The Participatory Web - New Potentials of ICT in Rural Areas

This document, resulting from a September 2007 Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) "web2fordev" conference to explore the potential of the participatory web, attempts to describe the "latest trends and experiences around newest technologies and the network effects for a new ingenuity to improve living conditions." It explains that the social networking aspects of Web 2.0 solutions offer people in rural areas a platform for networking and knowledge exchange. From the document: "Obvious challenges are low connectivity particularly in rural areas, low literacy rate, lack of media competence to use the web and well function models to provide and target information. Newer technologies such as interactive web tools and the mobile phone offer promising ways to achieve a more inclusive Internet and use the web to learn from each other. Throughout the last years, organisations and projects have started experimenting with the 'read and write web' and achieved new approaches to use information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D). Different [from] traditional ICT [information and communication technology] projects, this approach focuses on the users, it is their engagement and creativity that makes the networking and learning effort vibrant."

This document provides an overview of Web 2.0 experiences in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Examples include the following:

• NABUUR , global - This "global neighbourhood" is designed as a platform where community representatives from developing countries can go to sketch the local situation and describe their efforts to improve the situation, such as: improving crop irrigation, developing a regional bee-keeping business, or setting up a dairy cooperative. Using the internet, and now also short message service (SMS) telephony, NABUUR lets communities gain access to a large pool of volunteers. With the help of an online facilitator, the project is broken down into tasks that can be done by online volunteers, such as find information on specific irrigation techniques, help write a business plan, build a website, translate a document, arrange equipment, or find examples of how a problem was solved by others. Elements of social networking are described here: "NABUUR is a typical Web 2.0 site, combining crowd sourcing (Wikipedia, Howtopedia), social networking (Facebook, Xing), and self-organising (Change.org, Pledgebank)." Challenges to project completion are:
  • Online volunteers motivation and engagement: "[I]t is very important to identify the motivations behind their participation in the specific project to ensure the required level of engagement is achieved."
  • Keeping the momentum: "It is recommended to provide regular feedback and to summarise the outcomes of the discussions and to encourage the participants to continue finding solutions together with the local representative."
  • Involving the right people: "[B]y concentrating effort on identifying the right human resources (skills) that will be required in the early stages of the project, the chances of success will increase...", particularly when the local community representative has limited time and resources for regular discussion with volunteers.

  
  
  The document cites a need for volunteers to act as advisors rather than supervisors because local representatives must have strong leadership skills to carry through sustainable solutions. For example, in the rural community of Moroto, Uganda, a request for ideas to improve water sanitation brought a compilation from volunteers of details on 20 different home-based water purification systems. To help the community determine which method fits their need best, a survey was created help the community assess local skills and assets. Based on the outcome, the people of Moroto decided to install bio-sand filters in 50 homes.
  
  

• Agricultural Innovation in Systems using Web 2.0, global - offers a holistic explanation of how knowledge is produced, diffused, and used and emphasises control and customisation of input by the actors and processes. It is characterised by increasing amounts of 'user-generated content' and 'user-remixed content' - where different knowledge and information are created and brought together by individuals in their own personal 'mash up'. Each individual can publish and create a group, "a news channel library, or atlas, specifying what it should contain, how it should be accessed, and by whom." Key characteristics of the tools are that they follow a free or low cost "service model", encourage user participation, and "position their messages to be in many places, giving each piece of content a 'passport' and 'visas' to travel so others can incorporate it into their personal services." These may include: blogs on agriculture [see page 16 of the document.]; Wikis [page 17]; photos and videos [page 18]; and RSS feeds [page 19].

• Digital Ecosystem for Agriculture and Rural Livelihood (DEAL) Project, India - an ICT-enhanced network built on an existing framework of rural telecentres. "The project aims to create a digital knowledge base by involving the various actors in the existing system in the content creation process and making this knowledge accessible to farmers and other agricultural practitioners....Digital archiving of information encompassing text, audio, graphics and video is only the first step to facilitate this process. The second requires placement of the information in a meaningful knowledge management system where it can be used and maintained by the community....Various interactive sessions with the farmers at villages and Krishi Vigyan Kendras (Agriculture Science Centres) suggested the need for an audio facilitated interactive technology platform to meet the farmers’ need. This would also build on the traditional means of knowledge dissemination through “shruti” (hearing). The output of this exercise is the audio blog named 'Kisan Blog' (Farmer’s Blog) at the DEAL portal....A person interested to put up any question can do the same either by recording it in an electronic device or directly through a microphone attached to a computer linked to the Internet." Users can answer questions using the same audio posting technology. Site administrators filter postings for authenticity and list them chronologically."
  
  The Kisan Blog holds three possibilities for the upcoming web technology and use in agriculture and rural livelihood domain. (a) It allows capturing the tacit knowledge in its pure form. The distortion of the knowledge does not occur as it is mostly in audio format and is directly added to the portal. (b) It is based on an easy to use and easy to learn mechanism. (c) It ensures collaborative practices for knowledge generation and reuse through intrinsic rewards."
  

• Radio La Luna, Ecuador - rescuing, digitising, systematising, and disseminating documents of various types about main events in recent Ecuadorian history and increasing people’s participation through news articles, RSS feeds, chat, audio streaming, integration of YouTube videos into the site, and making podcasts of radio shows available for download. The implementation and integration of Web-2.0-enabled services, such as required training for the staff of Radio La Luna and some of their readers on how to create blogs (more than 80 as of 2007), and how to use the blogs to discuss current affairs. Limitations include availability of bandwidth, capacities to integrate and use the tools, and the lack of availability of content in local languages.

• Farmer-Led Documentation (FLD), global - a documentation process starting with farmers at the community level. In Bolivia, for example: "Using participatory rural appraisal-type exercises, community members decide what they want to document (a practice, an innovation, a project) and which elements (objects, people, activities) need to be captured to convey their message....In the next step, the community jointly identifies the type of documentation to be applied and, if necessary, which members should be trained to use the relevant equipment, such as cameras or audio recorders. With the storyboard prepared and facilitators trained, the agreed material is then captured and processed into a usable format. The community members involved present the edited material to the whole community for discussion and validation. Finally, the resulting documentation is used for a variety of purposes, such as sharing experiences between local communities, influencing policy at local or regional level, or even the education of college students to help them value and learn from traditional knowledge." In another example, in Ghana, participatory video (PV) was used as a tool to empower farmers to share their innovations with others. Two communities filmed and compared innovations using siella, a salty soil enjoyed by animals. Sustainability challenges of the method include maintaining delicate photo or video equipment in local environment, financing the technology, and developing required ICT skills. Solutions under experimental consideration include combining commercial (paid) use of equipment with FLD and adding training in ICT to the school curriculum.
  

• FrontlineSMS - a mobile messaging function that allows a wide variety of messages to be sent and received through a central hub using an attached mobile device, while providing additional functionality. "The main idea of FrontlineSMS... was to fill a growing need for a plug-and-play texting solution for NGOs, which required them to have little or no technical expertise.... FrontlineSMS has been used by NGOs in over fifty countries for a wide range of activities including blood donor recruitment and assisting human rights workers, to promoting government accountability, keeping medical students informed about education options, providing security alerts to field workers, election monitoring, the capture and exchange of vegetable (and coffee) price information, the distribution of weather forecasts, the co-ordination of healthcare workers, the organising of political demonstrations, the carrying out of surveys and the reporting and monitoring of disease outbreaks." An agricultural application is an SMS-based market information service for maize and soybean farmers and traders in western Cambodia. Plans for scaling up the project include workshops on how to use SMS information, including price, weather updates, and handy hints.

• The Institutional Knowledge Sharing (KS) Project and Toolkit - an evolving resource - continually updated, edited, expanded, and critiqued in wiki fashion - for use mainly by scientists, research support teams, and administrators in the 15 international centres of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). "[T]hese methods are meant as ways of linking the scientific process to the world of application." The toolkit is aimed to draw in partnering organisations by suggesting specific options such as an intranet, collaborative blogging, or the formation of communities of practice for regional and headquarters staff working on the same topics. "As of June 2008, the Toolkit contained 58 tools and methods for sharing knowledge. The term "tools" refers to web-based software and offline physical tools that can be used with a variety of methods. Some examples: blogs, wikis, news feeds, instant messengers, tagging, podcasting. 'Methods' refers to group processes that help people interact effectively with each other, whether online or offline. Some examples: appreciative inquiry, storytelling, knowledge fairs and open space....While the tools are mainly just technical applications, using them well requires a different mindset that particularly values the content and efforts of other people, encourages collaboration, and makes knowledge open."

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