Community-based Networks and Innovative Technologies: New Models to Serve and Empower the Poor
Seán Ó Siochrú; Bruce Girard
This research considers an innovative combination of community owned enterprises and the new wave of wireless and related technologies that together may have the potential to extend networks and offer new services to poor communities and to empower them to develop solutions that are more focused on their development needs.
In combination with a number of positive regulatory trends and ideas, these emerging ICT options could make a significant difference to:
network access
delivery of services
economic and social opportunities for poorer rural communities.
In poorer countries, local community control and participation is widely recognised as critical to the success of ICT projects such as telecentres and application development. Three identified variations of a community driven approach are the user/community owned cooperative, the local authority owned network, and the hybrid entrepreneurial/community-driven model. Each might suit different circumstances. Community ownership in general, our research suggests, works best where there is quite a high level of community institutional organisation (NGOs, CBOs etc.), strong leadership for the initiative itself, significant support in the local political context (partly to negotiate openings at other political levels), and where the demand for ICTs emerges directly from the experience of community social, economic and other needs. However, elements of an enabling environment can be identified to enhance the prospects of implementation and success. These elements are: the national information communications policy; the regulatory climate; investment and financing, and resource and capacity building. Recommendations are offered for each element.
Supporting National Policy Strand
Areas of national policy that would support the emergence of local community owned enterprises include:
Identification of areas where current approaches are failing (reach and/or provision of affordable access);
A suitable legal structure that would be flexible enough to support different partnership structures;
Tax exemption or benefits for non-profit enterprises, and a means to ensure that surpluses are reinvested in local communities;
A National Support Unit, or some such modality, to kick-start community owned initiatives, and to design, provide or oversee many of the proposals below.
Regulatory Climate
The following would create a regulatory climate generally favourable towards local network deployment and a few specific favouring a community owned approach, to be applied in areas identified as suitable.
Technology neutral licenses, so that services use the most effective and cheapest available;
Flexibility should be allowed in license award and conditions;
License exempt spectrum for wireless use should be free of costs and administrative burdens;
Interconnection pricing should be favourably set, including ‘asymmetric’ pricing;
Universal service funds should be accessible for development of community owned networks, including at the application and content level;
An ‘open access’ policy for connections to the national backbone could be promoted, that would also recognise the development benefits and higher conventional costs of services in rural areas;
Local regulations could be developed to ensure that service and application initiatives embody significant elements of community ownership and control.
Investment and Financing
Mechanisms for communities to gain access to financing for viable network development might include:
Tax and other finance mechanism reforms to give cooperatives and not-for-profit ventures fair access to existing investment mechanisms;
Institutional mechanisms for low cost loans, including adapting existing donor mechanisms;
Institutional structures that will attract local area investment, from users and others.
Resource and Capacity Building
This is one of the major areas for support. It is widely acknowledged that business and
organisational skills are in short supply at local level. This could be addressed in a number of ways:
Capacity building activities and materials developments;
Establishing national pools of resources and expertise;
Linking to experience and expertise elsewhere, through information sharing, peer-to-peer support, study visits, building networks and so forth.
Many of the above would best be provided as a coherent and sustained package by a
national support institution, agency or initiative specifically charged with designing and
implementing a supportive environment for community owned and community-driven networks. |
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