Paula Uimonen: Is development cooperation prepared?
No. The structure is too bureaucratic.
But the network logic is horizontal, cross-sectorial, transversal, non-hierarchical.
But it seems that the international arena is working for a more networked development cooperation sector.
Shafika Isaacs: Are organizations prepared to network?
It depends: they’re all in an evolutionary process.
There’re more and more organizations working in the field of ICT4D.
And a rising awareness on the issue.
Big leadership behind ICT4D fostering.
Common agenda that enabled collaboration and networking, especially withing the civil society, with an inflection point at the WSIS.
Vikas Nath: What is networking and how can this be achieved?
People join networks for two reasons: (1) more benefit than the cost of joining it and (2) multiplier effect that a network is increased by one member.
There’s no optimum design for a network: the network will shape itself according to its needsl.
Conclusions from my group (the four people above)
Objective facts
Network culture assumes the character of the leading person/organization, of the dominant personalities
Networking is about “we”, and ceases to exist when focused at the “I” — not a consensus on this part
The Network Society is here, and is here to stay
In developed countries — and their institutions and organizations — infrastructures is not the issue
Big funding agents foster collaboration through compulsory partnerships
Network participation implies engagement with the other (which might be different from you), boundary crossing
Criticism
Where there is power there is resistance, and resistance is also organized in networks (Foucault)
We lose to dream, we ain’t dreaming enough, we “think small”
Lack of e-awareness
Competition for funding
New concepts
The contradiction that the network compromises the individual with the collective will
Networks can bring disruptive creation
I exist because I am on the Internet
The Network is becoming more “real” than reality itself, we should think digital
Intutitions
Network creates a more human society
The power dynamics are designed by the network leaders
The network is cold and has no emotions
Big nonprofits will act as hubs, and distribute work to smallest nonprofits and individual online volunteers
Optimism
The social and cultural aspects of ICTs will promote networking
We have potential to make positive changes, because we are the network,and networks have potential to make significant changes
Web 2.0 enabling more collaboration and bottom-up initiatives
Control
Resistance, which leads to lack of change
Endorsement, that leads to progress
Impossibility to keep tight control
Flexibilize organizations
Focus on what value you are adding to the network
Be a statue sometimes and not always the pigeon
General conclusions (from all groups)
Networks are here and are powerful
There’s evidence of change and shifting towards networking: in the society, in organizations. And there’s an evolving trend towards more networking
Networks are catalysts, make things happen, have multiplier effects… but they have no essence on their own, they just mirror the good and bad things of the society, what works and what does not work, there’s nothing new under the (networked) sun but humans
Strong need to enable individuals so they can work with ICTs, in networked frameworks
Same with organizations: collective change, organizational change, reshaping according to networking needs
We have to make networks explicit, design them, rule them, have common goals, a common agenda, managing confidence and leadership. Monitoring and network assessment is a must that comes along with network creation and maintenance.
We should work towards inclusive networks, fostering capacities, networks that empower their nodes so they can still be a part of the network.
The Web 2.0 is seen as a (potential) inclusion concept/philosophy/technology, an empowering one
Caveat #1: all these conclusions are not axiomatic: there are shades, blurring edges, contradictions, etc.
Caveat #2: this is how we see networks today, but we should also keep in mind that networks (and society) will evolve, so should these conclusions
Crisis of performance, effectiveness, results, etc. in development cooperation, despite the increasing amount of resources devoted to it.
Reasons
Industrial way of thinking, not post-industrial. The actual development paradigm is old and not valid. We need a new, up-to-date paradigm.
Focus on pilot projects that are not maintained after the pilot phase, so they die in the medium- or long-run.
Short-sightedness of asymmetric internationalism: there’s more and more knowledge in the South about south issues than in the north, so don’t (you northern developed country) look at your local environment, because it does not mirror the southern reality.
Money is an issue, but not the issue.
Solutions?
Try a new networked, collaborative way of designing and implementing projects
Forget about old ways of accountability and reporting mainly focused to satisfy the “needs” of the funding institution’s bureaucracy: instead, public accountability through the institutional web site, blogs, etc.
Boost (local) leaders, people that can enable (social) changes. Horizontal leadership and social capital, again enhancing networks and (symmetric) networking
Development and ICT4D are blurring concepts that are becoming indivisible aspects of Development in general.
We’ve much focused in access to infrastructures that we didn’t realize that mobile telephony was closing the digital divide at our backs. So, how does the telecenter has to adapt to this trend and make of (a) the PC+Internet a (still) valuable tool and (b) the mobile phone a more powerful tool (as the PC+Internet is)
New cooperation models: from charity to collaborative business strategies where both partners (northern, southern) benefit/profit from ICT4D projects.
More on horizontal leadership
The assumption that you (the North) can change the world, with just one project, designed in the framework of your office, is absolutely wrong. It’s better to empower, boost the leaders that are already operating this change through their daily work, so they can have a wider and deeper reach and impact, so the social change truly happens and at a higher level.
It’s not that we have to forget about all we’ve learned through the years about development, but just forget about the asymmetry that now rules development cooperation.
Paula Uimonen: It makes lesser and lesser sense the North-to-South approach of knowledge and aid transfer. More and more the South is sovereign to define its own needs, and should be able to ask for help, resources and so to the North, but not to have to indiscriminately accept what comes from it.
Q: can I help you if you (country) don’t have a framework, an explicit policy to foster ICTs?
Shafika Isaacs states that in most Africa such policies do exist [focus in education], and the frameworks, even in an emergent state, they are already built and capable of processing/absorb any project or help that might come in the field of ICTs. Even more, the network to enable a knowledge exchange practice is already there, and this is the priority of Africa.
Q: can we set up ICT4D projects/agencies/development cooperation in the South?
Vikas Nath: Sure. There’s been lot of work already been done in the private sector arena, and now’s the turn for the civil society to lead the process, enabled/fostered by such cooperation. And this empowered society (private firms, nonprofits, etc.) are actually and already leading some interesting development projects, trends, paths, etc.
Q: what kind of action should design an international agency to work in Latin America to foster the Information Society?
Eiko Kawamura: first of all, have a clear map of what the local reality is like, specially describing the real needs of the beneficiaries, what do people need in communication related issues.
A huge problem in top-down initiatives is that they have embedded by default their own (success) indicators, most of them quantitative, while raising living standards, welfare, is most times a matter of qualitative perceptions… and indeed a long term issue, sometimes quite separated in time from the project itself. You might be measuring the irrelevant and forgetting the relevant.
Another problem is short-run, pilot projects that do not have time enough to (positively) effectively impact the community, while they generate financial dependences that do not take into account sustainability issues in the long run.
Random comments from the audience
ICTs crucial for development (by a man from Angola’s government)
The importance of capacity building and digital literacy when/besides “installing computers”
Importance of top level commitment and policies to framework ICT4D projects
Shift the focus from computers to education
Shafika Isaacs: right, there’s high penetration of mobile phones in Africa, way greater that computers/Internet, but removing out of the spotlight computers/Internet just because they have lesser penetration would be like throwing the baby out with the bath water. We have to work in how such different technologies can be integrated, and this means mobile phones + computers + Internet, but also radio, that has a huge penetration in Africa and is really popular.
Eiko Kawamura: Indeed, the problem with mobile phones is that they’re (still) expensive and (still) just used for text messaging, so she agrees with Shafika Isaacs about integrating different technologies so they fit different purposes.
Vikas Nath: we’re suffering a lock in syndrome in ICT4D. The lack of infrastructures and literacy does not let us think about effective uses/applications of ICTs for Development. A vicious circle. We have to break it and surely policies and government strategies is a good means to.
Manuel Acevedo: it’s important to use ICTs to do old things in a better way. But, what about trying to do new things?
Keynote speech: Manuel Acevedo The challenges of the integration of ICTs in a networked cooperation
How do we integrate ICTs in Development Cooperation? What does “networked cooperation” exactly means?
Human Development and Network Society
Human Development according to Amartya Sen: not only “physical” development, possibilities, but also capabilities, entitlements.
Network Society according to Manuel Castells: everything (society) is structured in networks, which are indeed different from hierarchical, vertical structures.
ICTs for Development
Denning: we can describe knowledge ecosystems, using the metaphor of a garden: Knowledge cannot be extracted, we have to make it grow
Labelle: ICTs for Development:
making access easy
helping countries to reach knowledge economy
enabling people
Digital Divide
access
capacity
relevant content
Fostering the Information Society:
Infrastructure
Capacity
Services
Content
Education
Health
Work
Commerce
e-Government
Other Services
Legal Framework
Policies
Mainstreaming ICTs in Development Cooperation
Use it in each and every aspect of the daily work in a cooperation agency or nonprofit: design, planning, project implementation and management, communication, etc.
It, hence, implies and extensive adoption of ICTs within the organization.
Issues: special attention towards ICT integration, corporate strategies about ICT4D, specialized departments about ICT4D, ICT4D project funding, etc.
Reasons to: increase efficacy; more control about performance and autonomy; stimulator and catalytic effect, using the own organization as a sandbox; to share knowledge and good practices.
Networks for Development
1-D networks: much alike hierarchies
2-D networks: coordinated; norms very important; action is mostly planned; access to information is the priority
3-D networks: nodes are to dynamize the network; no coordinators; the functioning is ad-hoc; monitoring is periodic; knowledge creation is the priority
Development networks
corporate
about knowledge or thematic
around projects
networked projects
open source
created by “diaspora”
3-D networks, enabling networks, are the best fit for development cooperation
Development Cooperation needs a redesign in its architecture, shifting towards networked collaboration. And same stands for projects, not only for organizations. A shift towards putting knowledge at the center would be a must. It is important to state that the network creates a network capital, which emerges from the fact of the mere existence (and intensive use, of course) of the network.
Martha Cleveland-Innes: Disciplinary differences and the impact on online design and delivery
Martha Cleveland-Innes
Different disciplines have different approaches on e.g. what quality is. And there is little research assessing what are the points of view of such disciplines concerning digital learning. So, there is a need to investigate the disciplinary effects on quality definitions, what are the quality factors, etc. Can we draw a common online quality matrix?
The practitioners’ point if view is that we have to focus on the student and his learning experience. On the other hand, while there doesn’t seem to be a unique use for a specific technology, evidence shows that peer-to-peer working enhances collaboration, sharing and a better output in educational terms.
How are disciplinary differences affecting online learning?
Disciplines were sorted in two axes: hard vs. soft, pure vs. applied
Hard-pure: pure sciences. Knowledge is cumulative, atomistic, concerned with universals, quantities, simplification; driven by observations, discovery of new facts… e.g. Physics.
Soft-pure: humanities. More reiterative, holistic, concerned with particulars, qualities. Critical thinking, apply theories, experiential, personal constructions of knowledge… e.g. History
Hard-applied: technologies. Pragmatic. Field is unique, and must be treated as such, interdisciplinary but required skill standards… e.g. Engineering
Soft-applied: applied social science. Functional, utilitarian. Theory into practice, mastery of applied knowledge… e.g. Education
The essential pedagogy of… and their pedagogical model
Hard-pure: content focus and text-based. Well-written presentations and hands-on labs
Soft-pure: critical thinking and reading, logic, argumentation, discussion. Dialogue, deep learning, constructivism
Hard-applied: collaborative yet objective and exact. Multi-modal, simulations interactive, case based
Soft-applied: collaborative skill development. Experiential, problem based
The debate began here and was richest. It dealt with how to design different methodologies according to different disciplines, whether “one-size-fits-all” is a good idea, or it might work well as a starting point that need evolve in the future, etc.
Professor Lourdes Guàrdia correctly points that sometimes this “starting point” is designed from an economic sustainability point of view, more than from pedagogy, so faculty can do little to have their voices herd during this first phase to build a model and make it sustainable.
Manuel Castells is a scientific I admire. There are things I share — most of them — and things I don’t. Right now I’m working hard with two works of him:
which I find really interesting and a recommended reading for everyone.
This is why I find so disappointing when an author of his stature can so unexpectedly slip out of the road by writing:
the Internet is quickly becoming a medium of interactive communication beyond the cute, but scarcely relevant practice of chat rooms (increasingly made obsolete by SMSs and other wireless, instant communication systems)
[bold letters are mine]
Of course, I’m not questioning him for not foreseeing that SMS would not replace instant messaging — which is what he’s actually meaning by the general concept of chat rooms —, two technologies that now live together in perfect harmony, especially in teen environments. It’s about the scarcely relevant practice of chat rooms.
This is 0% evidence, 100% value judgment.
Evidence about the relevance of such practice is way easy to be checked. First of all, we should remember the origins of both e-mail and instant messaging: high-tech scientific laboratories — there’s plenty of literature about this issue. But once it went out of the scientific environment and got popular, there’s more and more evidence about the relevance of such tools: the Pew Internet & American Life Project issued in that same year, 2004, the report How Americans Use Instant Messagingabout 53 million American adults using instant messaging programs. Well, this is quite a lot of people doing scarcely relevant practices. But just at the end of last year, 2007, Garrett and Danziger analyzed how instant messaging was used at work for work purposes in their article IM=Interruption Management? Instant Messaging and Disruption in the Workplace, finding positive uses — yes, you read right: positive. So, evidence absolutely shows that there are good, interesting, useful practices around instant messaging.
What about value judgment? Well, I’d personally agree on assessing as useful, effective, efficient, etc. the use instant messaging for criminal purposes: phishing and pharming, organizing terrorist attacks, seducing minors for sexual purposes, etc. Actually, the main security concerns nowadays about the Internet are precisely in this line: how to avoid the effectiveness of tools like instant messaging, social networking sites and e-mail for criminal purposes. Hence, what is to blame is the criminal who uses these tools, but the tools are working great — even if in bad hands, because tools know no ethics, no law (well, Lessig would complain about this last point).
Summing up: a tool is useful, efficient, effective or relevant besides the fact that we like or dislike the way it is used, but based on its performance.
Same with social networking sites. In a work I’ve already talked about by David Beer and Roger Burrows, they write about Facebook. Even if they are quite open minded, there’s a full chapter about the bad uses of Facebook concerning teachers’ privacy issues which, from my point of view, is almost a digression that really does not deal with the sense of ‘democratization’, as stated in the title of that chapter.
While the authors complain — more than criticize — about the fact of having some colleagues exposed to public dishonor, they lose focus on the subject of analysis: Facebook, social networking sites, shifting towards the (bad) education and practices of such students, which was (supposedly) not the matter of debate in the article.
Day after day I am surprised by the recurrent exercise to blame on the Internet things that belong to “real” life: Law, Education, Business Management… And, even worse, to state about Internet applications and uses things that are absolutely false, taking as evidence what, all in all, was just lack of deeper knowledge and prejudice. Even in the most brilliant scientists. We all have bad days everywhen.
