Knowledge networking and sharing of promising approaches & challenges amongst expert-participants and selected decision-makers
- Policy & briefing papers: identification of outputs to support policy and capacity development; proposed future work on selected themes for a toolkit consisting of case studies and tools for enhancing local development via the use of ICT.
- Advocacy: explore the possibility of developing a local access coalition that could address common interests regarding open access at the local and national level and which could engage national and regional policy makers as well as the campaign around the EASSy and SAT3 cables.
An exploration of “open access” concept and its application at the local level and national levels took place as well an assessment of the openness of national ICT policies and financing mechanisms to these emerging options with a view to identifying issues and strategies for advocacy. NOTES
(1) Advocacy on EASSy undertaken by APC, CIPESA, UbuntuNet, etc. (2) Support to national ICT strategies and policy processes by UNDP & IDRC & APC’s work within CATIA on national ICT policy advocacy. One of UNDP’s programmatic focus in the context of making ICT work for the poor, is to contribute to the identification and codification of evidence-based policy options to and to strengthen advocacy and capacities for policy change to leverage such options. (3) E.g. Training, capacity-building and design assistance via the Wireless Roadshow and APC’s “Capacity building for community wireless connectivity in Africa" supported by IDRC and OSI in Africa; IDRC's First Mile, First Inch (FMFI) initiative in Angola, Mozambique and South Africa, with a focus on technical innovation coupled with social research to create affordable and sustainable connectivity in rural communities; and assessment of feasibility and potential in the context of research into community-driven networks supported by UNDP in Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania & Uganda. Add section on telecenter.org and UNESCO CMCs (4) See, e.g. IDRC (2005) Telecentres, Access and Development: Experience and Lessons from Uganda and South Africa by Sarah Parkinson; Funding and Implementing Universal Access: Innovation and Experience from Uganda, Uganda Communications Commission Fountain Publishers/IDRC 2005; Leveraging New Technologies and Open Access models infoDev (2005); on nature of financing mechanisms, also see http://www.satsig.net/gispa-afrispa.htm and Report of the Task Force on Financing Mechanisms
(5) See Sean O Siochru & Bruce Girard on Community-based Networks and Innovative Technologies: New models to serve and empower the poor and the second phase focus on East-Africa Also World Dialogue on Regulation for Network Economies research theme Innovative Models of Financing, Ownership and Management
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