South African Government Adopts Open Source Policy

(this article was first published on the SANGONeT NGO Portal on 1 March 2007)

On 22 February 2007 Cabinet approved a policy and strategy for the implementation of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in government. All new software developed for or by the government will in future be based on open standards and government will migrate all current software to FOSS.

This important Cabinet decision has the potential to transform the software landscape not only in government, but in South African society at large. The introduction of FOSS will give government sovereignty and ownership of its ICT infrastructure in terms of software security, support and development, while lowering costs, reducing dependence on international suppliers and enhancing local technology skills. It also sends a strong message as far as aligning South Africa with similar developments in other prominent developing countries such as Brazil and India.

Government continues to represent the single biggest ICT market in South Africa. By proactively driving the move towards the adoption of FOSS, government will effectively support the growth of the local ICT sector and create a viable market for FOSS products and services.

Although the adoption of a FOSS policy has been on the government agenda for the past few years, civil society played an important role in advocating for government to bring finality to this issue. In September 2006 SANGONeT and the Internet Society of South Africa coordinated a civil society petition which called on the Minister of Public Services and Administration to adopt an open source policy.

The petition was endorsed by close to 50 prominent South African NGOs, and reminded government about its obligations to the Declaration that was unanimously adopted by various government, private sector and civil society stakeholders in support of a National Open Source Strategy at the Go Open Source Conference held from 22-23 August 2005 in Johannesburg. The Declaration recommended that the Cabinet formally adopts a FOSS policy.

With the policy adopted, the challenge now shifts to the practical implementation of FOSS in government. Unfortunately, the Cabinet announcement lacked information about specific government plans in this regard. However, a project office will be established by April 2007 by the Department of Science and Technology, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the State Information Technology Agency (SITA) to oversee the implementation of FOSS in government structures.

In order for government’s new software policy to achieve all its objectives, and unlock real value in both government and society at large, a number of key issues should receive specific attention during the implementation process. FOSS continues to be an unknown proposition in society. What does it mean to ordinary South Africans? With the demise of the Go Open Source Campaign in 2006, little is being done to promote broad understanding about FOSS and the socio-economic value of open source adoption in a developing country such as South Africa. It continues to be a typical ICT issue and the domain of mainly stakeholders in the ICT sector and government.

Civil society organisations could play an important role in raising awareness in this regard, in partnership with government and business, and hopefully this issue will receive attention during the implementation of government’s FOSS policy. Much emphasis is being placed on the savings that will materialize as a result of large-scale adoption and migration to open source in all spheres of government. However, little is still known about the cost of migration, with decades of uncoordinated investments in ICT systems and skills reflecting the reality on the ground. What will it cost to train and retrain thousands of civil servants, what is the time framework for this process, and is the capacity and skills available in the local ICT sector to support this process in a meaningful and coordinated manner?

Ultimately, the increased adoption of open source will have significant value for both government and other sectors in society, especially civil society, where issues of affordability and sustainability are key considerations when making decisions about ICT investments.

Open source adoption in the NGO sector has been slow as the sector is constrained in its access to skills and other technology resources, and as such, is limited in its capacity to break new ground in technology usage. Significant adoption by government as the largest single procurer of ICT services will inevitably increase the number of users and technicians familiar with open source products, thereby reducing the burden of training and support that smaller early-adopters currently face. This is a burden that cannot be carried by the majority of NGOs, no matter the strategic philosophical fit with open source.

The Cabinet decision of last week has created significant expectations about a paradigm shift in government’s ICT priorities and objectives, and government will be under severe pressure to demonstrate impact and success in this regard.

Civil society will closely monitor the FOSS implementation process and continue to make critical inputs as and when required. It is therefore encouraging to notice that Cabinet has also approved the creation of a partnership with ICT NGOs, to be called the Information Society and Developmental Intergovernmental Relations Forum (ISADIGRF). This initiative will form part of the implementation of the National Information Society and Development (ISAD) Plan, aimed at building an inclusive information society in South Africa.

This development and will provide a much needed platform for regular engagement between government and civil society about national ICT issues, including the implementation of the FOSS policy.

- David Barnard, Executive Director, SANGONeT.

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Telecentre Challenges in South Africa

(This article was first published in the Business Day on 25 January 2007.)

Rescue attempt on poorly performing telecentres

Rural telecom plan wastes millions

DOZENS of telecentres set up to take telecommunications services to rural areas have been an absolute waste of time and money, says an organisation trying to salvage them.

Of 133 telecentres set up by the Universal Service Agency (USA), many are underused, entirely dysfunctional or have turned into private businesses benefiting the people appointed to run them. Now a three-year project is under way to revive some of the centres and assess which should be written off.

Many may be beyond salvation, says David Barnard, a director of Sangonet. “There are some fairly critical views about the impact telecentres have had and to a large extent those criticisms are valid,” he says. “Real questions have been raised about their relevance and whether millions of rands have been pumped into a big black hole with little to show for it.

Sangonet, a body that helps development agencies use IT in the communities they serve, is driving the telecentre overhaul.

It is working with the USA, now renamed the Universal Services and Access Agency of SA (USAASA), with the goal of reinventing them as community centres offering IT training.

Also involved is the Telecentre Association of SA, which helps rural communities operate sustainable centres offering distance education and other multimedia services.

Private companies including Microsoft and technology training group Torque IT have been brought in to add more skills, money and expertise to the overhaul. “We are bringing in advice and expertise because to turn this telecentre Titanic around, a number of things need to be changed,” says Barnard.

Telecentres were expected to provide rural areas with access to educational, health-care and government services, facilities for small businesses, and to teach people computing skills.

The agency’s original goal was to roll out 4000, but in 2003 it admitted that 25 of 68 centres set up by that stage were not functioning well and had to be relocated. Yet no changes were made to the strategy, and many centres set up in the following years have also failed.

The centres were built using a levy paid by every company licensed to offer telecommunications services, including Telkom and the cellular operators. Those companies often complain about the inefficiency of the agency and believe they could invest their levies in far more effective community development projects.

The operators contribute 0,2% of their annual turnover - totaling hundreds of millions of rands - to the universal service fund, which the agency should use to take telecommunications services to remote areas. But several studies have confirmed that the agency has failed to do that, forcing the communications department to intervene and revitalise the organisation.

The telecentre revival plan is an attempt to “sort out the mess” the agency created, Barnard says. Too much emphasis was put on creating a physical infrastructure with little attention paid to the skills of the people running them, their accountability or the services they actually offered. “They built some buildings, put in a couple of PCs and thought they had taken care of the problem,” he says.

The first step saw 50 telecentre managers attend a course to learn how to train their colleagues. But their skills were so poor the top 10 have been asked to continue training the other 40. “For some people on the course it was the first time they had switched on a PC,” says Barnard.

Yet those people were running the centres and teaching rural residents to use the equipment. Once the managers are properly educated they should be able to run computer literacy courses and issue qualifications to help people find employment.

A second step was to teach the managers to run the centres as self-sustaining operations with proper governance and accountability. Many are run on a voluntary basis, so business acumen, sustainability, quality control and a responsiveness to community needs are absent, Barnard says.

Sangonet wants the agency to conduct a thorough review of each telecentre to assess its sustainability. Even a well-run centre with skilled staff will be ineffective if nobody in the community needs IT skills or can afford the training.

Centres in the most remote regions may have a community development role to play, but they will need private companies to support them. The agency’s head of regulatory and corporate affairs, Tebogo Thapatlaase, says the role of telecentres is being re-examined after a study last year highlighted their underperformance. “We are aware of the criticisms and some of the criticisms are right,” he says. The lack of skilled managers should be solved with the help of Sangonet.

A second problem is the location of some centres in areas with too little economic activity to sustain them. The agency is now looking at an individual approach for each centre to suit the community it serves, he says. Efforts to broaden the quality and quantity of technology training they offer will make them more useful.

“When the community sees it is something that’s useful to them, the usage will be higher, and that will make them more sustainable.” Thapatlaase disagrees that money has been wasted. “Whatever shortfalls there are, there has been an element of awareness of what technology can do for development.”

World Development Information Day 2006

SANGONeT NGO Portal Turns One

(This article was first published on the SANGONeT NGO Portal on 24 October 2006.)

Today is World Development Information Day. The date signifies an important event on the SANGONeT calendar as we celebrate the first birthday of the SANGONeT NGO portal and our weekly newsletter, NGO Pulse, both of which were launched exactly a year ago today.

The United Nations General Assembly instituted World Development Information Day at its twenty-seventh session in December 1972 with the objective of drawing public attention on an annual basis to development problems and the importance of strengthening international cooperation to solve them (resolution 3038 (XXVII)).

The Assembly decided that the date for the Day should coincide with United Nations Day, 24 October, which was also the date of the adoption in 1970 of the International Development Strategy for the Second United Nations Development Decade.

In 2004 and 2005 SANGONeT hosted special events in Johannesburg to celebrate World Development Information Day and highlight specific initiatives aimed at raising the profile of the South African NGO sector. A key focus of SANGONeT’s 2005 event, linking by digital video conference, NGOs in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town, as well as Seattle, was the launch of the SANGONeT NGO and Development Information Portal, a one-stop Internet information resource for and about the NGO sector in South Africa.

The SANGONeT NGO Portal has five core objectives, namely to create a community media platform for civil society exchange; support the strategic development focus of the NGO sector; enhance the institutional capacity of the NGO sector for increased financial sustainability and programmatic impact; map civil society and its activities through PRODDER; and promote the benefits of ICTs in support of the work of civil society.

The establishment of the SANGONeT NGO Portal was the culmination of SANGONeT’s years of experience of working in the online environment. Since inception in 1987, SANGONeT has developed a wide range of online resources to highlight development and civil society issues in South Africa, the wider Southern African region and the African continent in general.

These initiatives have always offered an independent civil society perspective on key development issues. They also provide the necessary framework for SANGONeT to continue playing the strategic role of knowledge manager of the South African NGO sector, as well as rebuilding the reputation of the NGO sector.

The introduction of the NGO Portal represents SANGONeT’s response to the financial and institutional challenges facing many local NGOs. This problematic situation, as well as the absence of a strong national NGO coordinating body, has led to a severe leadership crisis and the increasing marginalisation of the NGO sector in South Africa. Furthermore, up until now there has been no consolidated knowledge repository (neither online nor offline) that seriously maps the scope and impact of the South African NGO sector.

In response to this situation, the SANGONeT NGO portal serves as a gateway to the South African NGO sector and other development stakeholders. It provides NGOs with a virtual media platform and strategic tool to disseminate, communicate and access information of relevance to the institutional capacity of civil society and promotes a progressive development agenda aimed at addressing the systemic causes of poverty, inequality and underdevelopment.

Under the leadership of the portal’s editor, Fazila Farouk, and as a result of the commitment of a dedicated team of information coordinators and a growing number of influential NGO content partners, the portal has achieved significant results during the past year. It has gained widespread local and international recognition as the online community platform for the South African NGO sector, has already attracted 175,000 visitors that have viewed more than 1,3 million pages.

Furthermore, 30% of this total constitutes international visitors. Thus, in addition to enhancing the internal capacity of the NGO sector in South Africa, the portal elevates its profile in the global arena.

In addition to the number of people that visit the portal, a significant 7,000 subscribe to the weekly e-mail alerting service, NGO Pulse, which is the news arm of the portal and includes links to aggregated as well as original news stories.

The portal also incorporates the PRODDER Directory, which lists information about more than 2,000 NGOs and development stakeholders. Currently there is no other comparative product that provides reliable validated information about NGOs and other development roleplayers in South Africa.

The portal continues to benefit from, as well as contribute to the success of, other strategic SANGONeT initiatives such as the annual SANGONeT “ICTs for Civil Society” Conference and Exhibition, South African and regional Thetha ICT Discussion Forum series, NGO Website Awards, the Gauteng-based NGO CEO Circle and the latest SANGONeT initiative, SANGOTeCH, a project aimed at introducing a wide range of ICT solutions at significantly discounted rates to the NGO sector in Southern Africa. These initiatives highlight the scope of SANGONeT’s experience and expertise in serving the NGO sector with ICT and information services.

Other initiatives such as the research project on ICT trends in the South African NGO sector, implemented in conjunction with Arthur Goldstuck of World Wide Worx, as well as the online workshop on ‘Communication Centered Website Design’ for NGOs that was conducted on 31 August 2006 by Seattle-based Michael Gilbert, also contribute to increased understanding and application of ICT and online resources in support of the work of the South African NGO sector.

To expand the reach of SANGONeT’s online information activities, as well as to cater for the information needs of NGOs without Internet access, SANGONeT plans to produce a newspaper version of NGO Pulse on a quarterly basis. The success of NGO Pulse the online newsletter has inspired the Media Diversity and Development Agency (MDDA) to fund a feasibility study, implemented by the Community Agency for Social Enquiry (CASE), to examine the news and information requirements of the NGO sector as well as the financial viability of the newspaper. The feasibility study will be concluded by the end of 2006.

Looking ahead, the biggest challenge facing SANGONeT is to ensure the ongoing relevance and credibility of the news and information published on the portal. Related to this challenge is some reluctance on the part of NGOs to readily part with information about the impact of their work. However, this is an important challenge to SANGONeT’s work in general, and specifically the portal, as progress in this regard will contribute to the overall transparency and accountability of the NGO sector. The third challenge facing SANGONeT is the current limited scope of the Internet in South Africa. The impact of the portal will never reach its full potential unless more people are brought into the online environment.

In 1972 the United Nations General Assembly decided that by improving the dissemination of information and the mobilisation of public opinion, through the introduction of World Development Information Day, would lead to greater awareness of development problems, thus promoting efforts in support of international cooperation for development. As we celebrate World Development Information Day in 2006, SANGONeT continues to support the strategic objectives of the Day through its commitment to the ongoing implementation of the NGO portal.

- David Barnard, Executive Director, SANGONeT.

Telecommunications in South Africa - Reaction, but not enough real action

(This article was first published on the SANGONeT NGO Portal on 6 September 2006).

The cost of telecommunications services in South Africa, and specifically the role of Telkom, has been the target of intense public scrutiny and criticism in recent years. Much attention has been focused on the quality and cost of Telkom’s services, public complaints about poor customer support and its excessive company profits. Various local and international studies have confirmed that South Africans pay some of the highest tariffs in the world for basic telephony and Internet access, directly impacting on the competitiveness of the local economy and the ability of the country to respond to its vast socio-economic challenges.

At the same time, Government and the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) have been ineffective in addressing this situation.

With the frustrations of South Africans regarding the costs of telecommunications and Internet services reaching a critical point, the long-awaited second national operator, Neotel, was officially launched on 31 August 2006 in Midrand. The launch of Neotel is recognised as an important development in reshaping the local telecommunications environment. Starting with the immediate provision of international wholesale services, Neotel aims to launch retail national and international fixed-line services by the end of March 2007. Its strategic objectives are to become the preferred provider of leading-edge telecoms in South Africa, to reduce the cost of doing business in the country, to bring the benefits of communications to the poor and to support and promote developing industries.

South Africans have been longing for an alternative to Telkom and the introduction of competition in the fixed-line environment. However, Neotel faces a number of serious challenges in meeting its licensing obligations, achieving its target of securing approximately 15 per cent of the local market in the next three to four years and responding to public expectations for improved services and reduced cost.

Based on experiences in other parts of the world, SNOs have struggled to make a meaningful impact in a market dominated by the incumbent provider. Neotel should therefore expect very little sympathy and support from Telkom. Interestingly enough, Telkom has announced that it is embarking on a major initiative aimed at improving customer service levels throughout the company, while it has also made a concerted effort in recent months to enter into longterm agreements with key clients.

Ultimately, Neotel might be the intervention that South Africa was waiting for. Unfortunately, it just arrived a few years too late. The introduction of three mobile operators has yet to result in significant competition on price, and the launch of Neotel creates a duopoly in the fixed-line environment with potentially the same outcome.

The launch of Neotel comes in the wake of the Electronic Communications Act that was passed earlier in 2006, creating a new licensing framework for the telecommunications sector, entrenching a regulatory model designed to promote competition and to limit the abuse of market power. These issues once again raise concerns about the ability of ICASA to play a meaningful role in this regard.

The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications conducted interviews with shortlisted candidates for vacant ICASA councillor positions last week in Cape Town. Riddled with internal problems in the recent past, ICASA’s failure to act decisively in response to the high tariff structure of Telkom is one of the main reasons for the unacceptable high costs of telecommunications in South Africa. In the past month ICASA once again missed an important opportunity to influence developments in the broadband market when it released new ADSL regulations without specifying a price ceiling for ADSL services or calling for the introduction of a single price structure based on international pricing models.

Furthermore, reports presented at the Convergence, Broadcast and Telecommunications Summit held in Johannesburg last week highlighted the problems experienced by underserviced area licensees (USALs), raising important questions about the viability of these initiatives in their current format.

The need for introducing more competition in the telecommunications market and reducing the cost of services, especially broadband, also received special attention during the annual meeting of the Presidential International Advisory Council on Information Society and Development that was held during the past weekend in Mpumalanga. Even President Mbeki acknowledged the need to address these issues as a matter of urgency, but no time frameworks for action were finalised.

Lastly, to further highlight public concerns and frustrations with the slow progress in transforming the local telecommunications environment, the Telecoms Action Group launched its national consumer advocacy campaign last week. The campaign calls on South Africans to donate money in support of a full-page advert in a national newspaper to protest the lack of alternatives in the local telecommunications sector.

Reflecting on all these developments, there is no shortage in awareness and understanding about the challenges facing the telecommunications environment in South Africa. However, it seems that the same mistakes are made repeatedly - either a lack of action or delayed action with limited results.

South Africa needs bold steps to be taken in transforming the telecommunications environment in the best interest of the future development of the country. The problems are well defined, political will by government and entrepreneurial intent by service providers are the missing ingredients.

Civil Society Petition on Open Source

ICT procurement by the South African government accounts for more than 50% of the local ICT market and significantly influences the types of ICT systems being supplied and supported in the country. With government spending approximately R3 billion per annum on a single proprietary software vendor, the dominant position of proprietary software in the South African ICT market remains entrenched.

This situation raises serious questions about the South African government’s approach to ICT procurement and its response to the socio-economic challenges facing the country.

Various government, private sector and civil society stakeholders unanimously adopted a declaration in support of a National Open Source Strategy at the end of the Go Open Source Conference held from 22-23 August 2005 in Johannesburg. The Declaration recommended that the National Cabinet formally adopt a policy on free and open source software and open content (FOSS/OC).

A year has passed since the Declaration was adopted and very little progress has been made in meeting the commitments emanating from the conference. A change in Government behaviour, policy and practice is a prerequisite for the benefits of FOSS/OC to be realised across society. Government intervention is needed to enable FOSS/OC to become more readily available and to compete equally with proprietary software.

At the recent Gardner Conference in Cape Town it was also highlighted that the South African government is behind the curve in a global trend towards open source software.

In response to this situation, Alan Levin of the Internet Society and I have drafted a petition aimed at mobilising civil society support to pressurise the Minister for Public Service and Administration to adopt an open source policy and honour the government's commitments to the Declaration adopted at the Go Open Source Conference.

We support a change in Government policy that will give meaning to the National Open Source Strategy and result in increased support and application of FOSS/OC in government. We also hope that this process will contribute to increased awareness about open source among South African civil society organisations.

The petition is available on the SANGONeT NGO Portal.

We appeal to South African civil society organisations to review the petition and submit endorsements to - info@sangonet.org.za - by Friday, 22 September 2006.

Blown Away in Swaziland

SANGONeT, in conjunction with the Coordinating Council on NGOs in Swaziland (CANGO), hosted its second regional Thetha ICT Discussion Forum from 2-3 August 2006 in Mbabane, Swaziland.

Arriving in Swaziland the day before the event, my first observation was the brown and dry appearance of the local landscape. Although this is to be expected in the middle of winter, somehow it seemed Swaziland was really in need of some rain. Without knowing what was to follow, the next 72 hours would have devastating implications for the local economy.

By late afternoon of the 1st of August 2006 the wind picked up, followed by an incredible thunderstorm and lightning that lit up the valleys around the Mountain Inn. Heavy rain followed, as well as a gale strong wind that continued to blow for the next two days, causing widespread damage and destruction in many parts of Swaziland.

With powerlines uprooted, not only was the hotel without electricity, but we had to host an ICT event without power and connectivity. Although an inconvenience for all concerned, this situation had very little impact on the enthusiasm of the more than 60 participants, while speakers also adjusted their presentations very quickly to the challenging circumstances.

This experience highlighted the importance of basic infrastructure, the role it plays in our daily lives and how essential it is for ICTs to have a meaningful impact.

The keynote presentation was made by the Minister of Economic Planning and Development, as well as Acting Minister of Tourism, Communications and Environment, Absalom Dlamini, who announced that the National Information Communications Technology (ICT) Policy has been finalised and is ready for submission to Cabinet. He observed that the policy would serve as a roadmap for local ICT development, clearly defining the roles and responsibilities of different players while also mainstreaming gender in development and implementation of all related programmes.

In his opening remarks, Emmanuel Ndlangamandla, Executive Director of CANGO, stated that although NGOs play a critical role in development, they had not yet been able to exploit ICT to enhance their development work.

These two inputs provided the perfect platform for the rest of the discussions as they highlighted the challenges of transforming ICT policy into tangible benefits for the people of Swaziland, including the local NGO sector.

As with the previous event in Namibia, the aim of the Swaziland Thetha forum was to increase the use and awareness of ICTs in the local NGO sector. It was used to highlight local ICT policy issues, develop an understanding of the ICT capacity of local NGOs, introduce participants to various open source applications and solutions, and demonstrate the relevance of social networking tools such as wikis and blogs. The event also received coverage on local television and in the print media.

Although it is too early to confirm specific ICT trends among NGOs in Southern Africa, NGOs in Namibia and Swaziland share similar experiences in terms of the negative impact of high telecommunication and ICT costs on the general uptake of ICTs, the lack of involvement by NGOs in local ICT policy processes, the absence of local NGOs specialising in ICT issues and services, and the limited uptake and awareness of open source software (OSS) solutions and applications.

As in Namibia, the highlight of the first day was the “mass” blogging and wiki session. Facilitated by Denis Brandjes of GetOpenLab, participants were guided through a number of simple steps on how to set-up their own individual blogs. Within a few minutes, the number of blogs in Swaziland was significantly increased. Amazingly, no power and connectivity disruptions were experienced during this session, the only time that we really needed the technology given the practical requirements and focus of the session.

At the end of the first day, participants were treated to a candle light dinner (in the absence of electricity), with entertainment by local dancers, and an interesting presentation by Musa Ndlangamandla, Chief Editor of The Swazi Observer, which focussed on the role and impact of ICTs in the work of media houses.

Day two started with participants working in two groups, reflecting on the ICT challenges facing NGOs in Swaziland, potential interventions to enhance the ICT uptake and awareness of local NGOs, and specific expectations regarding future Thetha-related events in Swaziland.

The rest of the programme focused on the role and relevance of open source in support of the work of NGOs, exposing participants to both the theoretical understanding and practical applications.

Information on the Swaziland event and other regional Thetha forums is available on the Thetha website.

The third and fourth Southern African Thetha forums will be held from 4-5 October 2006 and 18-19 October 2006 in Gaborone, Botswana, and Maseru, Lesotho, respectively.

Related articles:

ICT policy ready

Telecoms costs prohibitive for NGOs

2006 Regional Thetha Forums - Reaching Far and Wide into the Region

Thetha in Namibia

SANGONeT hosted its first regional Thetha ICT Discussion Forum from 12-13 July 2006 in Windhoek, Namibia.

This event formed part of a new series of five two-day events that we are hosting in Namibia, Swaziland, Botswana, Lesotho and Angola during the next few months.

Started in March 2003, SANGONeT's Thetha Forums aim to provide NGOs with the opportunity to discuss information communication technology (ICT), including challenges facing the NGO sector, highlighting and promoting practical benefits, opportunities and lessons learned.

The objectives of the regional forums are to create awareness amongst NGOs in the mentioned countries about various ICT policy issues and applications, as well as to build the capacity of local NGO coordinating bodies to convene similar events in future.

The Namibian forum was implemented in conjunction with three local partner organisations, namely the Rossing Foundation, SchoolNet Namibia and the Namibia Non-Governmental Organisations’ Forum (NANGOF).

Day one of the event started with more than 80 people participating in the first civil society event of this nature held in Namibia. Having expected between 30 and 40 participants, this was an encouraging turnout, highlighting the interest of local NGOs to learn more about ICT policy and application issues.

The local interest in the meeting was further demonstrated by a live television interview conducted with Len le Roux of the Rossing Foundation and me earlier that morning on the Good Morning Namibia show of the Namibia Broadcasting Corporation (NBC). The NBC also recorded the opening session of the event.

The event kicked off with a very inspiring and thought-proving presentation by Dr Claudia Harvey, regional Director of UNESCO in Southern Africa. She posed the following important challenge to participants in her opening comments, namely “…the tools are there, but how do you harness them in the interest of development?”

She then highlighted a number of key social issues which could be addressed through the application of ICTs, including the use of ICTs to close the development divide, open up “closed” open educational systems, regain patents of local resources, use of solar energy to solve Southern Africa’s energy requirements, promote African cultural experiences and expressions, become a tool for facilitating business and trade, promote the image of Africa, resolve conflict and promote peace, build the capacity of youth and fight the stigma of HIV/AIDS.

This presentation was followed by a session which highlighted the perspectives of government, academia and the NGO sector in relation to national ICT policy issues in Namibia, especially in the education field.

After lunch participants were introduced to various open source initiatives, especially the “ReadySteadyGo” solution of OpenLab, and NGO-in-a-Box. Given the strong open source focus of SchoolNet Namibia, the programme of the Namibian Thetha had a very strong open source orientation. In an environment were cost and access are major obstacles to the ICT uptake of local NGOs, free and open source solutions present these organisations with much needed opportunities to strengthen their ICT capacity.



The highlight of the first day was the “mass” blogging and wiki session facilitated by Joris Komen, Executive Director of SchoolNet Namibia. More than 50 participants grouped around PCs, while Joris guided them through a number of simple steps on how to set-up their own individual blogs and wikis. Within a few minutes, the number of Namibian blogs was most probably doubled if not tripled!!! Participants were also introduced to the wiki that SchoolNet Namibia set up specifically for the event.

This session demonstrated the power of practical skills building sessions, with participants introduced to new technology applications in a simple and easy-to-understand manner, giving them the opportunity to apply their new skills and see the results of their efforts.

At the end of an exciting and stimulating first day, participants attended a cocktail function hosted by our Namibian partner organisations.

Day two started with participants working in four groups, reflecting on the ICT challenges facing NGOs in Namibia, potential interventions to enhance the ICT uptake and awareness of local NGOs, and specific expectations regarding future Thetha-related events in Namibia.

Key ICT challenges highlighted include cost, lack of access, lack of people and organisations advocating for ICTs in the NGO sector, the need for government to provide more support, software choices, and the need for more training opportunities.

Participants expressed a need for NGOs to work closer together in support of bulk-buying of equipment in order to reduce cost, the need for information on ICT issues to be more readily available and the need for NANGOF to play a more prominent role in support of ICT issues in the NGO sector.

As far as the future is concerned and as a follow-up to the event, participants expressed an interest in quarterly progress meetings and practical training sessions, an annual conference based on the Thetha initiative, information about corporate social investment (CSI) initiatives of IT vendors and the need for more ICT focused NGOs, as well as IT vendors taking an interest in the NGO sector.

The rest of the day was dedicated to various sessions dealing with creative commons and open source issues, including a repeat of the “ReadySteadyGo” and NGO-in-a-Box sessions. Similar to the blogging session on day one, participants were also exposed to basic web design training.

Information on the outcomes of the Namibian event and other regional Thetha forums will be published on the Thetha website.

SANGONeT is extremely pleased with the outcomes of the Namibia event. Given the interest generated in ICT issues during the event and the positive feedback received from participants, a solid foundation has been created for more of these and related interventions in future. Given the combined commitment and expertise of the Rossing Foundation, SchoolNet Namibia and NANGOF, and with the support of local IT vendors, the ICT situation in the Namibian NGO sector could see a drastic transformation during the next few years.