[governance] New Blogpost: Investment 58-Poverty 14: TheUN'sBroadband Commission for Digital Development vs. the MDGs

Tue Sep 28 15:41:44 EDT 2010

I'm engaged in a rather heated discussion with one of the prime authors of
the BBCDD.  I won't presume to forward his comments but here below are my
most recent ones... I think there may be a broader interest within this
group.

M

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Gurstein [mailto:gurstein at gmail.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 2010 9:24 AM
Subject: RE:  New Blogpost: Investment 58-Poverty 14: TheUN'sBroadband
Commission for Digital Development vs. the MDGs

One of the (many) advantages of living on the "best" coast is that you can
initiate a "discussion" before you go to sleep and wake up to find that most
of the heavy lifting has already been done for you ;-)

In fact contra  xxx , this isn't just ITU and UNESCO blather... I see it
rather in the context of WSIS and an attempt to refight the development of
the Plan of Action (including myself as a minor contributor) and the outcome
of the Task Force on Financing Mechanisms where civil society  fought very
long and very hard to ensure the opportunity for a plurality of approaches
to financing/ownership and a focus on uses rather than infrastructure.  The
result was a somewhat uneasy compromise but a compromise nevertheless in
which the corporates (and their implicit ITU collaborators) had to take a
rather more inclusive and "use" oriented approach than they would have
wished.

Having seen at least one major country of the South focus its ICT (and thus
Broadband) planning within the context of the WSIS Declaration I have
difficulty in seeing this Commission Report as quite as benign as you are
suggesting especially given its obvious repudiation of the operating
principles of WSIS which were inclusiveness, transparency and
multistakeholderism.

I don't think one needs to be a conspiracy buff to see this current document
a clear attempt to do an end run around WSIS in the service of a specific
approach to BB financing and deployment while wrapping itself in the
convenient cloak of the MDGs.

The Report of the Task Force on Financing Mechanisms includes the following
rather more tempered and inclusive approach (i.e. the role of CSO's and
community based organizations) in its summary of recommendations:

4.         There is evidence to suggest that the broad-based deployment of
ICT also depends on a supportive development policy environment for ICTD
particularly the establishment of national e-strategies and the integration
of ICT into poverty reduction and/or other national development strategies
and the PRSP process. 
Over 90 developing countries have developed or are in the process of
completing national ICTD strategies. These strategies, typically designed on
a multi-stakeholder basis, have been important in establishing national
ownership and in outlining a set of key priority areas for intervention.
Many of these have also linked to priorities outlined in the national
poverty reduction or other development strategies, the success of which
critically depends upon effective information management tools and
applications, communication, and coordination across all public agencies and
programs. The process and content of the poverty reduction and other
development strategies are also key for donors who align their aid and
partnership strategies to the priorities outlined therein. [3,4 ]

5.         Policy and regulatory incentives and more open access policies
are also needed if private investment, CSO and community networks are also
found to be effective in expanding ICT access to high cost (predominantly
rural) and low income populations to address the "bottom of the pyramid"
populations.

Addressing policy barriers, removing restrictions on competitive entry by
ICT companies and local community network operators, and permitting the use
of cost effective technologies (e.g. VOIP, and on unlicensed spectrum), and
other innovative practices have been found to be helpful in moving the
network frontier to address the needs of currently under-served populations.
Continued cooperation between various development partners and stakeholders
can also help in addressing the problems of providing rural access using new
technological applications including wireless broadband devices, offering
incentives to Internet cafes, phone shops and community communications
networks. [5, 5a)

FWIW my own position is not against private (or public) sector financing or
deregulation/de-taxing in support of BB deployment.  I think different
approaches will make sense in different contexts. But what needs to be
recognized is that the ultimate determinant of the approach undertaken
should be whether it contributes or not to the achievement of broad based
access and use of the infrastructure.  From my experience and following  yyy
here, any approach that doesn't include/allow for/enable/facilitate a
significant component of end-user community involvement and "ownership" is
almost certain to fail from a developmental perspective. And my major
problem with the Commission's report is that there doesn't seem to be a very
strong reality component as to what is required whether in terms of policy
or supporting and enabling resources to translate BB access into BB
"effective use".

Further and again following  yyy , the Commission's report seems to take the
position that it is entering into a greenfield environment. In fact of
course, a large number of folks both on the ground and working in support of
those developments have been active for years in creating conditions where
ICTs could be effectively used. Even a casual review of the literature via
Skype would have revealed a startling amount of experience and knowledge
without even having to find the time or energy to contact the folks involved
directly. As a colleague who has worked on the ground in Mozambique for the
last 20 years wrote on my blog "This is indeed very sad, sounds as if the
Commission didn't even do a proper literature review to get a line on
current debates! Even our little Digital Inclusion study might have helped!"

Sincerely,

Mike

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