CDA - Community Development Activities : Project Overview

Gauteng

Mamelodi

Atteridgeville

Project Overview

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for Rural Development

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is a key component of the NEPAD strategy and South Africa's President Mbeki has given strong support for strategies that enable communities to "leapfrog" into the new age of the Information Society.

A number of national and regional initiatives are underway that seek to enable communities to narrow the "digital divide" and to participate in the new global economy. Examples of such initiatives include:

the African Information Society Initiative (AISI), which unites African governments and donors in a framework to extend the use of information, communication, and related technologies for development
The Acacia Initiative is an international effort led by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) to empower sub-Saharan African communities with the ability to apply information and communication technologies to their own social and economic development.
the creation of a Universal Service Agency intended to define the meaning of universal access in South African terms and to initiate pilot community access projects

South Africa has already been through a telecommunications policy reform process, important elements of which include the market structure for telecommunications services (second and third national operator) universal access and universal service, education rate (e-rate) and education network (edu-net),and economic empowerment of historically disadvantaged groups. Recent amendments to the Telecommunications Bill makes provision for the granting of licenses for those areas having teledensities of less than 5%.

Many African governments have also reformed their communication systems in order to improve local and global information sharing. Yet new technologies have the potential to further widen existing gaps between the elite and the poor within African countries.

The "digital divide" is threatening to exacerbate the existing social and economic inequalities between countries and communities, so the potential costs of inaction are greater than ever before.

While some sectors are adopting ICTs, for the most part they are overwhelmingly used by the wealthier and predominantly urban elites. The reality in 1995/96 was that sub-Saharan Africa (excluding South Africa) had only 4.8 telephone lines and 142 radios per 1,000 inhabitants. South Africa was noticeably different, with about 94 telephone lines and 290 radios per 1,000 inhabitants. That country can account for nearly 60% of all lines installed in sub-Saharan Africa (31% of the lines in the whole continent). Yet even in South Africa, there are huge disparities among different sectors of the population. Some parts of the Eastern Cape, for example, have teledensities similar to those of other, less fortunate, sub-Saharan African countries.

The Digital Opportunity Task Force (DOT Force) successfully fulfilled its mandate as set out in the Okinawa Charter on the Global Information Society, adopted by Leaders at the G8 Kyushu-Okinawa Summit in July 2000.

The DOT Force concluded that, when wisely applied, ICT offer enormous opportunities to narrow social and economic inequalities and support sustainable local wealth creation, and thus help to achieve the broader development goals that the international community has set. ICT cannot of course act as a panacea for all development problems, but by dramatically improving communication and exchange of information, they can create powerful social and economic networks, which in turn provide the basis for major advances in development.

Therefore, access to, and effective use of the tools and networks of the new global economy, and the innovations they make possible, are critical to poverty reduction, increased social inclusion and the creation of a better life for all.

Read about how the CSIR led consortium is playing an active role in implementing projects in the poorest remote locations of South Africa to assist rural communities to narrow the "digital divide". Projects are located in the KwaZulu Natal Province, North West Province and Eastern Cape Province.

Applications

Applications for the technology will occur within a framework in which attention is paid to facilitating historically disadvantaged communities in meeting their needs. This would include open and distance education, health and support for SMMEs through appropriate information access and dissemination systems. It is intended that these integrated applications - supported and made possible by this technological innovation - will assist with development of our human resources; democratising the state and society; and stimulating competitiveness and job creation.

In relation to education, rural communities can be linked to many important distance and open education initiatives unfolding in South Africa. Several higher education institutions offer online courses and these communities can access these opportunities. In this regard, online access will allow learners from these communities to implement their knowledge and learning in support of their communities.
In relation to health, primary health care initiatives and a growing move towards Telemedicine will support communities and community based health organisations in delivering effective health care services to rural communities. Examples of this application can be found at Tsilitwa, Eastern Cape.

In relation to SMME development, there is a very real opportunity to improve service delivery to previously neglected groups in our society by harnessing the potential of SMMEs (including survivalist enterprises), community based organisations (CBOs), and ordinary citizens at local community/authority level. Initiatives aimed at improved service delivery need to address issues such as sustainability of service channels and universal access for all. We therefore, have to look at ways of 'pushing' service delivery as far forward as possible into communities while also establishing elements of this service delivery as new 'service businesses' to create new job and enterprise opportunities. In the light of the above, there is a growing interest in concepts like "one-stop-service-shops" and "multi-purpose community centres".

It is envisaged therefore that this innovative communications platform will provide innovative convergence at the service delivery level and not only the technological level in support of societal transformation and development.