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IICD annual report 2000
| Source: | IICD [information@iicd.org] |
The Annual Report 2000 is available online. You can download the PDF version.
Chairman's Report (Dr. J.E. Andriessen,
Chairman of the Board of Trustees)
In 2000 the members of IICD's Board of Trustees were able to leave the written reports behind and travelled to Ghana to observe the work of IICD and its local partners first hand. The Ghana Country Programme highlights four major initiatives: the ICT Training Centre, the Global Teenager Project, the project 'E-commerce for small-scale farmers', and the programme to develop a policy for applying information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the health care sector.
The ICT Training Centre in Accra is one of the projects that resulted from the ICT Roundtable Process in Ghana. The workplace was immaculate, and was humming with computers that were actively being used for ICT training. The trainers had already developed a variety of training manuals and were eager to demonstrate various applications. They were even experimenting with a satellite connection. So far, no surprises - this might well have been a training centre in an industrialised country. Then, something happened ...
My first 'reality check' took place in a school close to Accra. The school could have been from a Dickens story, the one where Oliver Twist asked for more. One room stood out among the many sparsely equipped classrooms. There were three computers, at which about 20 students were working together. Using e-mail, they were in touch with students from other schools in Africa, the Caribbean, Europe and the Middle East. Via Learning Circles, they exchange information on a range of subjects and publish their results in a joint paper. The level of interest, even passion, became increasingly evident when the students were awarded certificates for participating in the programme, called the Global Teenager Project. With great pride, 40 to 50 girls and boys aged between 10 and 14 showed us their certificates and eagerly told stories about all they had learned.
The next stop in our visit was the project 'E-commerce for small-scale farmers'. After a long journey, we arrived in a vast field of pineapples. The area is remote, and crop prices have been under pressure. Some buyers have used - or rather misused - the situation by buying part of the crop on credit, but without returning to close the deal. Local farmers, united into a cooperative, saw the Internet as an opportunity to obtain better information on prices and on reputable buyers, and at the same time to enable them to explore more profitable markets. The first thing we saw at the project site were computers installed in a shed. The farmers believe that those computers hold great promise as a means for ensuring their success. To them and many other Ghanaians, ICTs are key tools for achieving socio-economic progress, and thus a more secure future.
The programme of the Ghanaian Ministry of Health to develop a sectoral policy for applying ICTs in health care was also very impressive. In the past, a great deal of money has been invested in infrastructure development. In particular, all health care institutions have been connected via telephone lines in a separate network, both to ease the exchange of information on patient treatment and drug intake, and to improve logistics and monitoring. The telephone is often an unreliable information carrier, however, and it was soon realised that the medium was less than suitable for efficiently exchanging complex information. It was therefore decided that e-mail, the Internet and management information systems were necessary additional tools. That's where IICD's assistance came in.
During our visit to Ghana we discussed at length IICD's unique approach with various actors, including IICD's project and training partners. The themes or priorities are selected not by IICD, but by the local participants during the ICT Roundtable workshops. The participants themselves select the most needed applications of ICT within key development sectors. Next, local 'agents of change' become the owners of the programmes and projects, and carry overall responsibility. IICD acts only as a facilitator, knowledge broker and adviser during project formulation and implementation. For example, it provides organisational and technical assistance, capacity development training, opportunities for establishing partnerships, and other resources.
IICD's emphasis on local ownership and a demand-driven approach is unique among development initiatives and is highly appreciated locally. In this way, IICD serves as an incubator for people and organisations in developing countries, in which the seeds of empowerment and sustainable development can flourish.
Management Report (Jac Stienen, Managing Director)
The year 2000 proved to be a remarkable one for IICD, as the results of many elements of our work to harness the potential of ICTs for sustainable development became visible on the ground. In order to encourage South-South exchanges of information and experiences, IICD launched a series of Country Programmes. Such events, spearheaded by Ghana and Jamaica in 2000, brought together a critical mass of local partners in training, project implementation, information networking, and monitoring and evaluation. IICD’s Country Programme activities were extended to Latin America, with the launch of the Bolivia Country Programme. In 2000 IICD began to put into effect a new policy of deconcentration, which aims to encourage the autonomy of all local partners by developing their capacity in the areas of information and knowledge sharing, training, and monitoring and evaluation.
A monitoring and evaluation instrument has been developed as a means of maximising learning and knowledge sharing, as well as for increasing efficiency and accountability. IICD has continued its efforts to establish partnerships with a wide range of public, private and non-profit organisations in order to improve the effectiveness and the impact of its demand-driven activities. In all of these activities IICD serves as a facilitator and independent broker in knowledge, partnerships and funding.
ICT Roundtable Processes
By the end of 2000, the Roundtable workshops had generated 69 project ideas, 32 locally formulated project proposals and 26 projects in implementation, 16 of which were launched in 2000. The large proportion of project proposals that are actually being implemented provides evidence of the effectiveness of the Roundtable Process. At the request of local partners, the development of strategic policies for the introduction of ICTs in specific sectors was identified as a clear priority for IICD in 2000. Such sectoral policies will be instrumental in creating the necessary enabling environment for the implementation of development projects utilising ICTs. The projects will be able to provide valuable practical inputs that in turn can be used to validate such policies. The Jamaican Country Programme provides an excellent example of such a positive feedback loop. The Jamaican Ministry of Agriculture recently adopted a policy to promote ICTs in the agricultural sector, and this led to the establishment of the Agri-Business Information Systems (ABIS) project. This project has been so successful that the Ministry is now using it as a blueprint for the replication of sectoral agricultural information centres at the national level.
Capacity Development
IICD’s Capacity Development programme remains critical in providing practical ICT knowledge to our project partners. In 2000, it was successfully integrated into the overall Country Programme strategy. New training programmes were initiated, and others were fine-tuned to ensure that they address the institutional and technical skills needs of local partners as effectively as possible. Through productive learning methods, the partners are able to acquire and build up the ICT skills they need to develop and maintain their development projects. In addition, exchanges of knowledge and experiences among project partners, both within and between countries, were strengthened, in particular by means of technical update seminars and virtual discussion groups. During 2000, more than 250 participants, representing 11 local training partners and 30 project partner organisations, were trained through a combination of locally implemented and web-based training courses.
IICD’s Global Teenager Project was further extended in 2000 to link up students in various countries in Africa, the Caribbean, the Middle East and South America, as well as in Europe. More than 2000 students from 75 schools are now actively participating in this interactive learning programme, which is conducted in English and Spanish.
Knowledge Sharing
During the year, IICD provided a range of information and advisory services, mainly through the Internet but also making use of traditional forms of networking. The main emphasis was to support partners involved in IICD’s Country Programmes. In line with IICD’s deconcentration strategy, five local Information and Networking (IN) partners were identified to begin work with IICD on the setting up of national ICT information points, four of which were online by the end of 2000. Ultimately, these and others like them will join IICD in developing and delivering local information and advice on ICT questions and issues.
A major focus in knowledge sharing is to foster the exchange of lessons and experiences with the application of ICTs in development. With infoDev, the ICT Stories project mobilised more than 170 stories describing ICT projects, and this has become a useful source of information for ICT practitioners around the world. Also as an input to learning, IICD supported a number of research projects focusing on its priority sectors and countries. Late in 2000, the corporate website (/) was completely redesigned and restructured to increase its transparency and user-friendliness.
Partnerships
During 2000 IICD broadened its institutional base by signing strategic partnership agreements with Hivos - Humanistic Institute for Development Cooperation - and with Cap Gemini, Ernst & Young. IICD also finalised an agreement with DFID - UK’s Department for International Development - to be signed in early 2001, involving support for demand-led pilot projects, ICT resource networks and a range of knowledge-sharing activities. A unique aspect of this partnership is that it represents a strategic alliance between DGIS - Netherlands DG International Development Cooperation - and DFID. The DFID-DGIS-IICD agreement reflects and puts into practice current thinking on effective approaches to development cooperation, as well as the desire for increased coordination, complementarity and coherence. As a member of the Executive Committee of the Global Knowledge Partnership - GKP - IICD was instrumental in the organisation of the second Global Knowledge Conference (GK-II), which was held in Malaysia in March 2000. IICD also assisted DFID and GKP in the preparations for the G-8 summit in Japan in July, and the Digital Opportunities Task Force (DOT) that emerged from it.
Preview of upcoming activities
In 2001 IICD will further strengthen the Country Programmes by deconcentrating part of its activities to the local level. In particular, local partners will be encouraged to extend their own knowledge-sharing activities, such as developing local website content and providing advisory services in support of the Country Programmes.
The strategic agreements with Hivos and DFID-DGIS will ensure that adequate resources are available for the implementation and replication of demand-led ICT programmes and projects, and will enable IICD to broaden its Country Programme activities. Alongside other knowledge-sharing activities, special attention will be paid to identifying and disseminating the many valuable lessons learned from the Country Programmes. IICD will also assist DGIS in its ICT policy planning, which is expected to result in a strategic ICT Action Plan.
Through IICD’s sector twinning partnerships, private sector companies can become IICD’s strategic partners in supporting ICT applications in specific priority development sectors, such as the use of tele-medicine in health care. The Institute’s sectoral programme on e-commerce with Cap Gemini, Ernst & Young, will be consolidated in the coming year through a range of information and advisory activities. For example, a joint training workshop scheduled for early 2001 will focus on analysing the organisational, functional and technical needs of local project partners in the area of e-commerce. Similar sector twinning partnerships are also envisaged in the areas of education and good governance.
The monitoring and evaluation instrument developed in 2000 will provide insight into the effectiveness of IICD’s Country Programmes, identify valuable lessons learned, and help to ensure accountability. The evaluation results will help IICD to improve performance, foster synergy and enhance overall efficiency. In particular, the instrument will be able to shed further light on the actual impacts of ICT applications on sustainable development, which is central to IICD’s mission. Local ownership, capacity development, knowledge sharing and partnerships will remain spearheads in achieving IICD’s mission in the challenging years to come.
Where to read the other chapters online?
The other chapters of IICD's Annual Report 2000 are published in the
Latest Development section of IICD's website.
In 2000 the members of IICD's Board of Trustees were able to leave the written reports behind and travelled to Ghana to observe the work of IICD and its local partners first hand. The Ghana Country Programme highlights four major initiatives: the ICT Training Centre, the Global Teenager Project, the project 'E-commerce for small-scale farmers', and the programme to develop a policy for applying information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the health care sector.
The ICT Training Centre in Accra is one of the projects that resulted from the ICT Roundtable Process in Ghana. The workplace was immaculate, and was humming with computers that were actively being used for ICT training. The trainers had already developed a variety of training manuals and were eager to demonstrate various applications. They were even experimenting with a satellite connection. So far, no surprises - this might well have been a training centre in an industrialised country. Then, something happened ...
My first 'reality check' took place in a school close to Accra. The school could have been from a Dickens story, the one where Oliver Twist asked for more. One room stood out among the many sparsely equipped classrooms. There were three computers, at which about 20 students were working together. Using e-mail, they were in touch with students from other schools in Africa, the Caribbean, Europe and the Middle East. Via Learning Circles, they exchange information on a range of subjects and publish their results in a joint paper. The level of interest, even passion, became increasingly evident when the students were awarded certificates for participating in the programme, called the Global Teenager Project. With great pride, 40 to 50 girls and boys aged between 10 and 14 showed us their certificates and eagerly told stories about all they had learned.
The next stop in our visit was the project 'E-commerce for small-scale farmers'. After a long journey, we arrived in a vast field of pineapples. The area is remote, and crop prices have been under pressure. Some buyers have used - or rather misused - the situation by buying part of the crop on credit, but without returning to close the deal. Local farmers, united into a cooperative, saw the Internet as an opportunity to obtain better information on prices and on reputable buyers, and at the same time to enable them to explore more profitable markets. The first thing we saw at the project site were computers installed in a shed. The farmers believe that those computers hold great promise as a means for ensuring their success. To them and many other Ghanaians, ICTs are key tools for achieving socio-economic progress, and thus a more secure future.
The programme of the Ghanaian Ministry of Health to develop a sectoral policy for applying ICTs in health care was also very impressive. In the past, a great deal of money has been invested in infrastructure development. In particular, all health care institutions have been connected via telephone lines in a separate network, both to ease the exchange of information on patient treatment and drug intake, and to improve logistics and monitoring. The telephone is often an unreliable information carrier, however, and it was soon realised that the medium was less than suitable for efficiently exchanging complex information. It was therefore decided that e-mail, the Internet and management information systems were necessary additional tools. That's where IICD's assistance came in.
During our visit to Ghana we discussed at length IICD's unique approach with various actors, including IICD's project and training partners. The themes or priorities are selected not by IICD, but by the local participants during the ICT Roundtable workshops. The participants themselves select the most needed applications of ICT within key development sectors. Next, local 'agents of change' become the owners of the programmes and projects, and carry overall responsibility. IICD acts only as a facilitator, knowledge broker and adviser during project formulation and implementation. For example, it provides organisational and technical assistance, capacity development training, opportunities for establishing partnerships, and other resources.
IICD's emphasis on local ownership and a demand-driven approach is unique among development initiatives and is highly appreciated locally. In this way, IICD serves as an incubator for people and organisations in developing countries, in which the seeds of empowerment and sustainable development can flourish.
Management Report (Jac Stienen, Managing Director)
The year 2000 proved to be a remarkable one for IICD, as the results of many elements of our work to harness the potential of ICTs for sustainable development became visible on the ground. In order to encourage South-South exchanges of information and experiences, IICD launched a series of Country Programmes. Such events, spearheaded by Ghana and Jamaica in 2000, brought together a critical mass of local partners in training, project implementation, information networking, and monitoring and evaluation. IICD’s Country Programme activities were extended to Latin America, with the launch of the Bolivia Country Programme. In 2000 IICD began to put into effect a new policy of deconcentration, which aims to encourage the autonomy of all local partners by developing their capacity in the areas of information and knowledge sharing, training, and monitoring and evaluation.
A monitoring and evaluation instrument has been developed as a means of maximising learning and knowledge sharing, as well as for increasing efficiency and accountability. IICD has continued its efforts to establish partnerships with a wide range of public, private and non-profit organisations in order to improve the effectiveness and the impact of its demand-driven activities. In all of these activities IICD serves as a facilitator and independent broker in knowledge, partnerships and funding.
ICT Roundtable Processes
By the end of 2000, the Roundtable workshops had generated 69 project ideas, 32 locally formulated project proposals and 26 projects in implementation, 16 of which were launched in 2000. The large proportion of project proposals that are actually being implemented provides evidence of the effectiveness of the Roundtable Process. At the request of local partners, the development of strategic policies for the introduction of ICTs in specific sectors was identified as a clear priority for IICD in 2000. Such sectoral policies will be instrumental in creating the necessary enabling environment for the implementation of development projects utilising ICTs. The projects will be able to provide valuable practical inputs that in turn can be used to validate such policies. The Jamaican Country Programme provides an excellent example of such a positive feedback loop. The Jamaican Ministry of Agriculture recently adopted a policy to promote ICTs in the agricultural sector, and this led to the establishment of the Agri-Business Information Systems (ABIS) project. This project has been so successful that the Ministry is now using it as a blueprint for the replication of sectoral agricultural information centres at the national level.
Capacity Development
IICD’s Capacity Development programme remains critical in providing practical ICT knowledge to our project partners. In 2000, it was successfully integrated into the overall Country Programme strategy. New training programmes were initiated, and others were fine-tuned to ensure that they address the institutional and technical skills needs of local partners as effectively as possible. Through productive learning methods, the partners are able to acquire and build up the ICT skills they need to develop and maintain their development projects. In addition, exchanges of knowledge and experiences among project partners, both within and between countries, were strengthened, in particular by means of technical update seminars and virtual discussion groups. During 2000, more than 250 participants, representing 11 local training partners and 30 project partner organisations, were trained through a combination of locally implemented and web-based training courses.
IICD’s Global Teenager Project was further extended in 2000 to link up students in various countries in Africa, the Caribbean, the Middle East and South America, as well as in Europe. More than 2000 students from 75 schools are now actively participating in this interactive learning programme, which is conducted in English and Spanish.
Knowledge Sharing
During the year, IICD provided a range of information and advisory services, mainly through the Internet but also making use of traditional forms of networking. The main emphasis was to support partners involved in IICD’s Country Programmes. In line with IICD’s deconcentration strategy, five local Information and Networking (IN) partners were identified to begin work with IICD on the setting up of national ICT information points, four of which were online by the end of 2000. Ultimately, these and others like them will join IICD in developing and delivering local information and advice on ICT questions and issues.
A major focus in knowledge sharing is to foster the exchange of lessons and experiences with the application of ICTs in development. With infoDev, the ICT Stories project mobilised more than 170 stories describing ICT projects, and this has become a useful source of information for ICT practitioners around the world. Also as an input to learning, IICD supported a number of research projects focusing on its priority sectors and countries. Late in 2000, the corporate website (/) was completely redesigned and restructured to increase its transparency and user-friendliness.
Partnerships
During 2000 IICD broadened its institutional base by signing strategic partnership agreements with Hivos - Humanistic Institute for Development Cooperation - and with Cap Gemini, Ernst & Young. IICD also finalised an agreement with DFID - UK’s Department for International Development - to be signed in early 2001, involving support for demand-led pilot projects, ICT resource networks and a range of knowledge-sharing activities. A unique aspect of this partnership is that it represents a strategic alliance between DGIS - Netherlands DG International Development Cooperation - and DFID. The DFID-DGIS-IICD agreement reflects and puts into practice current thinking on effective approaches to development cooperation, as well as the desire for increased coordination, complementarity and coherence. As a member of the Executive Committee of the Global Knowledge Partnership - GKP - IICD was instrumental in the organisation of the second Global Knowledge Conference (GK-II), which was held in Malaysia in March 2000. IICD also assisted DFID and GKP in the preparations for the G-8 summit in Japan in July, and the Digital Opportunities Task Force (DOT) that emerged from it.
Preview of upcoming activities
In 2001 IICD will further strengthen the Country Programmes by deconcentrating part of its activities to the local level. In particular, local partners will be encouraged to extend their own knowledge-sharing activities, such as developing local website content and providing advisory services in support of the Country Programmes.
The strategic agreements with Hivos and DFID-DGIS will ensure that adequate resources are available for the implementation and replication of demand-led ICT programmes and projects, and will enable IICD to broaden its Country Programme activities. Alongside other knowledge-sharing activities, special attention will be paid to identifying and disseminating the many valuable lessons learned from the Country Programmes. IICD will also assist DGIS in its ICT policy planning, which is expected to result in a strategic ICT Action Plan.
Through IICD’s sector twinning partnerships, private sector companies can become IICD’s strategic partners in supporting ICT applications in specific priority development sectors, such as the use of tele-medicine in health care. The Institute’s sectoral programme on e-commerce with Cap Gemini, Ernst & Young, will be consolidated in the coming year through a range of information and advisory activities. For example, a joint training workshop scheduled for early 2001 will focus on analysing the organisational, functional and technical needs of local project partners in the area of e-commerce. Similar sector twinning partnerships are also envisaged in the areas of education and good governance.
The monitoring and evaluation instrument developed in 2000 will provide insight into the effectiveness of IICD’s Country Programmes, identify valuable lessons learned, and help to ensure accountability. The evaluation results will help IICD to improve performance, foster synergy and enhance overall efficiency. In particular, the instrument will be able to shed further light on the actual impacts of ICT applications on sustainable development, which is central to IICD’s mission. Local ownership, capacity development, knowledge sharing and partnerships will remain spearheads in achieving IICD’s mission in the challenging years to come.
Where to read the other chapters online?
The other chapters of IICD's Annual Report 2000 are published in the
Latest Development section of IICD's website.
Visit: http://www.iicd.org
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