The Impacts of Community Telecenters in Rural
CIAT, Impact Assessment Project,
Colnodo, Administration,
<olga@colnodo.apc.org>
CIAT, Communications Unit,
CIAT, Impact Assessment Project,
This paper evaluates the impacts of two
community telecenters on their host organizations and on the rural areas they
served. Awareness and use of telecenters by rural households were low, as was
users’ ability to articulate information needs. Significant institutional
impacts occurred in the NGOs that hosted the telecenters. The results suggest
that sustainable expansion of ICTs in rural areas of developing countries may best
be achieved by working through local organizations willing to incorporate the
technologies into their work, while striving with the communities they serve to
build local capacity to use information and ICTs.
Se
evalúa el impacto de dos telecentros comunitarios en las organizaciones
que los acogieron y en las áreas rurales a las que prestan sus servicios. El
uso de los telecentros por parte de los campesinos es bajo,
Introduction
Over
the last decade or so, many organizations and individuals have come to see the
new information and communications technologies (ICTs) as potentially powerful
tools for helping achieve sustainable development in countries of the South.
After an intense, exploratory phase, it is important now for organizations
promoting the spread of these technologies to measure their impact in improving
livelihoods, particularly in rural communities where access to the new ICTs has
so far been limited. Two obvious questions are whether rural people adopt such
technologies and whether they can successfully incorporate them into personal
and community development.
One
of the main vehicles for introducing ICTs in rural areas, especially in
This
paper presents the findings of an impact evaluation of two rural community telecenters
set up in southwestern
At
the outset of the project, it was expected that impact would result largely
from decisions and actions taken by individual telecenter users based on
information obtained via ICTs. As the project progressed, however, it became
evident that the most notable changes were occurring within the organizations
hosting the telecenters, as a result of InforCauca’s strong capacity building
program. In light of this pattern, the impact study focused initially on
telecenter users and rural households within an economics of information
framework (Akerlof, 1970; Riley, 2001; Rothschild & Stiglitz, 1976;
Stiglitz, 1997). But it was further
expanded to include an assessment of institutional changes attributable to InforCauca
in two organizations hosting rural telecenters: the Asociación de Cabildos
Indígenas
Under
the expanded strategy for evaluating telecenter impacts, two approaches were employed.
First, surveys were designed to characterize telecenter uses and users and to
examine how individuals employ ICTs and other technologies to satisfy their
diverse information and communication needs. Special attention was given to the
role of the Internet within broader patterns of communication and to the
implications for telecenter impacts. Second, an organizational impact study was
conducted to identify changes in the organization in terms of effectiveness
(ability to reach its goals), efficiency (use of available resources),
relevance to stakeholders, and sustainability (financial health).
Assessing
the Impact of ICTs
The
evaluation of ICT impacts has gained particular importance in light of the
World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), whose first part was held in
December 2003 at
Against
this background of heightened expectations, it is important that ongoing and
new initiatives on ICTs for development do a thorough job of assessing impact
to give donors, partners, and other stakeholders a clear idea of what they can
reasonably expect from the use of ICTs on a massive scale in poor communities.
Despite the clear need for impact assessment, though, little empirical evidence
is available about the impacts of telecenters in the lives of users.
Some
studies have measured the use of telecenters and observed that it is highest
among younger and more educated community members (Kyabwe and Kibombo, 1999).
Women and the poor tend to be underserved (Karelse and Sylla, 2000; Rathgeber,
2000; Hafkin, 2002; ACACIA Project [5]).
Other researchers have identified aspects of the location and design of
telecenters that influence who does or does not use their services (Kyabwe and
Kibombo, 1999; Baron, 1999; Harris, 1999; Cisler et al., 1999). These findings
suggest that telecenters are not being used by marginalized populations and
therefore have only limited direct impact on poverty. The study results tell us
little, however, about why telecenter use is limited. Are there serious obstacles
to access, or is demand for telecenter services limited?
Several
studies document the high costs of telecenter establishment and operation
(Benjamin and Dahms, 1999; Delgadillo and Borja, 1999) and the consequent high
cost of services to users. These findings have clear implications for
sustainability and poverty impact. However, without comparable estimates of the
nature and magnitude of the benefits obtained from telecenters, we cannot
conclude whether or not they are a worthwhile investment for donors and users.
Many
telecenters, especially when they are dependent on donor funding, fail to
become sustainable. Those operating as cybercafes may show positive cash flow
within the first few months of business (bridges.org, 2004). Telecenters may
also generate significant social benefits, particularly if they have clear
objectives and strong institutional frameworks, enabling community members to
acquire computer skills, increase their employability, and gain access to
markets (Batchelor et al., 2003). Much anecdotal evidence suggests that ICT
projects can be especially beneficial if they are closely linked to other
initiatives aimed at improving livelihoods.
Other
attempts to measure the development impacts of telecenters have produced
inventories of best practices for applying ICTs. Such studies report telecenter
experiences, describing how ICTs were applied and judging whether the
initiative complied with pre-established criteria for relevance to development
and poverty reduction.
In
2002 the International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD) in
The Netherlands and bridges.org in
The
Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP, 2003) has compiled a series of case studies
on ICTs for poverty reduction in
Several
authors have offered opinions about what exactly needs to be measured to
determine the impact of telecenters on development. Daly (1999) states that in
order to measure the impacts of the Internet in the developing world, factors
such as penetration, utilization, and effects arising from utilization need to
be analyzed. Gomez et al. (2001) present a social vision of ICTs for
development, emphasizing equitable access, meaningful use, and social
appropriation of ICT resources, together with enabling environments and
minimizing risks and threats. Mathison (GKP, 2003) stresses that projects need
to demonstrate an absence of negative social impacts. Another issue is the
extent to which the use of ICTs offers projects some competitive advantage,
compared with those having similar goals but that do not employ ICTs in the
same way.
Rigorous
impact analysis must go beyond those considerations, however, to assess where
and how the impact of community telecenters is happening. Daly (1999)
recommends that evaluations of ICT impacts focus first on individuals and then
seek impacts on groups and organizations, such as businesses, schools, and
health centers. Gomez (2001) defines four levels at which ICT use can have a
positive or negative impact: (1) on people, individually or collectively; (2)
on organizations, whether private, public, or civil; (3) on countries; and (4)
on the region or world, i.e., beyond national borders. At each of these levels,
the needs, questions, and evaluation methods are different.
Though
various studies have reported ICT impacts within communities, little has been
written about their impacts specifically on organizations. Whyte (1999)
recognizes the importance of measuring changes in organizations, given their
relevance to the development and life of communities. She suggests that in
telecenter evaluations special attention should be given to schools, chambers
of commerce, and health clinics as well as community organizations, NGOs, and
committees that have some formal structure and mandate. Whyte further notes
that “information and communication are critical to the success of any formal
organization so that savings in time and money, together with better
performance and reliability, are key questions for the evaluation” (Whyte,
1999, p. 288). The impacts of ICTs, she says, will thus “relate to the
efficiency of the organization, the outcomes it achieves, its decision-making
processes and the decisions made, as well as how effective its networking and
information sources are for reaching its organizational goals.”
Recent
developments in the evaluation of organizational capacity building offer some
guidance as to how we can examine the organizational impacts of ICTs. An
important trend in this work is the move away from analysis of project outputs
(i.e., products and services offered by external agents to passive recipients)
to the observation of changes in the behavior and performance of people and
organizations.
The
International Service for National Agricultural Research (ISNAR) contributed
importantly to this shift by devising novel methods for evaluating capacity
development programs in agricultural R&D organizations (Horton et al.,
2000; Horton et al. 2003). The conceptual framework for this evaluation drew on
an organizational assessment methodology developed by Universalia and IDRC and
on the underlying “theory of action” of the ISNAR project on participatory
monitoring and evaluation. The Universalia-IDRC framework views an
organization’s performance as a function of its operational environment (the
legal, social, and economic context), its motivation (internal factors that
influence the direction, coherence of activities, and energy displayed), and
its capacity (the organization’s staffing, resources, structure, management
systems, and linkages with others). Organizational performance is defined in
terms of effectiveness, efficiency, relevance to stakeholders, and
sustainability. A key lesson of these studies was that to assess the outcomes
of capacity development one must examine changes in the behavior and
performance of individuals within organizations, since it is their learning
process or acquisition of new knowledge and skills that gives rise to
organizational change.
Within
the framework described above, this study conducted an institutional analysis
of the telecenters supported by the InforCauca Project. The analysis was
prompted by project staff’s observation that, apart from benefits for
surrounding communities, the telecenters were having a profound effect on
capacity development [7]
within the organizations hosting the telecenters. The aim of this analysis was
to measure the extent to which improved capacity (the result of ICT access,
training, and the adoption of new ways of working) was having an impact on the
organizations’ performance. The results presented here suggest that, where the
telecenter is thoroughly embedded within its host organization, significant
impacts can be achieved through the organization’s activities. A further
challenge is to measure the impact of these strengthened organizations on the
communities they serve.
The
Inforcauca Project [8]
The
project’s central aim was to develop appropriate telecenter models for building
the capacity of individuals and organizations in marginalized regions to
benefit from information related to food security, social and economic
development, and natural resource management. InforCauca was implemented by the
The
project established and supported two telecenters in rural areas as well as one
urban telecenter [9].
One of the rural community telecenters was managed by ACIN in northern Cauca
Department, while the other was run, at least initially, by a consortium of
local organizations. After several attempts to establish this second telecenter
in different locations, such as a local technical school and the town cultural
center, it was placed at CorpoTunía, a not-for-profit NGO dedicated to
promoting agricultural as well as social and cultural development through
participatory approaches in various municipalities of central
InforCauca’s
search for appropriate models of telecenter development proved to be a process
of trial and error, in which project staff and local partners first had to set
aside many preconceived ideas and expectations. Eventually, however, they were
able to define a role for each telecenter that matched the needs and circumstances
of the host organizations and their communities. Thus, the ACIN telecenter came
to play a central part in this organization’s struggle to defend indigenous
communities and leaders against human rights violations. It also supported the
work of ACIN’s various development programs, which deal with such issues as
rural planning, agriculture, health, and indigenous women. The CorpoTunía
telecenter, meanwhile, complemented the organization’s community development
programs, particularly those aimed at strengthening small agro-enterprises.
In
supporting these telecenters, the InforCauca Project focused on strengthening
the capacity of individuals and local organizations to access, use, create, and
exchange information. Its capacity building program ranged from basic training
in computer programs to more intensive instruction in Web site development,
project development, and the use of conventional communications media in
conjunction with telecenter services. The project’s strong support, together
with a high level of commitment on the part of telecenter operators and host
organizations, were key for generating impact and for making progress toward
achieving telecenter sustainability.
Results of
the Analysis of Impact on Individuals and Communities
Data and Methods
The
central hypothesis of the InforCauca impact study was that through telecenters
individuals would obtain information that could help them make better
decisions. Our first objective, therefore, was to document the types of
information people were obtaining through the telecenters. Second, we wanted to
link the information obtained to changes in decision making, in livelihood
strategies, and ultimately, in people’s welfare. A final objective was to
determine who were and, perhaps more importantly, who were not using the
telecenters, with the aim of devising strategies to reach a broader audience.
Obviously,
to assess the impact of decision making and human welfare is a long-term
undertaking that involves comparing the situation before the telecenters’
establishment with that afterwards. For this purpose we opted for a dual
strategy of gathering information directly from telecenter users and from a
random sample of households in the telecenters’ target areas. The idea was that
information on users would provide early evidence on uses and users, while data
from the communities would enable us to examine the magnitude and distribution
of impacts.
Results
Results
of the telecenter early users survey
To
document how people were using the telecenters, user surveys were conducted at
both telecenters in late 2001. During a one-month period, a sample of users was
asked to fill out a form requesting (1) demographic information; (2)
information about the services used, the type of information sought, and use of
other communications media in addition to the Internet; and (3) an evaluation
of the quality of the service. A total of 39 surveys were obtained, 20 from
CorpoTunía and 19 from ACIN.
The
main purpose of this study was to characterize telecenter uses and users. It
examined how people draw on the Internet as well as other information sources
(including letters, telephone, radio, television, newspapers, and magazines) to
meet their diverse needs. The idea was to determine how ICTs fit within a
broader pattern of media use and to identify potential implications for
telecenter impact.
According
to the results, early users tended to be fairly young and well educated; their
average age was 28, and 97% had completed secondary education. At CorpoTunía
and ACIN, over half of telecenter users also had post-secondary education, and
over 20% were professionals. Thus, telecenter users were not representative of
the general population but rather constituted a relatively elite group fitting
the typical profile of “early technology adopters.”
Users
visited the telecenters, on average, four times per month, with no variation
across locations or sex of user. At CorpoTunía the most common reason for
visiting the telecenter on the day of the survey was related to school, while
at ACIN it was for work. There were no differences between men and women in
ranking the quality or availability of services.
Telecenter
users reported using a range of communications media and information sources,
including meetings and letters and print media as well as the telephone, radio,
and Internet. With few exceptions, use levels were high (>70%) across all
media and telecenter locations. To see how uses of different communications
media were related, we calculated correlations between the use of one option
and that of another. The results showed that in nearly all cases the use of one
medium was either unrelated or slightly positively correlated with the use of
other media.
Different
information sources or communications media appear to complement rather than
substitute for one other. To determine whether this complementarity is based on
the use of different media for different types of information or communication,
we grouped the information obtained from ICTs and other sources into four
categories: (1) family communication, (2) general information, (3) personal
development, and (4) specialized information. On average, users obtained
general news and information from 4.4 types of media, and information for
personal development from 2.8. Family communication depended on 1.7 different
media, and specialized information was obtained from 1.2 types. In general,
people used a single source to obtain different types of information (Table 1). Though the Internet was used for a variety of
purposes, interestingly, it was the most commonly used source of information
for personal development, suggesting that it fills an obvious information gap.
Table 1: Type of information
obtained by telecenter users, by source
|
ICT |
Type of information |
|||
|
|
Family
communication |
General
information |
Personal
development information |
Specialized
information |
|
|
%
of users of the ICT |
|||
|
Telephone
(n=33) |
82 |
30 |
39 |
9 |
|
Radio
(n=32) |
N/A |
72 |
19 |
19 |
|
Newspaper/magazine
(n=29) |
N/A |
93 |
41 |
31 |
|
Television
(n=39) |
N/A |
97 |
33 |
21 |
|
Internet
(n=30) |
47 |
57 |
63 |
17 |
|
Flyers
(n=36) |
78 |
58 |
14 |
|
|
Community
meetings (n=33) |
9 |
70 |
52 |
18 |
Significantly
for R&D organizations, only about 17% of users used the Internet to obtain
specialized information related to decisions or activities of economic
importance. But then only 38% obtained this information from any formal source,
and the figure is 24% if we exclude direct personal contacts via telephone and
community meetings.
What
are the implications of these findings for community telecenter
development? Obviously, if telecenters
are to have an economic impact in people’s lives, we need to know why so few
telecenter users search for specialized information on the Internet or through
other formal communications media. Is such information simply not available, or
if it is, do users have little faith in its veracity?
Are
they getting this type of information mainly through family or personal
communications in which they have more confidence? Clearly, there are important
challenges in boosting the overall number of telecenter users and expanding the
uses of Internet, which does, after all, offer the advantage of being a
resource with multiple purposes.
Results
of the baseline survey of the community served by the CorpoTunía
telecenter
To
begin characterizing and assessing the magnitude of the impacts of telecenter
use, a baseline survey was carried out during late 2002 and early 2003 in
communities near the telecenter operated by CorpoTunía. A sample of 445
individuals was selected, 48% in Tunía and 52% in the surrounding rural area.
The specific objectives were to document the extent of telecenter awareness and
use in the community, to identify any changes in the pool of telecenter users
(in relation to results from the user survey), and particularly to compare
users with nonusers. The survey also allowed us to examine broader information
and communication patterns in the community. A baseline survey was conducted
only in the area of influence of the telecenter at CorpoTunía, since it is the
only one that is open to the general public and is intended to serve the
community directly.
Nearly
two years after the initial user surveys were conducted, follow-up focus groups
were held with users of all three telecenters to get a better sense of how the
telecenters were affecting users’ lives. The idea was to gather qualitative
information to complement the quantitative surveys.
According
to the results of the baseline survey, awareness and use of the CorpoTunía
telecenter was relatively limited. Only 25% of the urban population of about
2,000 had visited the telecenter, though just over half had heard about it. The
figure is far lower for the surrounding rural area, where only 8% of the
respondents had even heard of the telecenter at Tunía. Because of the extremely
low use of telecenters in rural areas and because the urban and rural
respondents differ significantly on many, if not most, socioeconomic,
demographic, and information-related variables, it is valid to compare users
and nonusers only within the town of Tunía.
Table 2. Characteristics of
telecenter users and nonusers in Tunía
|
|
Users (n = 53) |
Nonusers (n = 160) |
|
Average age*** |
31 |
39 |
|
Percentage who are women |
51 |
47 |
|
Average number of years of
education*** |
6 |
4 |
|
Community group
participation |
.19 |
.15 |
|
Percentage living in their
own home |
74 |
69 |
|
Well-being
indices+ |
|
|
|
Index of access to public
services (e.g., electricity, running water, and trash collection) *** |
.98 |
.80 |
|
Index of access to health
services (social security and local health center)*** |
.92 |
.76 |
|
Own domestic appliances (refrigerator,
TV, blender, and gas/electric stove)*** |
.98 |
.80 |
|
Index of transportation
(car, motorcycle, and bicycle) ** |
.22 |
.13 |
|
Index of access to
education (primary and secondary school) *** |
.98 |
.70 |
|
Index of unsatisfied basic needs
(sum of indices of health, education, public services, and home ownership)*** |
.39 |
1.03 |
** = Differences among telecenters are significant at p ≤ 0.05.
*** = Differences among users are significant at p ≤ 0.01
+ Indices are weighted
averages of access to the goods or services in parentheses. Each component is
weighted by the inverse of the frequency of which it appears, i.e., the rarer
it is, the more it counts in the index. Indices go from 0 (lowest) to 1
(highest).
Telecenter
users were not as educated as the elite early adopters surveyed a year before,
suggesting that the user pool had broadened somewhat (Table 2). Yet, telecenter
users were still significantly better educated than nonusers, and they were
also better off in terms of material well-being (i.e., access to electrical
appliances, public services, and so forth).
In
addition, telecenter users were more likely to use and spend significantly more
money on other communications media. Users and nonusers did not differ,
however, with regard to gender or participation in community activities. Users
and nonusers of the telecenter differed significantly in terms of their use of
other sources of information and means of communication (Table 3). Telecenter
users were more likely to use the telephone, television, Internet, newspapers,
regular mail, and pamphlets than were nonusers. The Internet complemented other
information sources and appeared to widen the divide between those who have
access to information and those who do not.
Table 3. Use of information sources
and communications media in Tunía
Percentage of respondents who use:
|
Users |
Nonusers |
|
Telephone*** |
75 |
53 |
|
Radio |
87 |
80 |
|
Newspapers/magazines** |
60 |
43 |
|
Television** |
98 |
85 |
|
Internet*** |
24 |
5 |
|
Pamplets*** |
57 |
34 |
|
Community
meetings |
19 |
24 |
|
Regular
Mail** |
13 |
0 |
*** Significant
at < = 0.01 ** < = 0.05 * < =
0.10.
Many,
but not all, of the differences between users and nonusers of the telecenter also
applied for users and nonusers of the Internet (Table 4). Men were more likely
to use the Internet than women, and Internet users participated more in
community groups than did nonusers. Users were generally better off than
nonusers, but the differences were not as great as for telecenter users in
general. The two groups did not differ in terms of possession of household
appliances, and the differences in access to health services and transportation
were less marked. Again, Internet users were more likely to use other sources
of information and means of communication than were nonusers of Internet.
Table 4. Internet users and nonusers
in Tunía
|
|
Users (n=39) |
Non Users (n=174) |
|
Average age*** |
27 |
39 |
|
Percentage who are women*** |
31 |
54 |
|
Average number of years of
education*** |
8 |
4 |
|
Community group
participation *** |
.33 |
.12 |
|
Percentage who are
homeowners |
67 |
71 |
|
|
|
|
|
Well-being
indices+ |
|
|
|
Index of access to public services
(e.g., electricity, running water, and trash collection) *** |
.96 |
.82 |
|
Index of access to health
services (social security and local health center)* |
.89 |
.79 |
|
Own domestic appliances
(refrigerator, TV, blender, and gas/electric stove) |
.80 |
.79 |
|
Index of transportation
(car, motorcycle, bicycle) ** |
.24 |
.14 |
|
Index of access to
education (primary and secondary school) *** |
.97 |
.73 |
|
Index of unsatisfied basic needs
(sum of indices of health, education, public services, and home ownership)*** |
.51 |
.95 |
** = Differences among telecenters are significant at p ≤ 0.05
*** = Differences among telecenters are significant at p ≤ 0.01
+Indices are weighted averages of access to the goods or
services in parentheses. Each component is weighted by the inverse of the
frequency of which it appears, i.e., the rarer it is, the more it counts in the
index. Indices go from 0 (lowest) to 1 (highest)
With
respect to use of the Internet for seeking economically important information,
little had changed from the user survey made in 2001. In the case of farmers,
for example, more than half of those included in the community survey, even the
few who had used the telecenter, said they got such information from informal
sources, chiefly other farmers. Thirty-one percent relied on formal sources,
such as extension agents, agrochemical company representatives, and printed
pamphlets.
The
limited importance of the Internet as a source of specialized information could
relate to availability and confidence, as suggested in the discussion above of
telecenter user survey results. The baseline community survey points to still
another possible explanation. When asked what information might be useful to
them in their work, farmers referred generally to technical assistance,
training, and other topics, but only 21% were able to identify at least one
concrete information need (Table 5). In contrast, 34% of the students and all
of the teachers were able to identify such needs.
Table 5. Percentage of respondents
who identified concrete information needs
|
Activity/occupation |
% |
|
Agriculture |
20 |
|
Business |
25 |
|
Construction |
33 |
|
Employees |
46 |
|
Homemakers |
6 |
|
Teachers |
100 |
|
Students
|
34 |
These
findings are consistent with the predominance of students and teachers among
telecenter users. Teachers in particular are willing to pay for Internet use, because
they evidently know exactly what information they need and can readily obtain
it through the Internet. If community telecenters are to become equally
effective as a source of information for farmers and other actors in rural
development, then the needs of these people must be defined more concretely,
and more must be done to identify or create reliable information sources that
are genuinely useful to them. This is consistent with the growing recognition
that policies that seek to use ICTs to promote pro-poor development must not
only provide access to ICTs but also build skills that permit their effective
use (Gurstein, 2003)
Focus
group discussions
The
outcomes of the focus group discussions with telecenter users essentially
reinforced patterns that are evident from the user and community surveys. Users
tended to be younger and better educated than nonusers. And they frequented the
telecenter mainly for computer training, to obtain general information (related
to school assignments or availability of scholarships, for example), or to
communicate with friends and relatives. Cases of individuals obtaining
technical or economic information for use in development-related decisions were
scarce.
Even
so, the few such cases that exist can be quite instructive. Members of a local
association of flower producers, for example, have received training in basic
computer software at the telecenter in Tunía. With a view to identifying the
requirements for breaking into export markets, a CorpoTunía agronomist helped them
consult the Web sites of other associations. The group determined that, in
order to export their flowers, they would need to improve their infrastructure,
meet new demands in terms of product volume and quality, obtain credit, and so
forth. Thus, access to information has enabled the group to clarify its vision
for the future and to identify specific needs. However, they would not have
been able to form that vision without technical support from CorpoTunía, and
the information alone obviously will not enable the group to realize their
vision.
When
asked about their own perceptions of the telecenter’s impact, 83% of telecenter
users (and 66% of nonusers) said it had generated benefits. The predominant
telecenter uses – helping children do homework assignments and keeping in touch
with friends and relatives – may seem superficial in terms of rural
development. Even so, they represent important gains for the townspeople,
resulting in significant savings in time and money – a point stressed by many
focus group participants.
Moreover,
these telecenter uses are feeding the community’s hope for a better future. The
telecenter is fulfilling many people’s desire to learn and to be connected with
the wider world. The parents of young telecenter users express high expectations
that, by learning to use ICTs, their children will gain new opportunities for
education and advancement. With continuing support from CorpoTunía, the
experience of these early telecenter users should provide a solid foundation
for further ICT applications that contribute more directly to the achievement
of sustainable rural livelihoods.
Results of
the Analysis of Organizational Impacts
As
mentioned earlier, it was expected at the outset of the InforCauca Project that
impact would come largely from the use of telecenter services by individuals in
rural communities, who would derive economic benefits from information obtained
through the use of new ICTs. As the project advanced, however, it became
evident that more important changes were taking place within the organizations
hosting the telecenters.
For
that reason a method for evaluating organizational performance, developed by
IDRC and Universalia of Canada (Lusthaus et al., 1995) was incorporated into
the impact assessment. The purpose of this method is to gauge the extent to
which a project is having an impact on collaborating organizations at different
levels.
Structured
interviews, designed according to the Short Guide for Institutional Assessment
(Lusthaus et al., 1995) provided by IDRC and Universalia, were conducted with
key staff in the two organizations hosting rural community telecenters: ACIN (11 employees) and CorpoTunía (7
employees). The interviews were complemented by a review of documents
(including Web sites and internal reports) that provided evidence of important
changes in the organizations. The interview questions focused on three key
factors that influence organizational performance: (1) motivation, (2)
institutional capacity, and (3) environment. Based on interview results, a
qualitative analysis was conducted to establish the cumulative effect of
changes in those three factors on the overall performance of the telecenter
host organizations in terms of their effectiveness (in reaching goals), efficiency
(in using the available resources), and viability (i.e., financial health).
The telecenter at ACIN
The
ACIN telecenter was established in 2000 at one of the association’s offices in
Santander de Quilichao. It is available only to ACIN staff and to leaders and
other members of the indigenous communities supported by the Association. The
telecenter has two computers with Internet connection (via telephone), two
Quickcams, a printer, and scanner. Two local coordinators provide training and
orientation in the use of ICTs and other services, such as help in preparing
promotional and instructional materials. The most common uses of the telecenter
at ACIN are e-mail access, preparing and scanning documents, and consulting and
developing Web sites.
With
respect to motivation, ACIN staff felt that the telecenter had prompted them in
various ways to do a better job of fulfilling the organization’s mission.
First, by learning through the Internet about the experiences of others,
particularly those working with indigenous people in the
Naturally,
it took time for these changes to emerge. In fact, at the outset of InforCauca,
some indigenous leaders expressed concern that new ICTs would do more harm than
good. Their quite legitimate fears ranged from issues of personal safety and
cultural pollution to questions of intellectual property and possibly negative
implications for the Paez (indigenous) people’s oral tradition of
communication, which is a central element in their collective mode of decision
making. Indigenous leaders’ reservations gradually diminished however, as they
realized that, through appropriate capacity building and leadership, ICTs could
help rather than harm ACIN and the communities it supports. The leadership
issue was resolved in late 2002 through the creation of a Communications
Council, which provides a formal framework for decisions about the telecenter
as well as community radio programs and other communications activities.
In
terms of institutional capacity, the telecenter has contributed importantly to
the personal and professional development of ACIN staff. They have received
training in topics ranging from the use of ICTs to project proposal writing,
and some have learned about and taken advantage of opportunities to attend
international workshops. ACIN staff remarked that new computer skills have
improved their efficiency in the organization and in other activities, such as
teaching.
The
telecenter operators have provided valuable leadership in using the telecenter
to build institutional capacity, a point noted by most of the ACIN staff
interviewed. Beyond simply training others in the use of ICTs, the operators
have aided the search for information that is useful in ACIN’s day-to-day work.
The Association’s Education and Planning Programs have also played an active
role in this task.
In
addition to improving information availability within ACIN, the telecenter
operators have enhanced the Association’s capacity to communicate with some of
the more remote indigenous reserves by linking ICTs in practical ways with the
use of conventional communications media, especially radio. Under a system that
ACIN staff call “chivanet,” the telecenter operators copy documents, such as
e-mails and files from Web sites, onto diskettes and deliver these to the
driver of a rugged rural bus called a chiva, which travels daily to the remote
reserves. The driver delivers the diskettes to the radio operators, who then
convey messages and incorporate information from the Web into their radio
programming, thus keeping the communities that ACIN serves better informed
about developments locally and elsewhere that are pertinent to them.
In
some ways the telecenter has better enabled women in particular to play a more
active role in ACIN and in the indigenous communities generally. This was an
outcome of the telecenter’s strong support for the Association’s Indigenous
Women’s Program in obtaining and disseminating information about women’s rights
and the use of gender analysis methods. One result is that gender indicators
have been incorporated into the land-use planning of indigenous reserves in
five different municipalities. Another is that the criteria for filling
leadership positions in ACIN now include candidates’ respect for women and
commitment to families. Moreover, women are perceived to play a more active
role in decision-making through stronger participation in community meetings.
A
rather dramatic illustration of how ACIN staff has put their new capacities to
work emerged several years ago, when the intensification of fighting between
guerillas and paramilitaries in northern
Eventually,
ACIN and other indigenous associations in the region organized a massive human
rights march, in which 35,000 people participated. On this occasion the
telecenter proved vital in handling logistics as well as communication with the
media and other organizations.
By
heightening motivation and enhancing institutional capacity, the telecenter has
had a profound effect on the internal working environment at ACIN. But it has
had an equally important impact on the way the Association deals with its
external context. Better communication with donors and collaborators has made
them more aware of ACIN’s work “We’ve made ourselves better known to the rest
of the world”, as one person put it. “Now we have greater credibility with
other organizations,” said another. Staff noted that ACIN’s attractive Web site
has contributed importantly to those ends.
Better
public awareness has led to a marked expansion in ACIN’s links with other
organizations, especially donors, within
In
summary, the telecenter has come to serve as a kind of communications unit for
ACIN, helping improve its efficiency and effectiveness in developing projects,
organizing events, and providing services in support of indigenous communities.
These accomplishments have made ACIN a pioneer in the use of ICTs in
The telecenter at CorpoTunía
Unlike
ACIN, CorpoTunía had already begun using the Internet before the InforCauca
Project began. Nonetheless, staff and management tended to view this largely as
being for secretarial functions. Not until CorpoTunía came to host the
telecenter did all staff begin to acquire and apply ICT skills in their work.
Once CorpoTunía staff realized that hosting the telecenter added a new and
important dimension to their work, it then made sense for the organization’s
own staff to join the early adopters of this new technology. In addition to
serving CorpoTunía the telecenter is open to the general public, whose main
uses of telecenter services include accessing e-mail, preparing and scanning
documents, and conducting Web searchers.
The
telecenter’s primary impact in terms of the motivation of CorpoTunía staff has
been to broaden their field of action, enabling them to incorporate the use of
ICTs into their work on agro-enterprise development, rural education, and other
topics. The telecenter has thus given the organization an entirely new focal
point for project development – a task in which CorpoTunía has been remarkably
successful. The new projects, in turn, have provided staff with innovative ways
to reach rural communities and thus fulfill their development mission. As a
result, they have come to see the telecenter as a potential source of broad
social benefits while at the same time opening up new opportunities for local
organizations through improved communication. As a result of this experience,
CorpoTunía’s manager has became a strong proponent of ICT use in the region,
“selling the idea to everybody,” as he puts it. Partly as a result of his
efforts, other community telecenters have been set up in a neighboring
municipality.
In
addition to motivating CorpoTunía to widen its development vision, the
telecenter has helped it build the necessary capacities for realizing that
vision. As at ACIN, this is particularly evident in the telecenter operators
and other staff who have acquired valuable skills. One commented for example,
that she used the Web to prepare for meetings and that this better enabled her
to debate issues and participate in decision making. With regard to
agriculture, technicians working for CorpoTunía described how they were able to
obtain technical information from the Web that proved useful in their extension
activities with farmers. This is particularly important for the majority who
are para-professional extension agents possessing only a high school education.
Greater
openness to new opportunities and improved communication with donors through
the Internet has helped CorpoTunía develop new projects. As part of one of
these, Colombian students have exchanged information about their lives and
aspirations via Internet with students in
According
to some of the CorpoTunía staff interviewed, the telecenter has exerted a
positive influence on women in the organization, contributing to their
professional advancement and helping them establish new contacts. All of the
telecenter operators have been women, and they have benefited particularly from
the InforCauca Project’s capacity-building efforts.
By
adding a new dimension to CorpoTunía’s work, the telecenter has dramatically
changed the way the organization is viewed and operates in its external
environment. CorpoTunía projects a stronger image to other organizations,
through its well-organized Web site as well as through its new projects and
other actions. The manager of CorpoTunía actively shares his organization’s
experience with ICTs for example, through the National Confederation of NGOs
and the Board of Directors of the
In
contrast with developments at ACIN, the telecenter at CorpoTunía has not come
to serve strictly as an organizational communications unit. Rather, it has
motivated and enabled CorpoTunía leaders and staff to incorporate the use of
ICTs into their development work, and this is reflected in the way they provide
services and in the types of projects they develop. Quite apart from its
benefits for CorpoTunía, however, the telecenter also caters to other
organizations and individuals in the local community.
As
with ACIN, the question of financial and social sustainability is critical for
the telecenter at CorpoTunía. Because this telecenter is open to the general
public, it generates income through the sale of services. Even so, it also
relies heavily on support from CorpoTunía, particularly to provide capable
telecenter operators. The organization is willing to assume the costs of the
telecenter, even subsidizing its use by the general public, because it has come
to see the telecenter as an essential component of its community service and
project development efforts.
Some
Conclusions About Telecenter Impacts
What
lessons can be drawn from the results presented here on telecenter impacts in
organizations and among users in rural communities? Or to pose the question in
a different way, what can rural people reasonably expect from a community
telecenter?
Based
on the results of our analysis of impacts among telecenter users and in local
communities, one might conclude that these people, particularly the poorest
among them, have little to gain directly from telecenter services. The
telecenters reported in this study cater mainly to relatively well-educated
individuals in local schools and organizations, and these people’s use of ICTs
merely complements their already good access to other communications media.
In
contrast, small farmers and other less privileged members of the community apparently
face formidable cultural and other barriers to effective use of telecenter
services. Many farmers appear not to have easy access to telecenters or do not
feel inclined to visit them; and if they do visit, they do not necessarily have
a concrete idea of their information needs. Moreover, even if they find
information on the Internet that is relevant to their work, this may not
possess the confidence needed to translate that information into knowledge
through experimentation, leading to effective action aimed at solving a
specific problem or seizing a new opportunity. So, it would seem that the
telecenter (particularly if operated essentially as a cybercafe) may actually
tend to widen rather than reduce the gap between the community’s elite and the marginalized
sectors.
Nonetheless,
in the hands of a socially committed local organization with imaginative
leadership, community telecenters can give rise to significant impacts in terms
of enhanced organizational performance. And presumably, more efficient and
effective organizations will do a better job of helping rural communities
develop new sources of income, educate their children, defend their human
rights, and address other important aspects of sustainable livelihoods.
Moreover, if the organizations perceive obvious benefits from the telecenter,
they will be more likely to pay the financial costs of maintaining it.
Thus,
we should perhaps view community telecenters, in the first instance, as a means
of strengthening local organizations and not just as a way to make useful
information more readily available to individuals. An important question,
though, is to what extent the institutional impacts observed in the two
telecenter host organizations covered by this study can also be achieved in
other local organizations that use ICTs but are not necessarily engaged in
offering those services to the public through a community telecenter.
CorpoTunía has examined this question through a project aimed at identifying,
training, and supporting gestores de comunicación, (communications managers) in
local organizations, such as farmer associations, women’s organizations, and
local committees. The project has come to a close, but the results have not yet
been published except in a project report provided to the donor.
Assuming
the study shows that organizations using community telecenters can derive some
benefits from their use of ICTs, do such benefits provide a strong enough
justification for the establishment of community telecenters on a massive scale
in developing countries? In other words, if all we can reasonably expect from
telecenters, in terms of development impact, is more effective local
organizations, is this sufficient to fulfill the high expectations created by
the global telecenter movement? Probably not, unless community telecenters are
accompanied by other interventions, involving the use of various conventional
media and aimed at creating bridges between telecenters and the remote or
reluctant but potential users of information sources to which the telecenter
can provide easier access. ACIN’s chivanet system is one example of how this
can be accomplished. CIAT, in collaboration with CorpoTunía and other Colombian
partners is examining another option, which involves creating and supporting
community-based grupos gestores de comunicación (communications groups). Until
such approaches have been developed, tested, and widely adopted, the decisive
factor in achieving telecenter sustainability will be the conviction of local
organizations that they have a potentially large social value, of which the
organizations themselves can be the immediate beneficiaries.
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[1] The project evaluated here featured a rich
learning process, in which local partners participated actively through periodic
meetings to review and reflect on telecenter experiences. Their insights were a
valuable input into this impact evaluation. We wish to acknowledge in
particular Alvaro del Campo Parra, vice-rector for research and technology
development at the Universidad Autónoma de Occidente; Marino Ovidio Fiscué,
Coordinator of Health, Asociación de
Cabildos Indígenas del Norte del Cauca (ACIN); and William Cifuentes, Manager,
Corporación para el Desarrollo de Tunía (CorpoTunía). We also recognize the
contribution of Liliana Mosquera and James García in data collection.
[2] ACIN (the Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca,
Colombia) supports 16 indigenous councils representing nearly 100,000 people –
65% indigenous, 30% mestizo, and
5% Afro-Colombian – through various development programs.
[3] CorpoTunia is a local not-for-profit NGO that contributes to
integrated sustainable development in
[4] For more information on the ICT4D Platform,
its structure and its relationship to the World Summit on the Information
Society (WSIS) visit http://www.globalknowledge.org/ict4d.
[5] The complete report on the ACACIA project is
available at: http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-31972-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html
[6] The case studies
disseminated so far are available on line at: http://www.bridges.org/iicd_casestudies/case_studies.html
[7] Definition of “organizational capacity development” by Horton et al.
(2003): An ongoing process by which an
organization increases its ability to formulate and achieve relevant
objectives. It involves strengthening both its operational (day-to-day
activities) and adaptive (learn and change) capacities.
[8] To access the reports on
this project, visit the Web site at: http://www.ciat.cgiar.org/inforcom/inforcauca.htm
[9] This paper refers mainly
to the two rural telecenters of the InforCauca project. Sarah Parkinson’s MSc
thesis (2003) is a complete study on the social impact of the urban telecenter
of Aguablanca, which was also part of this project.