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?

When visiting the Sahel desert during a road trip from Ouagadougou, Burkina faso, I noticed that the Sahel is looking greener than I had imagined. Even at the end of the dry period in May, trees carried green leaves and some bushes even flowered. I wondered what the Sahel would look like in three months time, after the rain season.

I was travelling with a group of Burkina NTIC, the national network for advocacy, lobbying, knowledge sharing and awareness raising on the use of ICT for development that is supported by IICD. My IICD colleague Miep, who is supporting the network, and I were invited by the network to come along on a Road Trip to Bokin in the North Central of Burkina Faso. In Bokin the network was planning to visit several communities to explain and show how beneficiary the use of ICT can be.

Bokin, a place about 100 kilometres up north of Ouagadougou in the Sahel, is the administrative seat of the department of Bokin, an area covering about 50 square kilometres with over 50,000 people. Life expectancies are low and facilities are scarce. Most people are living completely isolated, struggling to produce enough food to feed their own families. In dry season temperature rises up to 45 degrees Celsius which makes life even more unbearable. Red dust is covering everything.

In this area resides Sahel Solidarité, partner of IICD and member of Burkina NTIC, which is working in the area of water sanitation and hygiene. An important part of their work is informing local communities about how they can prevent diseases and illnesses by taking care of their personal hygiene (e.g. washing hands before dinner) and organised places for washing and cooking. In their work they make use of multi-media to show good and bad examples of hygiene.

Together with them we visited several communities in the department of Bokin. One of the stops was in Bokin itself where we met health care prevention workers and local officials. Sahel Solidarité showed them how ICT could help to make people more aware of dangerous health situations by using digital cameras to register ‘good and ‘bad’ hygienic situations which were shown on a large screen in the evenings in different communities. How effective using multi-media is for their work we could see with our own eyes later that evening. Just a few kilometres outside of Bokin Sahel Solidarité had set up a film screen made out of two poles and a white sheet on which they projected images. People living in villages nearby were invited to attend this presentation. It was pitch black and for me it would have been impossible to find my way, but around 8 pm we saw lights glowing up in the dark, coming closer and closer, announcing the arrival of many a person on bike. From far and near they had come. They were impressed with what they saw. Perhaps it was just the magic of a ‘son et lumière’ show outdoors, but the pictures showed them what simple measures they could take to avoid risks of infection. Amazing how a simple presentation of pictures can make a difference, especially for people in areas like Bokin, who have difficulties with reading and writing.

More striking though was our visit to the community of Pourra where a local entrepreneur had started to broadcast news and information on water hygiene, vaccination programmes and other relevant activities in the area. He had been inspired by the work of Sahel Solidarité to start using radio to improve the information to and communication with local people. People could even call during the programme to ask questions or announce something. The radio station resided in his shop, but in the midst of the dust, dryness and immense heat that what was done in that small building made all the difference to the people. Having access to information and being able to communicate, to ask questions about how and when, gave people the opportunity to change something for their own good.

For the first time I witnessed what information and communication can do to people living in isolated areas like the Sahel. Like the first green leaf on the emergence of spring, it gave them hope. Hope and trust in the fact that something would change, that they could do something. The Sahel is getting greener day by day. 

Monday morning 7.30: while I am finishing my breakfast, Christoph, member of the Burkina NTIC network and teacher at the Bogodogo College, enters the court yard of the hotel to pick-me up for a visit to his College. Aside of his teaching Christoph is also responsible for the maintenance of the computers and the training of staff and today he is going to show me how his school makes of ICT. A few minutes later we are on our way. It must have been a funny sight: a big man and tall, blond woman on a small motorbike cruising through the streets of Ouagadogou.

School normally starts at 7.30 but as the lessons had ended but a few pupils and teachers are at school to finalise the paper work and waiting for their end results. I am kindly introduced to the head of the school who tells me, before he rushes off to a meeting, that his school has a partnership with a French college. We also stop by at the secretariat where Mme Soulema, a kind, but severe looking lady who is responsible for the administration and registration of the results. Until three years ago all the paperwork was still done by hand. She shows me on the computer how they have organised the student administration. I ask her if she is happy to have a computer to process all the information. It surely must save a lot of time. A little cross she answers that she now has more work to do than before. Before they started using the computers teachers themselves where responsible for filling out the end results of pupils and to double check all the grades. Now she is the one to enter all the data which includes chasing all the teachers to deliver the information on time. What adds up to it, is that she used to share her work with another colleague, but the other colleague has left and the position is still vacant.

Christoph shows me the computer room, a former class room. Next year, he tells me, the computer room will be extended, if all goes to plan. There are 10 computers available in the computer room and one in the library. All have access to the internet which is paid for by the state. It is the College who pays for the hardware. Christoph wants me to show the website of the school, but there is very little connectivity today, a problem which occurs more often. Not only at the College, but in the entire city of Ouagadougou. Especially after heavy rainfall it takes time for the internet is up and running again. All teachers and pupils have access to the computers and know how to use them, though the pupils can only use the computers under supervision of a teacher.

I talked to one of the pupils at the College, Clotaire Minounga. He is happy with the computer facilities at school, though he wishes he could make more use of them. As there are but a few computers available for a little less than 1,000 pupils most pupils spend no more than an hour a week behind the computer to do research on the internet for one of their subjects. Outside school he often visits telecentres: places that offer services like photo copying, fax, phone, but also internet access. While he uses the computer at school only to do homework, at the telecentres he spends all his time to email with friends.

Then Christoph is suddenly asked to come and help out to sort a problem with the printer of the secretariat. Mrs Soulama, head of the secretariat, is a kind, but severe women. She is responsible for the registration and administration of pupils and their results. The director of the lycee has asked for the results of some of the students which have to be discussed in a meeting with teachers. The printer itself works, but somehow the connection between printer and computer fails. Christoph checks everything: he replaces the cable, re-installs the software of the printer and replaces the ink cartridge. Several teachers, students and other staff drop by, but no one seems to be able to solve the problem. An hour goes by. Then suddenly, the printer ‘decides’ to print exactly those pages that where asked for by the director. Mrs Soulama and Christoph, are relieved. But to make sure everything is in order, Christoph calls one of his cousins, who is a computer engineer, to stop by and check the printer connection.

I decide that it is time to leave. It was a busy morning at the College. The introduction of ICT and computers at the Bogodogo College has surely benefitted both teachers and pupils, but brought along some challenges too.

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.

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 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!

Today I received a mail from Sylvestre Ouedraogo, the coordinator of the Burkina-ntic network in Burkina Faso. He’s been uploading video’s they have recently made on YouTube. Bad as the connection is here in Bamako, I can view images of farmers using ICTs in Leo, the latest TV-Koodo film on the projects IICD supports in Burkina Faso, and even other stuff on traditional dances and on the reggae scene in Ouagadougou. It’s been only two months that we started to train our partners in Burkina on the use of this kind of multimedia tools, ant it already is starting to pay off! For me, this is one more proof that with relatively little effort and investment, ICT can gain access to worldwide audiences for people who have been relatively isolated up till recently. The empowerment that goes along with this access is hard to measure, but I can’t deny that I feel a lot of respect for the ones who are doing this under still difficult circumstances. Check it out on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BFGH8YNClY (and click on More Videos from this Channel to watch the other films). Or go directly to the site: http://www.wagues.org/

It is not easy to give a training on Web 2.0 tools for development, when the internet connection is slower than Sylvestre’s 2CV and power cuts paralyse the whole network. It is a daily reality in Ouagadougou nowadays. Whereas the internet connection in most countries is getting faster, the connection in Burkina is getting even slower.

Still, Mohamed Ag Acharom of Afriklinks managed to inspire more than thirty members of Burkina NTIC, the IICD supported national ICT4D network in Burkina Faso. He was invited by IICD to follow a web 2.0 course at the international conference Web2forDev in Rome in September. Since the national ICT4D networks in Mali and Burkina Faso had Web 2.0 training high on their priority list, IICD asked Mohamed to train both networks in Bamako and Ouagadougou.

Burkina NTIC made a film on Burkina blogs, which served as a perfect kick-off for the training. Participant Ibaranté Momo, manager of the Telecentre ADEN in Gaoua, commented: ‘I have always wanted to publish on the web, but I did not know how. Now I have seen the film on Burkina blogs, I want to know how to start my own blog.’

Apart from creating a blog, participants discovered how to use free, online tools to share bookmarks, documents, photos and videos, and to make free, online phone calls. Mohamed: ‘This is how you can create a wiki, for example titled ‘The Slow Connection’.’

Blogs captured the attention of the participants. Burkinabe bloggers in the film receive up to 2000 visitors per month. The blog provides ‘an exit door’ according to one blogger. They get reactions from all over the world, especially from the Burkinabe Diaspora. For them, blogs are a way to stay up to date and get unorthodox views on the developments in their home country. If the internet connection allows for it, the blogosphere will soon be besieged by Burkinabe blogs.

Some Burkinabe blogs:
Journalisme engagé
L’heure du Temps
Quophy Bloguer
Zwan & Vous

Participant Herman Ouedraogo, here with his grandmother in front of her house.
He now knows how to share this picture with the world using flickr.