Rural Connectivity (Projects
Details)
Ungana-Afrika is helping
community advice offices in rural parts of South Africa to use Internet
technologies to communicate and access relevant information online.
Service and Program Area:
Regional Support Hub
Status: Active (Nov
2006 - Nov 2007)
Contact Person: Rudi von Staden
Supporters: The
Finnish Embassy in South Africa
Partners: The Karoo
Centre for Human Rights, SANGONeT
Ungana-Afrika is implementing an innovative
technology support concept with rural paralegal advice offices
in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. Through this project, ten
advice offices are provided with email and Internet connectivity
through Vodacom's cellular infrastructure. Significantly, they are also
given on-site training in how to take advantage of these services for
their advice office through a monthly round of site-visits. The aim is
to improve their ability to communicate so that they can establish a
closer link with government departments, funders and outside
supporters. It will also improve their ability to communicate with each
other and to inform the outside world of the needs within their
communities. If the model proves successful, Ungana-Afrika will expand
the project to support additional advice offices beyond the November
2007 closure date. Through this project, Ungana-Afrika will also be
working with the Surplus Peoples Project to
determine how they can improve communication with their remote
constituencies.
Detailed Project Info
Environment
The Rural Connectivity Project (RCP) has two
components to it. The
major component focuses on the capacity building of paralegal
organisations in the rural Eastern Cape province of South Africa.
Paralegals, working from advice offices,
play a vital role in
providing access to legal advice in their communities. Although they
are not legally qualified, they are accredited to assist community
members with legal matters, such as arbitrating in labour disputes, and
facilitating access to community services, such as government grants.
Most often paralegals work in very poor,
rural areas, and
suffer from very limited access to funding, information and
opportunities to support their work. The primary medium of
communication with parties outside of their communities is fax, which
tends to be very unreliable. Most advice offices use computers to
develop reports and proposals, and have a basic understanding of how to
do basic tasks, usually related to word processing. There is an
awareness of such things as the Internet and email, as well as a
sentiment that they would benefit the advice offices, but the skills to
use these technologies is almost non-existent.
The Eastern Cape province remains one of the
poorest in South
Africa. With large parts of the province being made up of the former
homelands of Transkei and Ciskei, there is a predominance of informal
settlements, subsistence agriculture and poor infrastructure. This has
left the Eastern Cape fairly isolated and development has been slow.
Ungana-Afrika is working with advice offices in the rural towns of
Klipplaat, Jansenville, Hofmeyr, Molteno, Indwe, Cala and Mqanduli.
The advice offices that Ungana-Afrika are
working with are
affiliated to the Karoo Centre for Human Rights, who have supported the
paralegals in the Northern, Eastern and Western Cape provinces for many
years. KCHR pave provided much guidance and facilitation in the
establishment of the project.
The second component of the project is to
consider the
development of a communication strategy for the Surplus People Project,
which looks at land reform and rural development in the Namaqualand,
Hantam Karoo and West Coast regions of South Africa. Much of SPP's
development work is done with and through the Regional Emerging
Farmers' Associations (REFAs) in the regions they support. It is vital
that communication between the program staff and the REFA members is
effective for SPP's development interventions to be successful.
Currently this communication is proving to be a challenge, since it
often requires that community facilitators drive distances of up to
300km to meet with the REFAs.
Background
The RCP benefited from a long process of
development. Ungana-Afrika
was first involved with the paralegal sector through the technology
planning project done with KCHR in early 2005. One of the
recommendations of the technology plan was to investigate how ICT could
be used to improve communication with advice offices. This spurred the
initiation of a subsequent project, where a technology strategy was
developed for the paralegal network that KCHR supported. There were ten
primary recommendations in the technology strategy, and four of them
were chosen as the basis for the Rural Connectivity Project.
Because the technology strategy developed
with the paralegal
sector was seen as a useful foundation for developing successful
technology interventions, it was decided to produce a similar document
with a new network – the Surplus Peoples Project - as part of
the Rural
Connectivity Project.
Model
Paralegal Network Support
The Rural Connectivity Project is managed by Rudi von Staden,
the manager/eRider who is primarily responsible for planning,
fundraising, development, management, implementation and evaluation of
the project. The core interventions of the RCP are:
- To ensure that each advice office had a
working Internet connection
- To set up email addresses and a
discussion list for advice offices
- To provide technology-related training to
advice offices
- To provide each advice office with a
printer
Ungana-Afrika has arranged Internet access
for the advice offices
involved in the project through the Vodacom mobile network. The mobile
network was chosen over dial-up connections for several reasons: mobile
coverage and reliability is better than that of fixed-line operators in
many rural areas; the portability of mobile devices facilitates setup;
use of the Internet does not restrict the use of the telephone for
incoming and outgoing calls; data bundles make it easier to charge a
flat rate for Internet access, which is always available.
A laser printer is provided for each office
through the
project. In the technology strategy development process it was found
that many of the offices had been given an ink-jet printer in the past,
but the unreliable technology and high costs of ink had resulted in
them failing or not being used. Printers were seen as a key need of
advice offices, and it was decided to encourage the use of laser
printers instead. Advice offices are also provided with replacement
toner after three months, as needed.
Each advice office that wishes to
participate in the project is
charged a monthly fee of R250. This fee covers some of the costs of the
project, but the majority are covered through funding received from the
Embassy of Finland. The primary reason for introducing the service fee
is to encourage the long-term sustainability of the project. The
clients need to understand the costs of ICT and be able and willing to
support them even in the absence of a facilitating agent like
Ungana-Afrika. In addition, the service fee results in greater
commitment to the project by the advice offices, and ensures greater
accountability by Ungana-Afrika to the client offices.
Rudi visits each advice office approximately
once a month.
Decreasing costs of local flights and affordable car rental have made
it feasible to fly in to Port Elizabeth, and drive to each office on a
two-week circuit through the province. One full day is spent with each
advice office during which maintenance is performed on their systems
and one-on-one training is done with the staff. Training is primarily
focused on email and web technologies, but also covers productivity
tools. Any troubleshooting relating to their Internet connection is
performed, and their printer toner is replaced if necessary.
The project is seen as a pilot project for
providing ICT
capacity building and support to rural organisations in South Africa.
The focus for this project is on paralegal advice offices, and the
Eastern Cape province, but the model has been developed with
scalability in mind. It has the potential to expand into other sectors
and other provinces.
Communication Strategy Development
The model used to develop the communication
strategy for SPP is
based on the process used to create KCHR's technology strategy.
Although there are three provinces in which SPP is active,
Ungana-Afrika will conduct a study of the communication possibilities
in only one of them, the Hantam Karoo centred around Calvinia.
The Regional Emerging Farmers Associations
(REFA) that SPP
works with have very basic communication infrastructure, and there is
very little funding available for equipment purchase and capacity
building. The communication strategy will look at what facilities are
available within the communities where the REFA are based to determine
whether they could be better employed to support communication between
SPP and the REFA.
The strategy development process will
incorporate the following aspects:
- initial research to identify potential
communication facilities that could be incorporated in the strategy
- discussions with the REFA and SPP in
Calvinia to determine their communication needs and capacity
- site visits to community localities to
investigate the practicalities of an improved communication strategy
- facilitation of a feedback and
decision-making meeting to decide on a course of action
- documentation of findings
Impact
Since the project is in mid-implementation
it is early to start
speculating about impacts. Some discussion around the objectives of the
project and the experience thus far is in order though.
As far as the work with the paralegal sector
is concerned,
access to Internet technologies are a key focus. It is significant to
note that at the beginning of the project, none of the advice offices
currently serviced were using email on a regular basis and only one had
a working dial-up Internet connection. Some of them had had email
addresses through other sector-focused projects but these were not
being used because of lost passwords, unreliable connections or lack of
understanding.
At this stage of the project, all of the
advice offices know
how to connect to the Internet and use basic email and web
applications. Some offices are actively using email to communicate, and
finding information on the Internet on a daily basis. Others are
adapting more slowly to the new technologies. The paralegal sector has
fax entrenched as a communication mechanism, and it will take some
effort to change that mindset. As more and more useful information is
distributed through emails, adoption of email is likely to improve.
Adoption of an email discussion list for advice offices is likely to be
a key factor for this purpose.
The advice offices see improved access to
funding opportunities
as one of the primary advantages of the Internet, and it is hoped that
the project will result in funding being realised either directly
(donors contacted after finding them on the Internet) or indirectly
(improved effectiveness and communication influences a donor's decision
to provide funding). The advice offices are already using the Internet
to find potential donors, but it is difficult to assess whether this
has or will lead to direct funding.
One area where the advice offices are
definitely benefiting
from the project is in their improved confidence in using their
computers and Internet connections. Their have been numerous support
calls to troubleshoot some connectivity problem or other, or asking how
to perform some computer-related task or other (like sending email
attachments). Because of the rural location of the offices, the staff
appreciate the effort taken to reach them.
Sustainability
From the perspective of the advice offices,
introducing the service
fee is addressing some of the concerns of long-term sustainability.
With this amount they will at least be able to sustain the costs of
their Internet connectivity once the project comes to a close.
Concerning the long-term sustainability of
the project itself,
there are difficult consideration. Travel is expensive, and it will be
impossible to support these costs without external funding. However,
because of the scalability of the project, it is possible to bring down
the costs per client by opening the project to new offices, new
provinces and new sectors.
Another strategy which is being considered
is to capacitate
local ICT SMEs to support the advice offices. This will cut out the
travel requirements, and encourage local rural development. There are
several factors that will need to be considered before such an approach
is taken however.
Shareable Products
A basic ICT manual for advice offices is
being developed for this
project, which is likely to also be of benefit to other small, rural
organisations looking to make better use of their technology.
Lessons
Some of the lessons that can be taken from
this project are given below.
Management
- When marketing a new service in a new
sector, it is a very good
idea to first build a relationship with a trusted ally in the sector.
Our partnership with KCHR in this project established trust with the
paralegals. Similarly, face-to-face marketing of the services worked
far better than faxed information about the project. A very limited
initial response was bolstered significantly when we spoke about the
project at a training workshop for paralegals.
- It is important to choose clients who are
ready to benefit
from the services you are offering. In this project we chose only
advice offices that already had a computer, and that were willing and
able to pay the subscription fee. As tempting as it is to give services
to everyone (and often the least resourced seem like the most
deserving), ICT works best to support an environment that already has
effective processes in place. In an environment of limited resources it
is best to offer opportunities to those who will benefit most, rather
than those who seem to need the most.
- Even in a resource-poor environment,
clients are willing to
pay for services, provided they see the value. If they do not see the
value, even free services will not be useful for them. Additionally,
having to pay for the services makes the clients much more willing to
commit themselves to the process and they benefit more from the
services. It also makes the service provider more accountable to
provide effective services to the client, not just the donor.
- If a project has the luxury of choice in
terms of selecting
clients, it is best to cluster them as much as possible. Travel costs
are among the most expensive aspects of a project such as this, and
keeping the clients close together reduces these costs significantly.
It is also preferable to stay in a central location and travel out from
there rather than to move to a different location each day. These
clusters will also make it easier in the future to find local support
for the clients when the project comes to a close or when the project
is properly established.
- If possible, it is probably better to
separate management
from service delivery. Accountability and transparency is improved, and
it allows both the manager and the eRider to focus on a particular task
rather than getting spread too thin and operating outside of their
strengths.
Service Delivery
- At a practical level, the eRider should
be as self-sufficient
as possible. It was hugely beneficial in this project to have a laptop
with a cellphone-based Internet connection to do research, communicate
and download files as necessary. That said, it is still best to have as
many resources as possible on CD before going on a trip of this nature.
The following proved to be useful tools and resources to take:
- A laptop with CD-writer and USB-based
external hard-drive for
transferring files, backups, etc. Remember to take the drivers for the
external drive on CD and floppy disk. All computers encountered in this
project were able to support USB.
- Antivirus software. In a more
technology-aware environment
viruses don't seem to be such a problem these days, but that is not the
case in rural, technology-poor areas. Every computer that was checked
in this project had one or many viruses, and often they were the cause
of very strange behaviour by the computer. AVG proved to be the most
effective antivirus software for rural organisations, although McAfee
Stinger also proved useful at times. Installing and running virus
protection software should be the first intervention with a new client.
Anti spyware software is also useful to have handy. Download the latest
virus update files before visiting the offices, as well as the latest
version of Stinger.
- Most offices did not have Adobe
Reader installed, and PDF
documents were a common source of frustration for them. It is good to
have Adobe Reader available for various Windows versions.
- Most computers have Microsoft Outlook
Express installed by
default, but Mozilla Thunderbird seems to be more intuitive for new
users. It is recommended that this is installed for offices that have
no experience with email. If they are already using some software or
another, it is usually best to continue with what they are using.
- If possible, have Microsoft Windows
updates available on CD.
Most offices have very unpatched Windows versions and do not have
Internet connections that can handle downloads of this size. If they
were to try downloading the updates, their bandwidth cap would be
exceeded very quickly.
- It is a good idea to have recent
firmware updates available
for hardware that the project relies on. The mobile data cards in this
project were slow and unreliable until they had the update applied,
after which they seemed much more effective.
- Some offices (few) do not have
Microsoft Office installed, so it is good to take OpenOffice.org
install files for them.
- Redundancy is crucial when providing
services in the rural
areas. Visits are costly and infrequent, so it is important to be able
to be effective when you are there. Try not to rely too much on any one
tool or resource. CDs fail, Internet connections don't work, and even
power is not always available in rural areas. Be flexible and think
outside of the box.
- Even in very rural places there is
usually someone who is
able to solve most basic computer problems that these offices are
likely to face. For example, asking around for someone with a Microsoft
Office XP CD pointed us to a useful resource in Hofmeyr (the cd was
needed to fix an upgrade issue). These people can be useful contacts if
you are unable to visit the offices directly in the future.
- It is a good idea to have a budget for
incidental technology
expenses for small things the clients need to be effective. Often RAM
is a limiting factor, and makes a huge improvement to their
environment. Some things are more difficult to anticipate –
one office
needed us to install an external antenna before the cellular signal was
sufficient to connect.
- Using mobile connections instead of
telephone connections
seemed to be a good choice, even though there were headaches getting
them set up correctly. The clients' perspective still needs to be
properly assessed.
- While it is often enough to just show the
clients how to do
certain tasks when training is given, it is much more effective if you
can leave them with a guide that reinforces what you have trained.
- Remember that whatever you introduce you
must be able to
support. We did in a few cases introduce stable FOSS applications like
Mozilla Thunderbird and OpenOffice.org. While we considered introducing
them to Ubuntu Linux we (probably wisely) decided to make as few
changes to their environment as necessary.
- Cellphone tends to be the most reliable
form of communication
for confirming logistics around site visits. Try to obtain the
cellphone number of the primary contact at the client's office, as well
as an office number.
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