ICT
SME Development Program (Project Details)
This program seeks to find, train and
establish entrepreneurs in rural areas to provide commercial technology
support services to their local community, including municipal offices,
businesses, schools, NGOs and farms.
Service
and Program Area: Centre
of Excellence
Status:
Concept
Contact
Person: Rudi
von Staden, Toni
Eliasz
Supporters:
Ungana-Afrika is looking for supporters
Partners:
Ungana-Afrika is looking for partners
South Africa has a large population living
in rural areas & approximately 19 million (or 42% of the total
population) in 2001 according to a recent Statistics South Africa report.
According to the same report, there is also a strong urbanisation trend
& up to 12% of the rural population migrated either temporarily
or permanently over the five years from 1996. Mostly people will
migrate in search of improved employment, education or lifestyle with
rural unemployment rates being relatively higher than those in urban
areas. This migration to urban areas has a largely detrimental effect,
since it contributes to urban unemployment and poverty and has been
linked to the spread of HIV/AIDS. Development in the rural areas is
needed to provide additional opportunities, and reduce the incentive to
migrate to urban areas.
According to South Africa's ICT
Development Framework, one of the goals for the Information
and Communications Technology (ICT) sector in the country is to
"Increase use of ICT as an enabler for socio-economic development, with
equity". The intent is to "stimulate ICT-enabled growth of business
across the economy ... In this regard the intent is to specifically
address equity issues with regard to gender, disadvantaged groups and
those in rural and under-served communities".
The reality, however, is that there is still
very little formal support or development of the ICT sector in rural
areas, while the sector has shown steady growth in urban areas. At the
same time, rural businesses outside of the ICT sector are generally
unaware of the advantages available through recent ICT developments
which provide easier communication, improved access to information and
can reduce the costs of doing business in rural areas (examples include
mobile banking and payment services and Voice over IP telephony).
We would like to address this rural ICT
vacuum by establishing and supporting a network of rural ICT
entrepreneurs that can provide local government offices, businesses,
farms and schools with access to appropriate services, technologies and
support.
Ungana-Afrika is well placed to achieve
this. We have been providing ICT support, capacity-building and
incubation services to NGOs in the Southern African Development
Community (SADC) since 2003. Through the Rural Connectivity Project
being implemented in the Eastern Cape and the Community Radio project
in Mpumalanga between 2003 and 2006, we have been specifically focused
on ICT adoption in rural NGOs. However, for these services to be
sustainable, a holistic approach is needed which does not focus
exclusively on NGOs. This document presents a proposed model to support
the growth of the ICT sector in rural areas, and also to facilitate
development in other sectors through the enabling benefits of ICT.
For more information, please download the Concept Paper
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