ICT Policy and Gender Equity Policy for Access and Cultural Communication in Mali: The Multipurpose Community Telecentre, Timbuktu

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1 ICT Policy and Gender Equity Policy for Access and Cultural Communication in Mali: The Multipurpose Community Telecentre, Timbuktu J. Ann Dumas, Ph.D. IAMCR, Barcelona, Spain July 23, 2002

2 Information and communication technologies (ICTs) can reshape cultures through change to communication patterns. This study examined ICT policy, gender equity policy and cultural communication in the case of the Multipurpose Community Telecentre (MCT) in Timbuktu, Mali. Multipurpose Community Telecentre (MCT) is defined here as a gender inclusive community center to provide public access to ICT training, networks and equipment including computers, Internet, printing, scanning, fax and copying services for rural communities in developing countries. The global Information Society is a concept not yet realized because of unequal ICT access. Cultural dominance of the technologically empowered threatens cross-cultural relations and survival of diverse world cultures within the Information Society as it exists in Mali was examined as a developing country in Sub-Saharan Africa with human conditions in common with much of the developing world: high birth rate and infant and maternal mortality rate, low literacy and GDP. Mali also has a long history of political, economic, intellectual, and spiritual leadership, particularly through the cultural heritage based in the Timbuktu region. Mali was selected as the country for the first Multipurpose Community Telecentre (MCT) pilot project in Africa sponsored by ITU, UNESCO and IDRC in1996. Mali selected the site of Timbuktu for the first of five proposed MCTs in Mali. Timbuktu is a multicultural region. Three of the mosques in Timbuktu are world heritage sites. Timbuktu was also the site of cultural and politically based conflict from 1990 to 1994 during the transition period from one party autocracy to multiparty democracy. The need for improved political communication between the capital city of Bamako and the rural Timbuktu region was defined by this conflict. 2

3 The MCT in Timbuktu, Mali was a collaboration of the ITU, UNESCO, IDRC, SOTELMA, the national telecommunications provider of Mali, and local civic and civil organizations of the Timbuktu region. Four similar MCT pilot collaborations were built in Benin, Uganda, Mozambique, and Tanzania since The Timbuktu MCT was first set up in the hospital in 1998 to facilitate ICT training of hospital staff for future applications of telemedicine. The MCT was moved to the city hall in 1999 to facilitate ICT applications for political communications. By 2000, the city finished building the permanant home for the MCT, new library and radio broadcast station near the city centre. The negotiation of international, national and local policy for ICT development required attention to cultural issues, particularly regarding gender and political power relations. Gender equity was a target goal for the MCT projects on principle but also because of the expected benefits, based on results of gender equity in health, education and economic development projects (UNDP, 2001, King and Mason, 2001). Local decision-making and control have enhanced opportunity for cultural preservation and project sustainability of such international collaborations. The decision-innovation process in Timbuktu resulted in innovative ICT applications to community needs. Creative solutions were developed for past problems recurring from unresolved cultural differences. Past conflict from cultural differences between nomadic Tuareg cattle herders and settled Songhay farmers was addressed through the application of ICT s. Internet access for 3

4 information gathering was coupled with radio for information dissemination to achieve peaceful coordination between the farmers harvest and the herders cattle drive. Radio has long been the most pervasive communication media technology throughout Africa. It is inexpensive, literacy independent and relatively time and distance independent. Meddie Mayanja of Worldlinks stressed the importance of radio linked with Internet access for provision of information needs: Discussion of the use of ICTs in development process especially for rural communities means selling a new "approach". An approach that uses ICTs as a tool... and that facilitates the decision-innovation process on the part of the rural communities. They would certainly need knowledge (and) information to stimulate innovation and adoption. (R)adios are nearly everywhere, they cut across literacy levels and cultures. We have heard of radio browsing the Internet in Sri Lanka thus bringing the possibilities of the ICTs closer to the communities then the chances of adoption are greater. Especially for rural communities, incorporation of radios/community radios in packaging of ICT programs is a wise choice. One may call it a smart tool for ICT marketing... (Mayanja,2002) Internet information was gathered to determine the best time for harvest based on weather, harvest and market conditions. Then radio was used to alert the public of the planned harvest time and request that the cattle drive occur after the harvest. Common conflicts of the past were avoided and a system of cross-cultural coordination of necessary work was developed which can be used in the future. ICTs contributed to building greater cultural and social harmony. Greater participation in the public sphere also resulted from ICT access in Mali. The 2002 election used ICTs where available to inform the public and gather and process 4

5 election returns. The media granted equal time to each of the 23 candidates to better inform the voters on their positions on campaign issues. Phones, radio and the Internet were used to send election results to Bamako for processing prior to reception of the official hard copy ballots. Timbuktu had the highest voter turnout in the entire region. ICTs contributed to democracy in Mali. Cultural production by artisans in the Timbuktu region and throughout Mali has benefited from access to ICTs for direct market sales. During the first year of operations many users at the MCT were women, including artisans, educators and entrepreneurs. Women and men artisans prefer to deal directly with the purchasing clients. Artists receive higher prices for their work when clients buy from Timbuktu rather then from retailers in Bamako or elsewhere. ICTs also contributed to economic development for farmers through providing access to agricultural information. ICT applications for telemedicine and distance education are planned as a means of expanding the local knowledge base for better community health and education services. In Timbuktu, ICTs have been used to digitize Arabic documents from the thirteenth century and later held in the Ahmed Baba Centre and Haidara libraries. Local decisions on how to apply ICTs to community needs have helped minimize the very real threats to indigenous culture which are possible from the introduction of ICTs. 5

6 The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) will hold a World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva, 2003 and Tunis, Preparatory meetings have gathered on each continent to produce recommendations for WSIS. The ITU Task Force on Gender Issues (ITU-TFGI) and the Gender Caucus of the African Regional Conference (ARC) in preparation for WSIS made recommendations for achievement of gender equity within the Information Society. Gender equity is integrally related to development in all sectors. Past research affirms the significant role that gender equity plays in health, education, economic and political development (UNDP, 2001, King and Mason, 2001). As ICT is applied to economic, social and political systems, gender equity is expected to contribute to the sustainablity of programs within each of these sectors. Toward this end, the ITU-TFGI and the Gender Caucus of ARC-WSIS recommended development of gender aware guidelines for policymaking agencies so that women and men are each considered in policy formation and impact assessment. The Gender Caucus of the ARC-WSIS made recommendations to a broad range of stakeholders on the ICT policy-making process. These recommendations included: ICT training and capacity development programs; application of gender analysis framework to policy and strategy for ICT development; collect genderdisaggregated data for research; strengthen relationships among international, national and local civil and civic institutions to support gender equity as a human right and implement the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Gender equity in ICT diffusion, training and application is important to development and integration within the global Information Society. The international 6

7 MCT support agencies, affirmed gender equity as a project objective. The United Nations, its agencies and its members acknowledge gender equity as a human right included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, CEDAW and the world conferences on women. The ITU Task Force on Gender issues and the African Regional Conference for the World Summit on Information Society have affirmed the need for gender equity in policy of the ITU. Zoe Baird of the Markle Foundation articulated the importance of narrowing economic and gender based gaps in access to and participation in ICT and identified obstacles to achievement of this objective: The opportunities derived from the information age in which we now live are clearly in the hands of those who want to threaten peaceful world order. It is just as critical that we work to get this technology into the hands of those we want to support and nurture around the world as the benefits of ICT can do much to offset hostility by improved health, education and wealth creation within the developing world (Baird, 2002). Sen (1999) conceptualizes poverty as capability deprivation and therefore, freedom from poverty is related to capacity building. This concept relates poverty reduction to capability development and implies the need gender equity in ICT training and capacity builñding. The MCTs collect gender-disaggregated data as recommended by the ITU-TFGI. Research on long term effects of gender equity policy on MCT operations and community impact is at an early stage because the Timbuktu project was in the formative stage from 1998 and only reached full operation in the permanent facility in

8 Many NGOs have supported cultural communication, linguistic diversity, pluralism, democracy, freedom of expression and human rights (Girard, 2002). National and international NGOs in Mali have encouraged gender equity in ICT development and supported e-governance, health and economic ICT applications. Some NGOs have begun to conduct research on the recent diffusion of ICT into rural developing communities and its effects on cultural, social and economic development. Continued collection of gender-disaggregated data and longtitudinal analysis will contribute to the understanding of gender equity in ICT development. The MCT model for ICT access and participation aimed to create a gender inclusive community environment. Community is important to rural cultures, which comprise the majority of most developing countries. Community input from the initial stage of the MCT included women s organizations and women from the artisan s, educator s and political groups of Timbuktu. Gender inclusiveness has been defined as critical to achievement of the UN defined Millennium Goals for poverty reduction. A gender analysis framework was applied to policy and strategy for ICT development which considered gender issues in employment, training and ICT access, usage and applications. 40% of the MCT staff are woman including the business manager and one of the teachers.. The Timbuktu MCT offered 20% reduction in ICT training rates as incentive for capacity development by women and youth to become early adopters of ICT. This resulted in 36% women of the MCT trainees and users. 8

9 Women's participation was part of the Timbuktu MCT project from the early planning stages until its present stage as a community run business and communication resource. Women s participation in communications technology was high before the MCT opened. Women used phones for business and social communications prior to the implementation of the MCT (Scharffenberger, 1998). The adoption of ICTs for communications needs by women has been a positive result of the proactive policy for gender inclusiveness. Though this study did not attempt to establish a causal relationship between the gender equity policy of the MCT and the cultural communication facilitation purpose of the MCT. The two developed concurrently as positive results of the MCT in the Timbuktu community. The MCT in Timbuktu demonstrated how integration of ICT into the society through Internet and radio helped resolve culturally based conflict. It also demonstrated how participation by women as staff trainers, trainees and ICT user clients at the MCT helped integrate ICT into the social fabric of this multicultural region. Further research beyond the scope of this paper could help identify cultural factors affecting the integration of ICT into the various cultures of the region. The MCT has helped Timbuktu preserve and share some of its cultural resources with the developing global knowledge system. Gender equity characterized the diffusion of ICT into rural Timbuktu at all phases of development. The shared participation by women and men in the application of ICTs to community health, education, economic, social, political and cultural needs has brought Mali closer to social citizenship in the Information Society. 9

10 References Baird, Z. (2002) to author, July 2. Girard, B. (2002) to author, July 5. King, E. and Mason, A. (2001) EnGendering Development Through Gender Equality in Rights, Resources and Voice. Washington D.C.: World Bank. Mayanja, M. (2002) to author, July 3. Scharffenberger, G. (1999) Timbuktu Multipurpose Telecentre Baseline Study: Community information and communications profile. Washington, D. C.: Pact Institute Sen, A. (1999) Development as freedom. New York, New York: Alfred A. Knopf. UNDP (2001) Human Development Report 2001: Making New Technologies Work for Human Development. NY: United Nations. 10