IICD Board visit to Zambia

The board’s mission: to provide a context which can be used to inform their role with IICD, and to see in what way ICT is making an impact as part of the chain of processes in development.

Proximity to distance

The visit, which started on Sunday 3rd February, was designed to showcase a cross-section of activities with which IICD is involved within Zambia. The programme involves around 15 projects in the Education, Livelihoods and Health sectors, and also covers a large expanse of the country. This predicament was not lost on the board.

“One of the first things you experience is the enormous distances people have to travel in order to just have a conversation of half an hour…you can imagine what kind of difference ICT can make.”

The importance of ICT in reducing the problems associated with time and distance in Zambia became clear through visits to the ENEDCO education project of the Mpelembe Secondary School, and the National Agriculture Information Service, who face a number of similar challenges, particularly with regard to cooperating with key partners in their sector.

As board member, Gerd Junne noted: “It’s [obviously] difficult to get real time information of what is taking place in agriculture [and] different schools want to cooperate, even if they are in the same province… it takes a lot of time and is very costly.”

Reality check

An important aspect to the board visit was also to get a first hand view of the work of the programme partners, yet to get a comprehensive view is always a challenge. In light of this, in addition to meeting and interacting with the local programme partners, they were met by a number of key figures within the Ministries of Agriculture, Education, and Youth, Sport and Child Development. They were also honourary guests at an IICD ‘Country Programme Gathering’, organised by the National ICT4D network, eBrain, and this afforded them the opportunity to talk directly with a number of partners, some of whom had travelled great distances to attend.

This wealth of different perspectives proved an invaluable insight for the board. Speaking after the gathering, Henny Helmich, who took the role of delegation leader during the week, commented that

“It’s important to think about how we can capture [these] important entrepreneurs in this country … the change agents in civil society … and showcase what they are doing.”  

The board identified that there were a number of “local champions” that the organisations such as IICD should be identifying and developing: these figures being pivotal to the sustainable, long-term success of any initiative.

Commenting on the gathering, and on the first chance to visit the Zambia programme, Managing Director, Caroline Figuères was impressed.

“It’s invaluable for me to travel here and experience how IICD is working with its partners ‘in the field’. Almost everybody is talking about working with partners, but very few have this truly participatory and nurturing approach. IICD staff are not imposing their own solutions, but rather creating the room for local partners to develop their own solutions, and that means making mistakes. It’s learning-by-doing, which in the long term, will really make IICD redundant.”

ICT as a ‘tool’ not an end

The trip ended on Thursday evening with a dinner with the National ICT4D network, eBrain, to mark the signing of a new contract with IICD. Attended by the eBrain board, it proved a fitting end to the trip, highlighting the commitment of both organisations to spreading the importance of ICT as a tool for development. And it was perhaps this point that Henny Helmich drew upon to sum up one of the conclusions of the trip.

By showcasing or exposing how people are making use of ICT, we can provide an “incentive for entrepreneurship [and] for making a change for all the people who are being touched by this technology…not the technology [itself], but as a new way of thinking … and a new way of doing development.”             

Find out more about our work in Zambia and watch the interviews with Henny Helmich and Gerd Junne.

Watch a selection of video interviews with project partners from across the Zambia Country Programme.

Ruby Nyirongo, Chawama Youth Project

Alex Chikwese, Zambian National Blood Transfusion Service (ZNBTS)

Mr Munshimbwe Chitalu, Organic Producers and Processors Association of Zambia (OPPAZ)

Mr Mutukelwa Mukelabai, National Agricultural Information Services (NAIS)

Lee Muzala, eBrain network