Francois Laureys

The Microsoft Unlimited Potential programme (‘Connections, Communities, Partnerships’ – they know how to sell the programme with nice slogans) is a new version of the human side of Microsoft; the company is putting an enormous effort into promoting this programme amongst others in Africa. One of the ways to do this are the ICT Best Practice Forums that Microsoft, together with ECA and national governments, this year organises on West, North and East and South-East Africa. The first edition takes place in June in Ouagadougou, and as an important player in Burkina Faso I am supposed to represent IICD. When I read the programme the first thing that gains my interest is the absolute lack of best practices of Burkina Faso itself and that while Burkina Faso is hosting the event… and a number of by IICD supported projects in Education and Agriculture are nice examples of how you can use ICT for local needs. Were this projects not good enough compared to those of best practices of other countries? Did Microsoft/CEA miss out on them? Did the local government not put them forward? The Minister of ICT is capable enough doing so out of disrespect for the civil society. .. However it may be, we have to deal with best practices of countries like South-Africa, Tunisia, Egypt and Nigeria – and there are a few interesting presentations to attend. Are the best practices applicable in Burkina Faso? I doubt it. All these countries are miles ahead with regard to governance, economic situation and infrastructure compared to Burkina Faso. And why do we always have to look at best practices? A Forum addressing worst practices would probably be more educative!

At the end of the ICT Best Practice Forum in Ouagadougou the Vice-President of Microsoft Africa can finally hold his speech. He takes plenty of time to tell how philanthropically his company will approach Africa in the coming years. Almost moved to tears he tells about his visit to a college in Ouagadougou, and how he was shocked about the poor (ICT) conditions that these pupils had to cope with. And about the ICT-design awards that he was asked to hand out as part of a Microsoft sponsored contest to a number of teachers in Burkina Faso who managed to distinguish themselves in the field of ICT. And about how proud he was on the fact that these teachers had been able to develop themselves thanks to the Microsoft Partners in Learning (PIL) programme.

Unfortunately the good man was misinformed by the local representative of PIL. The PIL-programme of Microsoft is operating in Burkina Faso since 2004 – or better said: it is barely operating. Since the start, 40 teachers at the most have been trained, and barely anything is noticed of a systematic roll out by the government. Of the ten thousands of computers that Microsoft would ship to Burkina Faso is nothing ever heard anymore. Than again, the government never bought large numbers of Microsoft licences as was agreed upon in the deal between Burkina Faso and Microsoft.

None of the 12 teachers who won a price in the contest supported by Microsoft ever took part in the PIL-programme: the first two awards have been handed out to teachers who took part in the 1-year post-graduate multimedia programme of the French Campus Numérique. And the other 8 award winners are trained as part of an educational training programme provided by our local partner ZCP and supported by us.

Microsoft needs to re-conquer Africa one way or another. From Bill Gates’ perspective his company loses millions of dollars each day, only because almost every user on the African continent works with a pirated copy of Windows. The average African, and the average African organisation does not see why he should pay for a product that he can get for free from his neighbour. Those Microsoft licenses are pretty expensive, especially compared to African standards: who is willing to pay an average of 2 or even 3 monthly salary for Office suite? So Gates & co. will have to think of another way to conquer the hearts of the African people. Various high-profile community programmes were launched by Microsoft: Partners in Learning for example offers governments an opportunity to purchase (expired) Microsoft licenses for education and to make use of the education CD-roms of Microsoft. In exchange Microsoft can ask the government to fight with pirated copying. These so called community investment programmes are used to the utmost advantage by Microsoft: if a government is allowed to buy 20,000 Microsoft licences for say5 euros each while the normal price is about 50 euros, then Microsoft donates 20,000 X 45 euros= 900,000 euros to that country! Of course that looks really good in a press release. Only a shame that most African countries who signed, never bought those licences.

The circus of large international conferences on ICT for development keeps going on. Since someone first used the words ‘digital divide’ in the late nineties, more than one  thousand gatherings world-wide were organised to discuss this reputed problem. You can ask yourself how many projects could have been set up to bridge the divide with the millions of euros that is spent on these conferences. I agree with the coordinator of our National ICT for Development network, Sylvestre Ouédroago in Burkina Faso, who made the following remark in his book ‘L’ordinateur et le Djembé’ in the chapter ‘The modern griot’: ‘I travelled around attending several conferences and singing the extreme poverty of Africa. With a stern look, neatly dressed in a suit, and carrying my portable computer and my cell phone, I went to every place for which I received an invitation letter. (…) I made so many trips that I hardly worked, and when I did, it was often on the plane or at the airport while waiting for a plane. Have I become a new griot, or a praise singer of modern times? Was I preaching a message of hope or disaster in order to design new juicy projects that would bring benefits only to their designers who are always eager to experiment new salvation approaches? In fact, many heads of State that I criticize have the same approach!” At all these conferences you meet the same people and hear the same stories and in these past ten years very little has changed in the countries concerned.

Often during ICT4D conferences one can witness a modern version of a traditional circus act. I call it ‘The champion parade’. In the desperate battle for Success stories and Best Practices on ICT4D, donors and ICT related NGO’s like to put forward ‘their’ champions during the international conference and boast about how – thanks to their project or programme - these originally underprivileged poor bastards were lifted to new heights and unlimited opportunities. Once discovered and highlighted by a well-known ICT4D institution, the champion in question can be assured of receiving invitations for numerous other conferences – where other organizers on their turn can boast about their discovery.

During the ICT Best Practice Forum in Ouagadougou, there were numerous of these parades and attempts of appropriation of other’s successes. One that particularly struck me was the following one, which occurred during a conversation I had with a UNECA-official. We were talking about Mali, and I mentioned an IICD project partner who works on telemedicine. “Ah”, said the official, “Yes I know him very well - what’s his name… We from UNECA nurtured him!”
Nice nurturing relationship that must have been – hey, what’s your name again?

The hotel in Bamako where I have always been staying since I started working for IICD in Mali seven years ago, has recently opened up a restaurant. The ‘Grill Chez Jean-Claude’ offers exactly what it promises: good grills. An unsuspected nice extra feature of the restaurant is the English translation of its menu. “All is accompaniments with the choice are been useful with the grills”, it states mysteriously, while the starters section offers “Pork Butchery” (Assiette charcutière), and “Grills furnished” (Grillades garnies). Also highly recommended: “Shrimp Lawyer” (Avocat Crevette) or “Lawyer Vinegar” (Avocat Vinaigrette). Long live Babelfish automatic translations!

On some days, goals you have set for yourself, match perfectly yet mysteriously with those others have set for themselves. There is no better feeding ground for cooperation. Today is a day where the circle is completed, or is a higher power at work?

With the office of Netherlands Development Organisation (SNV) in Bamako, I have agreed to explore possible synergies between our activities and those of SNV-Mali. In previous years I have subconsciously avoided Dutch development organizations in Mali. I expect the reason for this was twofold. On the one hand because I wanted our programme to develop and find it’s own way, and on the other because for us at IICD, our local partners are our main focus. I felt it more important, on my trips to Mali, to spend time with local partners. However, now that our programme has matured, I see a growing need to create strategic alliances with development partners who have a higher level of sectoral expertise than we do. In that regard, the longstanding track record of SNV in Mali, and the fact that their methodology lies in line with ours, offers many opportunities.

But the turning point for following up talk with action, is a recently published article in Capacity.org by Elsbeth Lodenstein and others about a health project by SNV and KIT in Mali. Through an action research project in the region of Koulikoro they have developed a methodology which helps the communication between local policy makers and basic health services to improve in previous years. One of the keys for improving communication and understanding turned out to be to make data more transparent and accessible. This allowed policy makers to feed their decision making processes with simple indicators. IICD partners are currently formulating a project proposal for “informatiseren van de data collectie” in the same region. Therefore it is self evident that it would be beneficial to bring the two teams together. With SNV staff I agreed to convene a meeting in six weeks time, during which both trajectories will be presented and discussed by the parties involved. Our partners can probably reap lessons learned from the experiences of SNV staff, and in turn, SNV staff can gain greater insight into the advantages of ICT in a similar process. In this way, both our partners and SNV have a concrete issue around which a first cooperation and collaboration can be formalized. Small scale and concrete, just the way I like it.

In the evening I visited Hugo Verkuijl, an old associate of mine who worked at KIT for many years and who just like me married a Malian. In cooperation with KIT he is now setting up the first biodiesel company in Mali. A very nice project making use of the seed of the Jatropha plant. In this project not only the environmental benefits are gained but also income generated for farmers by selling biodiesel and carbon credits. When we sit down for a drink on the beautiful terrace of hotel Mandé which spans over the Niger river, who do we bump into but a KIT-colleague of Hugo’s. He tells us that he has worked with SNV on a very nice programme in the health sector in the Koulikoro region. And we could read all about it in an article published recently with Elsbeth Lodenstein on Capacity.org….

Below: François Laureys(left) with Mr Joachim Tanoano, Minister for Post and ICT, and Mr Michèl Pepin, Programme Manager for ADEN in Burkina Faso