IICD supported project: Strategy to set-up 701 municipal telecentres to make decentralisation effective

Countries: Mali [ML]
Sectors: governance

Summary

Mali is a large country of 12,4 M square km and with 10 Million people. It has human development and tele-density indexes that are amongst the lowest in the world. Mali has a vigorous policy of decentralisation to establish local democracy, development and good Governance. The President of Mali has set the national objective of having a telecenter in each of its recently created 701 local governments within next two years. IICD has been requested to assist in the translation process from policy statement to a telecenter used by local people, members of the local municipal councils and officials. For the development of the malien democracy the stakes are high. Decentralisation should not only promote local Governance and development, but is has to bridge the gap between the administration and the population. The decentralisation process has gone rapidly; new legislation is adopted, new procedures are developed and the local councils are elected. The challenge is to turn the new structures operational, to assure transparency and credibility. For the champion of this process, the Minister of Home Affairs Mr. Ousmane Sy, smooth communication between all actors is essential.

Update

Updated: 2008-02-04

(June 2001)<br />
The National Roundtable took place last July in Bamako. It resulted in
the following projects: · A national strategy paper called “Stratégie
d’Implantation des 701 Télécentres Communaux du Mali” which is soon to
be officially approved by the Government. (With a CD-ROM) · One
proposal on pilot Urban and Rural télécentres (about 4 to be started
next September) 2001. · Two training partners have been identified to
start capacity development. · SOTELMA the national TELCO is improving
services locally (bandwith, connectivity in regions, etc.)

Objectives

The objective of the programme is to create communication facilities for the newly established municipalities to stimulate good Governance, access to information, transparency and accountability in municipal affairs. To provide the population with affordable and sustainable (inter-)national communication facilities attuned to their needs and abilities.
The basics of the strategy are articulated during a four-day ICT Roundtable Workshop in which all stakeholders, especially the (new) municipalities took part. Keywords are: local ownership, dialogue and progressiveness.

Local ownership is assured at the start by the Governments' commitment. However, it is not always easy to maintain, as donor involvement becomes overwhelming. This might be the case, as the programme is perceived as a high priority public investment programme. IICD has proposed a multi-actor approach and facilitated the necessary dialogue among them. Dialogue has been facilitated up till now in four steps:

1- January 2000: IICD assisted to produce a proposal to adopt a multi-actor approach, to emphasise demand by a population which is only 20% literate in the official language and to start the process with an ICT Round Table. The launch of the reference report on 701 telecentres by the MDRI (Mission for Decentralisation and Institutional Reform) was the start of the 'Dialogue' in this field.

2- February 2000: Facilitating participation of ICT partners of IICD in Africa and Latin America in the Bamako 2000 event where the President has launched his 701 telecenter policy objective.

3- July 2000: Support for the organisation of the telecenter Round Table by three ministries involved - home affairs/local government, communication and culture - with 60 participants representing local governments, ISPs, community representatives, NGOs and key ministries such as health and education. The Dialogue has been structured through the ICT RoundTable approach and resulted in the formulation of a telecenter concept and identification of key strategy components to the satisfaction of all persons involved.

4 - September 2000: Follow up on the Round Table by a small group of local consultants assisted by an IICD expert using a multi-actor model. In dialogue with the Steering Committee a strategy was developed and submitted to the council of ministers.

Progressiveness means that the telecentres are simple and focus only on basic functionalities. Financially it has to be within the reach of a municipality. Telecentres will be initiated at the demand of the municipalities and will not depend from large donor driven investment projects.

Development Impacts

The experience from other African countries underlines the overwhelming interest for improved communication. As proved in the Timbuktu telecenter, it offers new possibilities to women and youngsters to be included in development and indirectly in decision-making. The telecenter allows communication among councillors, the population and the administration. It will improve transparency and strengthen countervailing power. Also the communication with the large malien community abroad will be improved dramatically and at lower costs. The value of a national strategy is that it avoids duplication of efforts, allows standardisation for software and supports services, provides a platform for decision-making and allows for adapted management formulae, financing arrangements and concerted training efforts.

Market and finance

Demand for communication is high. The market is little developed, because present monopolistic structures do not allow a rapid build up of infrastructure. The service level is low. Guided by the Word Bank a telecom policy has been developed to allow for liberalisation and privatisation. A bottleneck is that the northern part of the country is large and thinly populated. For political and economic reasons, communication has to be encouraged and so a limited level of subsidy is required. The subsidy will be provided to the users. The strategy emphasises the set-up of simple and small telecentres, all tailor-made to the local situation. A conceptual model has been elaborated that demonstrates the functioning of a telecenter based on its monthly costs including depreciation. This concept assumes interaction amongst service providers. The telecenter provides voice and email communication services to local users and hires services from local providers: rents space, hires a manager, rents computers, rents solar energy systems or small generators, rents removable hard disks, pays a monthly bill for telephone or access to a LEO, etc. This model provides a quantitative framework that makes it possible for both public and private stakeholders to see the nature and volume of services required by telecentres to cater - at their turn - the needs of their users. The advantage of this approach over the traditional investment analysis- is that it highlights management issues, triggers local initiatives, assesses volumes of services to be provided and enables a better choice of the overall technical infrastructure. Accumulated at national level, the telecentres do generate a profit. At regional levels, losses occur in Kayes and Kidal. Additional financing is necessary to make these sustainable.

Project Owner : Municipal Authorities Ministry of Home Affairs Ministry of Communication Small entrepreneurs

Project Partners : IICD
UNDP

Project Contact : IICD