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

[Lee McKnight]

Nyangke, Suresh,

I agree there are a range of technical solutions and dimensions to the
problem of access in developing nations, but disagree that there is not
an international dimension to those probelms that can fruitfully
discussed on this list as well as at IGF meetings.

For example, at the regional level discussion at Caribbean Internet
Forum meetings on high bandwidth pricing due to limited capacity in the
region led directly to political and business forces coordinating across
islands, resulting in private investment in several fibers, with
recommendations for access policies to encourage on-island competition
to bring prices down. The new fibers aren;t all lit just yet but a lot
has changed in a few years time, due to coordinated civil society,
business & government actions; which will ultimately affect connectivity
options within several nations. Acting inside one country at a time
could not resolve that issue.

In the African case, I am aware of new fiber initiatives seeking landing
rights at this very minute, where it would increase backbone capacity
and likely drive down prices in many nations, and hence increase access.
So if civil society/the international community were to speak up and
encourage governements to let the new players in, that could only help. 
To be clear, I have no stake in those initiatives, just have my fingers
crossed that the usual suspect incumbent players don't succeed in
derailing them.

For IGF India, more discussion of areas where technology and policy (and
business) can intersect to improve access opportunities in developing
nations might be helpful; I intend to propose some ideas there myself. 

So international CS can't resolve these problems by itself, I agree, but
it can help government and business focus on the true barriers to
access, and provide some focus for local user communities to rally
around to bring their own pressure to bear.

Lee

Prof. Lee W. McKnight
School of Information Studies
Syracuse University
+1-315-443-6891office
+1-315-278-4392 mobile
>>> suresh at hserus.net 12/11/07 9:32 AM >>>
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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