Politically, the World Congress on Communication for Development that is presently unrolling in beautiful Rome might not seem to be the most relevant event. No gender perspective to report on, little debate on the value of telecom infrastructure, almost no inclusion of information and communication technology for development on the agenda. What you hear is that “it’s good for networking, good for sharing.” But don’t talk policy.
NGOs meet academics, Food and Agriculture Organisation bureaucrats meet World Bank counterparts, ties and suits cross paths in Rome. The WCCD has demonstrated to it’s there, first and foremost, to carve out some space for communication for development (C4D) experts. But the way the congress is framed, it looks like a money-raising and funding opportunity rather than a well thought-out new positioning of political forces in the field of communication.
In one seminar entitled “Implementing C4D: Thinking in Southern Realities – Negotiating Politics, Profits, Profit and Poverty Towards Social Inclusion,” Anriette Esterhuysen, executive director of the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), decided to go political.
Poorer people actually save on other basics to be able to communicate
In a reaction to a question from the audience Esterhuysen discussed "open access", the legal and regulatory infrastructure framework that the APC is supporting. The question asked challenged the value of investing in infrastructure while “more basic human needs like education and access to water infrastructures were not secured. “There is a danger of assuming the poorer deserve less,” Esterhuysen replied. “It’s the right of all people to have access.”
Talking about the EASSy submarine cable along the East African coast, she said “we’re talking about basic connectivity here, about basic infrastructure. Open access helps negotiate for the public interest.”
Abi Jagun, APC researcher from Nigeria picked up on this: “In Western countries, families spend 3% of their disposable income on communication, in Africa they spend 15%. People will pay for using communication,” she explained, quoting from a London School of Economics study by Claire Milne, she recently analysed.
Jagun also expanded on real life examples in which people clearly allocated their disposable income to make sure they could use mobile technology, stay in touch with family, acquire first aid and health information from far-away medical personnel or gain access to the world prices of the cereals they produce.
Recommendations voiced by APC
Esterhuysen expanded on the EASSy example, trying to get the 40 attendees in the WCCD seminar room to think about technology infrastructure as an integral part of the larger communication for development discussions. “What needs to be negotiated here is the ownership and branding of the project,” meaning what telecommunication companies can have a stake in the investment consortium. Open access tries to ensure that even small internet service providers (ISPs) in landlocked countries of Africa for example, are able to gain a stake in the multinational project in order to offer their service for an affordable price to the population.
“We’re trying to negotiate the telecomm rules for reselling, how much bandwidth each partner has the right to acquire, the return on investment a company can expect and other business considerations,” she said, insisting on the necessity of having multi-stakeholder forums. “This is how civil society will be able to catalyse development that is in the public interest,” she argued. But beyond a role of broker, Esterhuysen believes in policy, in clear rules that need to be established in order for the development to make sense.
In this seminar, in which Telecentre.org and “knowledge access centre” representatives talked about massive infrastructure projects in the Indian context especially, APC came up with two recommendations for the WCCD organisers to address in their final set of recommendations expected on Friday October 27 2006.
The first underlines the need to “Require multi-stakeholder participation in all development initiatives. Successful development initiatives require the participation of all stakeholders in their design, decision-making, governance and implementation processes.”
The second recommendation mentions that development specialists need to “Require access to affordable communication infrastructure. Access to affordable communication infrastructure will enhance community participation in development initiatives”.
The first WCCD will come to a close and development practitioners will head back home. Policy makers will make the final notes to their observations and open access advocates will head off to other forums to get the ball rolling. Will the general public notice? Will affected peoples’ voices be heard? Will policy frameworks and participation models take a more open turn?
The final recommendations for the WCCD are accessible here:
http://www.devcomm.org/worldbank/vpr/pdf/Main_box/Recommendations.pdf
Photo: Abi Jagun
Credit: Misi Bako
