Networks: Empowering Communities through Telecentre Networking

Abstract and background:

In 2006, telecentre.org commissioned a survey entitled: “Telecentre Scoping Study in North Africa and Middle East (MENA)”. Additionally, a two-day stakeholders’ workshop was held in Cairo in December the same year to deepen the study findings and agree on priorities. The study, which was the first of its kind to treat the subject on a regional perspective, was a major step towards understanding telecentre activities, players and issues within the MENA region.

The countries studied were: Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen. The study revealed that although no formal telecentre networking activities are taking place in the MENA region, some telecentres - mainly in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Morocco where telecentre activities are strongest - have pulled together into loose networks for peer support.

Nevertheless, there were many challenges across the region such as absence of strong on-going telecentre management support structures, fragmented Arabic telecentre content, lack of cohesion among the telecentre community and inadequate focus to livelihood and social development applications in telecentres beyond information technology literacy.

In the overall, the study indicated that the depth of telecentre programming in the MENA region was a lot weaker and disintegrated than elsewhere in the Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia or Latin America.

As one of the immediate outcomes of this scoping study, stakeholders in the region committed to collaborate to build a strong telecentre community by strengthening national telecentre networks to provide of on-going helpdesk services, increase availability and access to relevant Arabic telecentre content, build capacity of telecentre practitioners and diversify content and services at telecentre level.

Egypt was identified to implement the first telecentre network based on the relative vibrancy of telecentres in the country. There are over 1300 telecentres (IT Clubs) in Egypt under a national program that dates back to 1990s. As such, the IT Clubs program represented the highest concentration of telecentre activities in a single country in the region.

The Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MCIT) supports the IT Clubs in order to provide ICT access to all citizens through out the country. The MCIT is aware of the need to strengthen the current model of IT Clubs so as to increase social development outcome and sustainability of the initiative.

This two-year research project will therefore support efforts by the Egyptian Government through the MCIT and United Nations Development Program (UNDP) - Egypt to implement a Central Knowledge sharing unit to support IT Clubs/telecentres.

The project will provide coordinated support to all forms of telecentre activities in Egypt. This will include on demand helpdesk services, online and offline knowledge sharing platforms, access to high value-added services sharing and brokerage support.

This project will also spearhead the creation of a vibrant telecentre community in the MENA region through online and offline knowledge sharing facilitation efforts. It will bridge telecentre practitioners from the Arab world with their counterparts in other parts of the world to ensure enhanced knowledge sharing across the telecentre community.

Objectives

General: Support the creation of a strong and independent national telecentre network that provides on demand support services to all IT Clubs in Egypt and spearhead the creation of a vibrant telecentre community in the MENA region. The initiative will be jointly supported by UNDP – Egypt and Egyptian Government through MCIT (Egypt ICT Trust Fund).

Specific:

• To build and nurture a vibrant telecentre community in the MENA region.



• To develop capacity of staff so that they effectively manage the network and create high value services to strength IT Club activities across the country.



• To develop capacity of staff so that they effectively manage the network and create high value services to strength IT Club activities across the country



• To create and manage an online telecentre helpdesk in order to deliver on-demand online support to practitioners.



• To create platforms for online and offline knowledge sharing within Egypt and across the region.

Tools:

• Research knowledge needs, expectations, opportunities and challenges.



• Telecentre Times Arabic (newspaper/newsletter)– biannual.



• TC-MENA mail list tc-mena@dgroups.idrc.ca ONGOING.



• Knowledge Sharing/Community Content (KS/CC) Mini-portal and online help desk.



• Workshops, networking and research.

IT Clubs role:

• Actively participate in the creating and maintaining of Egypt Network of telecentres (virtual) and use the network's tools and platforms for enhancing their performance and solving their problems through knowledge sharing within Egypt and across the MENA region .



• Actively participate in sharing their experiences, success stories and problems through the Knowledge sharing tools mentioned above.



• Upload stories, photos to our portal (www.telecentre-mena.org) and the global (www.telecentre.org).



• Research solutions for their knowledge needs and share it with the Egyptian and the MENA telecentres' network.

Donor:

the International Development Research Center (IDRC) Canada

Executor:

Egypt ICT Trust Fund (UNDP/MCIT)

Governorates:

open to active telecentres/IT Cubs (some of the following have been under research:

- Aswan - Luxor - Asuit

- Menia - Beni Suef

- Souhag - Qena - Giza-Oases

- Sharkia - Suez - Red Sea

- Kafr Elsheikh - New Valley - N. Sinai

- Dakahlia - Ghariba - Behera

Regionally/MENA:

(general networking coverage of the Middle East and North Africa but some key Telecentres' networks will take part: Jordan, Sudan, Syria, Morocco, Lebanon, Algeria.

Budget:

175,200 CAD (IDRC).

Duration:

17 months.