Reasons Why Libraries Are the New Telecentres

You could think the writer of this article was as if  reflecting on RIC-NET work?

RIC-NET has transformed Rural information Centres into community libraries.

 A quotation from

 http://www.ictworks.org/2014/02/12/7-reasons-why-libraries-are-the-new-telecentres/

Possibilities of what was Telecentre could be sustained as community library

"1. library based–the first and most important evident learning is their decision to use libraries as the base for the broader Internet access and use programs.  This approach, which many of those involved have long recommended, provides the local initiatives with an immediate on-going organizational base including for financial management, physical presence and access to skilled personnel and perhaps most important gives it a framework which would allow for continuity and the potential for growth.

2. on-going support–the program has indicated that it will provide on-going support to the individual grantees which is a direct response the problem encountered by so many Telecentre programs where grants were given to people in the field and then the grantors effectively moved on to something else leaving the grantees without adequate training, mentoring, or the possibility of backstopping through ad hoc funding for emergency or bridging purposes.

3. links to policy–by including policy makers as part of the team invited to the regional events the program is indicating a recognition of one of the failings of the earlier programs which was the lack of any linkage in most instances into appropriate policy making structures. This absence left the individual Telecentre without the necessary linkages to possible funders when the time came that additional funding was required. (Notably in many instances the earlier programs were sponsored out of Ministries of Telecommunications or Industry rather than Ministries which had an interest in on-going support for locally based social and economic development.)

4. links to local NGO’s–similarly with local NGO’s also being represented in the teams invited to the regional meetings.  While in many instances Telecentres were closely linked to specific NGO programs often these were NGO’s developed specifically for the purpose of working with the Telecentre and when funding or other issues arose in many instances these NGO’s lacked the broad base of community support that was necessary to make an effective response.

5. capacity for innovation–a major failing of the earlier Telecentre programs was that the structure of funding was fixed so that the activities undertaken within the Telecentre were generally built into the funding contract and there was little or no flexibility available to allow the Telecentre to evolve or to respond to local requirements, opportunities, or difficulties. The Beyond Access program has indicated specifically that funding is available for new or enhanced programs or for the extension of existing programs to new locales.  In fact the Workshop that I attended had a section devoted specifically to helping the teams identify, design and plan for the implementation of just such innovations!

 6. financial continuity–as noted the earlier programs had limited time and funding frames and generally suffered from a lack of secure continuity beyond the initial grant, reflecting the ways in which most government and donor funding is based on year to year budgets and program cycles.  Beyond Access has indicated that they have a minimum of 3 year funding and have extended the security that this provides to the individual grantees in the sense that they have indicated that additional funding would be available as might be required to support the initiatives during the entire life of this first stage of the overall program.

7. networking-peer-to-peer–bizarrely many of the first round Telecentre programs not only did not promote peer-to-peer contacts and the creation of networks of mutual support among individual Telecentres, in many instances they actively resisted or undermined the creation of these networks (the suspicion was that there was a fear that such networks might gain political influence and thus challenge bureaucratic and centralized policy management and decision-making). In contrast to this Beyond Access is actively promoting and supporting the development of peer-to-peer relations among the individual initiatives and the creation of an overall network of initiatives for mutual support, idea and experience exchange, and so that they might become a basis for influencing ICT and Development policy making.