[governance] How do we engender effective participation from developing countries (Africa)?

[Suresh Ramasubramanian]

Nyangkwe Agien Aaron wrote:

> On Internet connectivity, which is the main problem in my country, my
> presence at any IGF will be to look at the means in which the civil
> society can assist in solving this solution.

You can set up wireless mesh networks, and/or deploy OLPC which does the
same thing. Or you can do what Mahabir Pun has done in Nepal to connect yak
herders in remote villages in Nepal, and for which he deservedly won the
Ramon Magsaysay award this year.

That'd be local networking though. Internet access .. fully open to ideas on
what you can do, as CS, to go after, say, the various satellite providers
that provide connectivity to most of Africa.  In several countries, that's
the monopoly incumbent telco, owned and operated by the government in that
country.

That'd not be an international problem, unfortunately. It is an entirely
local problem. Which you can probably enlist some international help to
resolve, but the solution for which would be entirely local (and, I suspect,
deeply political, in most cases)

Oh, and another thing I forgot to mention is that it quite often is not
something that CS will be able to resolve all that easily, by itself.

	srs

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