Re: [GKD] RFI: Who is Linking DE with BOP Strategies?

[Cornelio Hopmann]

On 8/11/05, Jim Stodder wrote:

> Point (1): There would be large pedagogical advantages, even in the 1st
> world, to having MUCH greater use of sophisticated DE. However -- and
> this is key to my argument -- the institutional constraint of Academic
> Tenure, at both the Primary-Secondary and University levels, make truly
> widespread adoption impossible for many decades.
  ... snip 
> Point (2): Furthermore, the supply availability and cost advantages at
> the BOP make DE even more overwhelming. DE would be the ONLY way to
> feasibly deliver widespread teaching at the BOP. Developing such a DE
> program could also actually empower and leverage the resources of
> teaching profession in many languages and cultures at the BOP.

Well, just today we had the second meeting of our national committee for
support of the use of technology in education where we discussed how to
avoid the collapse of 128 computer-labs installed in public primary and
secondary education.

Here are the hard facts:

(a) Nicaragua spends $54 per student a year in primary and $58 in
secondary education.
(b) This amounts to $0.27 and $0.29 per school day (assuming 200 days
per year).
(c) Teachers are being paid between $0.52 and $0.58 per class-hour with
group-sizes between 35 to 60 students.
(d) A single hour of a single computer takes at least $0.38 let alone in
electricity, without Internet access.
(e) With Internet costs this rises to $0.52 -assuming 12 hours of daily
use and fixed cost per month of Internet access-

I would be seriously interested in any DE-technology that does it for
less and at the same time is more effective than a real teacher in a
real "class-room".

Yours,

Cornelio

PS: I've got somewhere UNDP and UNESCO statistics on teachers salaries,
which show the Nicaraguan case with regard to spending in education and
teacher salaries is by no means an exception.




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Re: [GKD-DOTCOM] How Can ICT Help Improve Local Governance?

[Cornelio Hopmann]

Dear GKD Members,

With all respect (but based on my almost 20 years of experience) what
was missed in the catalogue of Key Questions is whether there are
social-cultural contexts that condition success or failure? (i.e.,
[il]literacy, ethnic, cultural or religious [un]homogeneity at the local
level, local power structures based on resource-ownership of land, water
or other resources).

I suspect that in many cases it's not ICT nor ICT-related subjects that
make the same approach successful at one place and a complete failure at
another, but rather these unaccounted-for context-conditions.

Yours,

Cornelio




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Re: [GKD] The $100 Laptop

[Cornelio Hopmann]

Dear Colleagues,

I'm a little bit puzzled: if the cost of the components by themselves
and isolated add up to $90 - assuming low costs due to the scale of the
operation - they will be assembled into a laptop which is then
preloaded, tested, packed, stored and shipped all for $0? (this is
necessary to maintain a profit of $10)

Because if not, the target of a $100 per unit as sold / delivered to
Education-Ministries can not be met, even assuming breakthroughs in
display technology and the claimed component prices.

Perhaps I missed something essential in the project layout?

Yours,

Cornelio



On Monday, April 11, 2005, Ken DiPietro wrote:

> Daily Wireless has an excellent article on the $100 laptop among several
> other related subjects. I did a fast check with a few suppliers and I am
> reliably told that the prices quoted in this article for the individual
> parts can be easily attained based on the volume that is projected.
> 
> The article can be found here:
> http://dailywireless.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3903





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[GKD] Information Society for All: Devising National ICT Strategies

[Cornelio Hopmann]

Dear Colleagues,

I don't pretend to add another round to the ongoing debate whether the
term "Information Society for All" as such is a misnomer or has
implicitly very specific and limited objectives in mind and hence should
be replaced by another, more appropriate term.  Mostly likely, it
should.

My key issues here are the possible and probable pitfalls in devising
National ICT Strategies in and for so called developing countries if
done without recognizing the deep and fundamental differences in the
underlying society and economy, compared to those of industrialized
countries.

First hypothesis: information-flows in any society correspond to
existing interaction- and organization-patterns of that society, may be
reinforcing them, may be changing them, but as such they don't create
completely new patterns.

'Virtualizing' does not change the underlying pattern as such: a
Seller-Buyer relation remains a Seller-Buyer relation whether they meet
physically at Marketplace or virtually at eBay.com. A discussion between
social scientists stays the same, whether carried out at a seminar at
Harvard or using some eForum with participation from different places
around the world and postings at any hour on the world clock. Teaching
and learning remains teaching and learning, within a classroom or using
some e-learning website. Or more specificly, a form of government does
not become "of the people, by the people, for the people" just by
implementing some forms of eGovernment. If it wasn't conceptually of
that type before going on the Internet, it will not be afterwards.

Second hypothesis: there is not only a widening gap between both sides
of the so called Digital Divide -- those who have and those who have not
access to modern ICT -- but there is a true risk in fragmented societies
or economies that ICT may drive further apart the already
"discommunicated" fragments even if all have access to new ICTs.

>From the very beginning, ICT aims at increasing effectiveness and
efficiency of actions and transactions in highly interdependent
economies, strengthening their inner stability, boom or bust
notwithstanding. The high degree of interdependence favors positive
"multiplier" effects between sectors and segments. But ICT spreads as a
technical response to the requirements of societies with very specific
characteristics, namely a high level of crafted complexity, where
complexity refers to multi-step production- and consumption-chains, and
a high degree of labor division with specialized workforces and
specialized services. "Crafted" refers to a complexity as an intended
result of inner political and social processes, which shape and organize
the complexity by means of institutions and defined procedures. A
fragmented economy or a fragmented society will not gain inner coherence
or stability just by connecting all and everyone to the Internet: those
who did not or would not interact before will continue without
interaction and collaboration, if "e-connectedness" is the only changed
parameter.

Third hypothesis: if the process of defining a "National ICT Strategy"
by itself (i.e., the ways and means by which it is implemented) does not
create greater inner societal and economic coherence, the resulting
strategy for a country will fail. The most important outcome of the
process is not the final strategic plan as a document, but the hopefully
new and different dynamics established among stakeholders themselves
during the process of constructing the "National ICT Strategy".

Communication Technologies started to spread out worldwide in the
14th-century along the routes of international trade at those times; the
ITU being established in 1865 as the International Telegraph Union. The
worldwide expansion was dictated by the unilateral expansion of trade,
as were the construction abroad of railroads and ports for steamer
lines. As mostly defined by external interest, they did not increase the
inner coherence of the receiving countries; on the contrary, most
current inner breaches in developing countries are the direct
consequences of "being torn apart" more than a century ago. Misconceived
ICT strategies might become just another twist.




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Re: [GKD] Should "Developed" Countries Subsidize the Internet for LDCs?

[Cornelio Hopmann]

On 12/20/04, Darrell Owen wrote:

> When an Internet infrastructure can expand delivery of education,
> economic opportunity, expand markets, improve health care, improve
> agricultural production or increase prices paid to the farms for their
> crops, then the benefits will likely be such as to overcome any downside
> arguments associated with subsidizations associated with building the
> infrastructure.
  ...snip...
> And as Cornelio points out, doing without subsidies would be better than
> with them if the local economics make this possible. In many locations
> it simply doesn't.
  ...snip...

I wonder: if the first is true "bringing opportunities etc.", why not
then the second "local economics make this possible" or else if not the
second -In many locations it simply doesn't- why not then the first -new
economic (!) opportunities-?

To put it straight: if the new economic opportunities, expanded markets,
improved agricultural production and increased prices don't even pay for
the small fraction of ICT-costs (return of investment, operation) such
that ICT still has to be subsidized to become economically feasible...
then I'm awfully sorry but this ICT-investment is simply and purely
-economically- a waste of resources (or the opportunities etc., are a
hoax).


Yours,

Cornelio




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[GKD] Should "Developed" Countries Subsidize the Internet for LDCs?

[Cornelio Hopmann]

Dear Colleagues,

As it was tacitly touched upon in our recent focused discussion and is a
hot topic for WSIS-2005, I would be interested in other opinions.

To state it: in many cases they should not!...and not for the sake of
avoiding spending but rather to avoid harming the "Developing"
Countries.

Why? Investing in and operating ICT-infrastructure takes money. This
money may be spent in 3 different ways:

(a) Paying for equipment (or reducing it's price) to be donated
(b) Subsidizing material Operation-costs (like communication lines,
energy etc.)
(c) Paying local personnel totally or partially

Let's see now position by position:

(a) Actually the money goes to vendors of equipment, not to
beneficiaries (i.e. it gives access to a market where otherwise there
would be no access). Moreover -due to the high operation-costs- in many
cases recipients of these "donations" find themselves either obliged to
spend where otherwise they would not have spent a cent or simply not use
the "donated" equipment.

(b) Specifically if we talk about subsidizing communication costs, the
money again goes to the big players not the beneficiaries. Again it
opens a market that otherwise would not be accessible. Additionally in
many, many countries local communication costs are artificially inflated
by a monopoly situation or by the fact that local Telco's have to feed
so many "interested" parties -from corrupt executives to corrupt
politicians- that the TELCO-business is closer to Mafia-racketeering
than to an honest business. Foreign money would allow them to perpetuate
this situation.

(c) Even though theoretically possible, this one is the least common
option I've seen...and comes with the risk that the hired personnel
looks after the interests of their employers rather than the needs of
those whom they supposedly serve.

There are "arguments" that without subsidies many poor could not afford
ICT-services or would not use them as being too expensive compared with
other options. Well, these seem to me similar to the "arguments" that by
subsidizing agro-exports below production-costs (Milk, Grains, Rice,
Sugar, etc.) the big ones -USA, European Union, others- "help" the poor
to get fed...yet we all know that in practice this dumping destroys
local economies and does not help develop them.

Corollary: Unless it can be shown beforehand that by using ICT-services
people are truly better off or that a specific development-objective
cannot be obtained by other more efficient (without subsidies!) and
effective means, subsidies have a tendency to deepen and not to correct
distortions.


Yours sincerely,

Cornelio




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[GKD-DOTCOM] What Do We Mean By "Poor"?

[Cornelio Hopmann]

Dear Colleagues,

I suspect that we operate under two quite different concepts of "poor",
which in turn gives rise to more confusion.

Under the first concept -as for instance used by UNDP for the Human
Development Index- "poor" or "not so poor" is -to put it briefly-
measured in terms of "liberty" - understood as real choices to conduct
their own life -and "freedom"- understood as being free from most basic
threats like risks to life or health, hunger, fear of oppression".
(Thanks to FDR, who first coined these shorthand definitions).

Under the second concept -as used by pure economists- "poor" or "not so
poor" is measured in income, consumption, or productive capacities.

Both concepts are somewhat related, but not in a straight forward
manner: i.e. Bill Gates has apparently more liberties and freedoms than
-say- the woman in the Philippines that puts the latest version of
Windows XP into their boxes.

Likewise there are backward-constraints: some services that imply more
liberty -like education- or more freedom -like health services- need
resources (i.e. they are not for free and hence the question arises what
to do if those who need those services don't have nor can they
contribute collectively the resources that are needed to provide those
services).

It isn't an extremely serious problem in countries or societies, where
those "without" are a smaller fraction of the whole population. Here it
can be solved by insurance and taxes (it's a classical "political"
problem).

However it becomes an extremely serious problem without easy solutions
in those countries -the overwhelming majority- where those "without"
count for 50% to 80% of the population. And in these cases it cannot be
solved either by insurance or by taxes, simply because there aren't
enough resources available that might be partially re-distributed.

Having said all this, let me clarify my position:

(1) There is no doubt that ICT can -and many times does- make the poor
"less poor" in the sense of the first concept.

(2) Yet even in these conditions a careful analysis beforehand is
needed, to see whether the same effect could not be obtained by using a
lesser amount of resources, without going over to "ICTs". I found out
that sometimes ICT is indeed the most cost-effective solution, whereas
in other situations it's an outright waste of resources.

(3) However if we are talking about a win-win situation between
corporations and the "poor" (persons, families, sectors, countries,
regions) then it would be deeply unfair for the poor to measure on one
side of "win" in terms of Dollars and Cents and on the other side of
"win", in terms of liberty and freedom, because this implies that we
condemn the "poor" to remain forever "poor" in the second sense, which
-due to the backward-constraints mentioned above- implies that they will
depend forever on charity or lack basic liberties and basic freedoms (on
any level: persons, families, sectors, countries, regions).


Yours truly,

Cornelio



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Re: [GKD-DOTCOM] Win-Win Business Models

[Cornelio Hopmann]

Dear Al,

(1) It's simply and plainly wrong that "what sells, serves" - sometimes
it serves, sometimes it doesn't.

(2) It's again a gross misperception that earnings even of hundreds of
thousands of "new" middlemen in ICT-service-distribution-chains
"eradicate poverty".

(3) If it were true, then your proclaimed benefit of ICT -- that is,
eliminating existing (!) middlemen in existing distribution channels --
and eliminating supply-chains for other goods by using ICT, the examples
you present as success stories -- would likewise increase poverty.
(Actually there are examples where -- looking at a whole country, a
region or a complete locality -- the country, region or locality became
poorer by eliminating middlemen. Only the new endpoints of the chain  --
large corporations, individual producers/consumers -- had some gain,
where normally the largest gain was for the biggest players in the
game).

(4) Please name a single example listed at 
that shows using comparative data (either before/after or
group-in-question/control-group) that the poor end-users of ICT-services
were made less poor by using ICT. (I definitely do not accept indirect
arguments like "It's bought by them...and because the poor would not buy
it unless it serves... hence it makes them less poor". The poor buy also
Aspirin, Milk powder, Coca-Cola, Brandy up to -- to make a point --
crack...but none of these products makes them less poor).

(5) The most frequent examples -- sales and purchase-prices -- are
misleading, as their impact is based not on informing individuals but on
informing the public, therefore producing synchronized actions. (As done
by the Stock and Commodity-markets and the respective Stock-tickers for
about 140 years --long before ICTs -- only fractions of stocks and
commodities are really traded at those markets, yet they "define"
publicly acceptable prices because they are public).

(6) Yet even though already about 80% of the Nicaraguan coffee-producers
do know the indicators of NY-commodity-futures on coffee, it doesn't
help them significantly. Actual prices paid are determined by about 8 or
9 large-scale-middlemen that trade about 80% of the world's coffee
beans. On the other hand, the volume they may offer is insignificant
compared to market-dimensions, even if all coffee producers of Nicaragua
would agree to sell only jointly. The supposed "counter-examples" of
specialty-coffee which obtains higher prices in public auctions is
economically irrelevant -- as are the US$ 1,000 a bottle for an
exquisite French wine compared with thousands of hectoliters of French
wine production, which sell for US$ 5 a bottle.

(7) May I stress: I'm definitely in favor of large companies discovering
"the poor" as possible markets, yet please don't propagate it using
misleading arguments or misnomers. It's a business like any other
business: not any less nor more humanitarian than any other.

(8) I still have some hope that in some moment in time they also will
re-discover an old discovery made by Henry Ford: the key is not only to
produce a Model-T car at low cost but to increase the worker's salaries
up to the point where they themselves could afford to buy one. Hopefully
the Chinese workers producing Cellular Phones, Computers and Cars and
other appliances will have in the near future an income sufficient to
allow them to buy one.


Yours truly,

Cornelio


On Friday, November 12, 2004, Al Hammond wrote:

> For Tom Abeles and others who have joined the conversation recently, I
> would like to point out that we have documented a number of what we
> believe can be win-win models, and even sustainable models, in
> connectivity, agriculture, finance, health care, and other sectors, in
> detailed case studies that can be found on  or
> with links under the resources page of the conference website,
> . We have also posted earlier in this
> discussion detailed market data characterizing the size of the
> low-income or bottom-of-the-pyramid markets in a number of developing
> countries. Many of the companies coming to the "Eradicating Poverty
> Through Profits" conference in San Francisco next month are seriously
> exploring how to serve such markets in ways that generate real local
> value, while also yielding a profit.




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Re: [GKD-DOTCOM] Blurring Corporate and NGO Lines

[Cornelio Hopmann]

Dear Al,

On one side you are perfectly right: large corporations do have
resources like technical expertise, logistics and capital, that could
and should be leveraged to fight poverty (yet be aware of Halliburton's
performance in Iraq or the Water-companies in Bolivia).

Yet I'm afraid that your definition of NGOs only comprises that type of
organization you yourself are involved with: Northern, mostly
philanthropic associations, that make their living from donor money and
sponsoring/executing smaller or larger, but never large-scale-projects.
The term NGO within developing countries extends far beyond this limited
vision, as here NGOs are all types of social organizations of the
"beneficiaries" themselves, when they are not established as commercial
or public entities. This means a teachers-organization is an NGO -and
most of their programs go way beyond classical trade-unions- as they are
student-associations, small farmers associations, women's-associations,
health-associations and so on.

Many of them are confined to a single location, others have found ways
of coordination and collaboration on a larger scale, up to whole
countries or even beyond.

This framework -almost a natural one and not something crafted- joins
more expertise on Development-issues, success and failures and the
reasons why, then the whole bunch of experts of large multilateral
organizations like Worldbank, UNESCO, UNDP, FAO and (!) the big
corporations jointly. For a strikingly simple reason: it's their life
that's at stake not only success-reports or quarterly earnings.

To get again into numbers: let's assume that you need one person-day to
train 25 persons in how to use the Internet (or more generally, some
ICT-application) for their benefit. This converts into 160,000
person-days to train 4 million farmers or the equivalent of 667
man-years. (Already almost out of scope to be done by highly-skilled and
highly-paid professionals of the corporate world: it wouldn't make sense
economically with respect to ROI). If we scale it up to let's say 200
Million farmer-families, we would need about 34 thousand person-years to
do the job - completely beyond capacity of even the largest corporate
entity. And we didn't even take into account that there at least about
50 or 60 local idioms to be considered, hundreds of different cultural
traditions and thousands and thousands of different local social
settings, in which each needs a sometimes larger sometimes smaller
adjustment of training-materials, strategies and settings. So without
close-support of local NGOs the task cannot and hence will not be done.

Corollary: the true challenge is not getting the corporate-world
involved but to get thousands of local NGOs involved as counterparts.
The former is almost simple -convince the CEO and the Board of
Directors, maybe some important shareholders. The second is the truly
hard task, but unavoidable if you would like to succeed "on scale".


Yours,
Cornelio

P.S. For some reason MIT-media-lab "left" India, AT&T & Bellsouth sold
out completely their ICT-business in Latin-American (i.e., even the best
of the corporate-world sometimes doesn't match with local conditions and
traditions).




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Re: [GKD-DOTCOM] Is Profitability Essential for Sustainability?

[Cornelio Hopmann]

Initial remarks: the Moderator's question does not contain a definition
of "profit"; it might be a monetary return on invested capital, it might
be an excess over pure operation-costs, it might be equal to the
operation costs but those who use the offered ICT-services do better by
using those services.

Second remark: we made a large comparative study on Telecenters in
Nicaragua and do continous monitoring and -except in very special
settings like schools- we didn't observe any significant difference in
services offered, prices charged and people attending, between
supposedly "for profit" and supposedly "non-profit" Telecenters.

Third remarks:

(1) Unfortunately ICT-services are not free -like air- someone has to
provide them and someone has to pay those who provide them.

(2) Costs to be covered are the use of communication-infrastructure, the
personel involved in bringing the service, the replacement of equipment
and consumables, the place (or the rent for it), the energy used.

(3) It turns out that 1 years full operation-costs (including
depreciation for equipment replacement) in many cases comes already
close to the initial investment-costs or even exceeds them.

(4) The current trend -look at Cellular phones and their business model
or Ink-jet printers- for communication-technology makes that initial
investment become more and more irrelevant compared to operation-costs.

(5) Hence the whole question boils down to "who pays" and "how" (and to
a certain degree "why") and specifically the operation-costs.

Fourth remark: if -as in some cases- philanthropic initial donors also
cover the operation-costs -mostly they don't- still the question is
whether donors should be encouraged to spend on ICT or is the money
better spent on other more important issues. If it is claimed that
Governments -either donors or local- should cover these costs, the
question becomes even more important. The only reason might be that ICT
is more effective than other means to fight poverty (or it's a basic
requirement to achieve those other means). Generalized hard evidence is
missing.

Fifth remark: if there is no substantial gain for "beneficiaries" -i.e.
they are truly better off with ICT than without or ICT provides
essential services at lower costs -then there is no reason to spend on
ICT- neither for them nor for anyone else. This depends on a case by
case analysis -and unfortunately this analysis in many, many instances
is not done, neither before nor after.

Sixth remark: A telecenter -or whatever other type of ICT-service-
without a sound business-model with respect to the above ... shouldn't
even be started.

Seventh remark: We found -and there are other examples in the
literature- that non-benefactor Telecenters (i.e. those either started
"for profit" or by the beneficiaries themselves) had in general more
sound business-models than those mounted "for benefit" (i.e. by any type
of Benefactors, public, private, NGOs).

Corollary: "self interest" -some times expressed in terms of
profit-expectations- is a necessary requirement for sustainability.


Cornelio




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Re: [GKD-DOTCOM] Can Technology and a Business Approach Make Globalization Work for the Poor?

[Cornelio Hopmann]

Dear Al,

I'm by no means saying that it is impossible (or even only un-ethical)
to make profit out of selling needed (!) ICT-services to whomsoever
-poor included. I do agree that there may be -or even there are already
proven- win-win situations. You point out some candidates. I do however
insist, that this analysis -if aimed to improve the situation of the
poor- has to start with an analysis of what services are needed (or
useful) to help the poor to get out of their situation -again you gave
candidate examples- and not based on marketing and packaging strategies
for actual service providers. And I said so.

I am aware of most of the examples in the Digital Dividend site. Yet I
haven't found -may be I just missed them- evaluated examples (i.e.
studies that use the instruments of standard Impact-analysis (and
econometrics) like Base-Lines, Control-groups, Correlation or
Factor-analysis, etc.), prove in quantifiable way the positive impact of
"ICT for the Poor" projects. It's more: I posted the question for such a
type of study in this list more than once -without reply- and I put
forward the same question to WRI/DD, when we were discussing a joint
project between WRI and the Central American Country Gateways ... with
no concrete answer either.

What there is ... are tales about potentials (like in your email) and
tales about success-stories -expressed as acceptance or usage- yet no
hard and systematic economic data. (May I add that this is a hot topic
of discussion for ICT and their impact on productivity and profitability
in general). That's why I'm insisting (after almost 20 years of
experience in a developing country and another 14 in a Top-OECD country)
to put the poor's viewpoint (and interest) first and do not accept
automatics as if what sells serves because otherwise it wouldn't be
bought.

Yours
Cornelio




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Re: [GKD-DOTCOM] Can Technology and a Business Approach Make Globalization Work for the Poor?

[Cornelio Hopmann]

Dear Colleagues,

I think we should separate (and not mix) the question of what marketing
and packaging strategies are needed to sell ICT-services to the poor in
a profitable way from what ICT-services the poor might need (and how to
provide them in sustainable, maybe even profitable way). The former has
almost nothing to do with the latter, (i.e. a credit-shark or
slum-landlord apparently sells something to the poor and mostly in an
extremely profitable way -for him- yet he does not provide them with any
service they need, which means credit not on cut-throat conditions or
decent housing, or more generally something that makes them "less"
poor.) Plainly speaking, selling a service does not mean "to serve",
though many marketing-strategies try to sell us on their "equivalence".

Second required separation: there are services -like micro-credit,
exports or material-purchase for cooperatives- that may require
ICT-usage to cut operations-costs. The paper-work for a 100 US$ credit
is almost as extensive as for a 100,000,000 US$ Credit- such that the
poor may receive a service at reasonable costs. In my context,
micro-credit is more expensive than credit cards, yet ICT is not used by
the poor themselves -or only to a limited extent- rather than by an
organisation that provides the service for the poor. There are similar
examples in education and health-care.

Third observation: neither the first nor the second bares any relation
with Globalization, they are just local questions, except that -maybe- a
global entity acts as "service-provider" and not a local one. If the
focus of this discussion aims to be "Globalization" (and not only
"global" versus "local" "service-provider"), then the questions have to
be (1) how are Globalization and ICT inter-related and (2) which
specific usage of ICT within Globalization serves the poor, (i.e. makes
them less poor), or on the opposite hand, which ICT-usage in the context
of Globalization makes them poorer.


Yours,

Cornelio




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Re: [GKD-DOTCOM] Cyber-Security, Policy and Cyber-Terrorism

[Cornelio Hopmann]

Dear Sam,

Though I agree with your intention, I disagree that there is commonly
shared definition even of Cyber-crime.

Why? Looking strictly at criminal-codes in different countries, there
are Internet-based activities which are protected by the Constitution in
one country, and are criminal offenses in others. And these striking
differences exist even between countries which are commonly believed to
share the same values.

A tiny example: using the swastika (the Nazi-symbol) on a website is a
criminal offense in Germany but protected by the First Amendment in the
United States.

Another more technical example: using any type of encryption in email,
chat or the Web was at least - I don't know whether it still is - a
criminal offense in France, but is a recommended practice in the US for
doing business.

Corollary: whenever "content" becomes important there is no common
minimal standard of law (as there is no consensus about the limits of
freedom of opinion and freedom of information).

Suggestion: limit the discussion - beyond commercial relations, which
was the previous topic - to subjects like hacking, cracking, sabotage
and similar acts - all non-content related - where there appears to be a
minimal consensus as to what constitutes a criminal offense and what
doesn't.

Yours truly,

Cornelio


On Tuesday, October 5, 2004, Sam Lanfranco <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> We all have a pretty good notion of what is meant by "cyber-crime". We
> may disagree on the scope of the definition but we do have a common feel
> for its domain. I suspect that we all do not have a good, or common,
> notion of what is meant by "cyber-terrorism". We do agree that what fits
> our definition is by its very nature bad, but that does not mean we
> agree as to what it is.
> 
> We risk confusion if we combine "cyber-terrorism" with "cyber-crime" in
> the same analysis. I would suggest that the two streams of concerns be
> treated seperately, even though in some cases the same organizations and
> same tools are used to pursue the culprits. Terrorism may be a crime,
> but as generally understood "cyber-crime" tends toward economic crimes
> and/or the crimes of libel and slander. Cyber-terrorism is something
> else.

..snip...




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Re: [GKD-DOTCOM] Cyber-Security and E-commerce

[Cornelio Hopmann]

Dear Mr. Sharkovski,

I do understand perfectly your frustration, yet don't share your opinion
- or perception - that there are just some powerful anonymous groups out
there, which intentionally try to harm Macedonia by putting it on a
black list. Why should they? (And by the way, this IMHO applies to
almost any developing country, therefore Macedonia may serve just as an
example).

Under current conditions, there are just 2 "recognized" public entities
that - on the state level - may give you "credentials":

(a) the US-government (Departments of State and Commerce in their
country-profiles and related info, see for instance
 which in fact makes quite critical
observations with respect to laws and ICT in Macedonia).

(b) the EU-commission (Commissioner for commerce) in Brussels.

Even though not publicly admitted, both are obviously say "modulated" by
general political interest, yet they don't operate anonymously. And
there are the private risk-assessment agencies like Standard & Poors or
the respective risk-assessment departments of banks and [public] trade-
or export-risk assurance companies.

Hence the only way out - in your situation and similar situations in
other countries - is to engage at least one of these public entities and
at least one of the private ones in a more formal assessment of your
conditions and then distribute their assessment (like percentage of
risk-penalties in trade-assurance contracts etc.).

Unfair? Yes! Avoidable? Definitively no!

Yours sincerely,
Cornelio



On Friday, October 1, 2004, L Sharkovski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:

> I think perhaps some on the GKD list have missed the problem that my
> compatriot in Macedonia is describing. The point, for us at least, is
> not that there is rampant cyber-criminality in Macedonia that the
> government has failed to prevent. The point is that it is just as safe
> to buy from Macedonia, or sell to Macedonians online, as it is from any
> other country. Yet the organization Exportbureau.com has alleged that
> there are online fraud schemes based in Macedonia and has placed
> Macedonia on their list of Suspect Shipping or Contact Addresses. There
> is no contact address or information listed on THEIR website, so it is
> extremely difficult to determine who this group is and where they reside
> (although, after some research, we believe they reside in Taiwan).

..snip...
 
> It is bitterly ironic that Macedonia -- a very small country with
> relatively low cyber-density compared with the industrialized countries
> in Western Europe and the US -- is accused of being major sources of
> cyber-fraud. In a world of cyber-criminality, what percentage of that is
> Macedonian? I will tell you: Zero.
> 
> Yet our companies are shut off from access to major e-commerce channels.
> So it is not an issue of lack of laws or lack of enforcement. It is an
> issue of too much power in the hands of groups that seem to be informal
> arbiters of which countries are "secure" enough for e-commerce.
> Furthermore, they are completely inaccessible and unaccountable. They do
> not reply to our requests for evidence of their accusation. And there is
> no way for us to counter their accusation other than trying to publicize
> our security through discussions like this one. It is difficult for us
> to convey how frustrating and damaging this situation is for us. In many
> ways, this type of baseless accusation, which harms our economy, is just
> as lawless as the accusation they are making.

..snip...




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Re: [GKD-DOTCOM] Cyber-Security and E-commerce

[Cornelio Hopmann]

Dear Colleagues,

(1) Commerce at a distance with shortened transaction-times, was well
started about 150 years ago by an invention called the "Telegraph" and
the respective world-wide network.

(2) May I recall that the very Credit Card (as handsome substitute for
the much older Credit Letter) was originally invented to allow
separation of buying and paying.

(3) May I again recall that trustworthy merchant-agents as middlemen
appear centuries ago to allow for advanced/delayed partial payments.

(4) May I finally recall, that countries branded as "unsafe" for
e-commerce are normally already branded as "unsafe" for any commerce at
a distance or with delayed/advanced payments (I don't know of any
exception).

Corollary: countries are branded as "unsafe" for commerce normally and
mostly not for the lack of laws, regulations, standards, certificates or
whatever but for the lack of law-enforcement.

I do doubt that a public sector unable or unwilling or not ready to
implement unbiased and timely law-enforcement on ordinary subjects will
do so with respect to eCommerce, which renders laws, regulations,
standards, certificates or whatever for eCommerce simply and plainly
"useless".


Yours truly,

Cornelio



On Thursday, September 30, 2004, Sam Lanfranco wrote:

> The hallmark of e-commerce is that it involves a transaction that takes
> place across time and space, and in the first instance involves a
> virtual transaction (the order, the payment, etc.) with the good or
> service to follow. This is in contrast to a commerce transaction at a
> time and a place, where frequently the produce is examined (book,
> appliance) and received or consumed (food, parking) at the time of the
> purchase.
> 
> It comes as no surprise that fraud artists try to take advantage of this
> temporal and spatial distance to engage in deception. In the past the
> same has been done via postal service, telephone service, fax, and any
> transactions venue where there is a degree of seperation between the
> perpetrator and the intended victim. Scams and fraud can go in both
> directions, with either the buyer or the supplier as the victim. For
> developing and transition economies, newly emerging on the global
> economic stage, the larger victim is the growth of their e-commerce
> sectors.
> 
> However, what is different about e-commerce is that the distances can be
> greater but the speed of transactions is faster. This has a negative
> side, but it also has a positive side. The negative side is that it is
> harder for the client (consumer, buyer, etc.) to carry out due diligence
> with respect to the integrity of the supplier, and it is harder for the
> supplier to prove (or build) a reputation for trust and integrity. Both
> factors cause reluctance on the part of potential clients and stiffle
> the growth of the e-commerce sector.

..snip...





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[GKD] RFI: Low Cost / Low Energy Printing Devices

[Cornelio Hopmann]

Dear GKD Members,

I'm setting up the initial balance sheets and specs for a National
Crusade by which we pretend to equip each and every of the 6700 public
school in the country with a low-scale internet access (2 computers per
school, sufficient bandwidth for email and slow downloading of mid-size
archives, mostly for teachers use).

Here comes my question: What are the best printing options available
(Low energy, as in many place we will have to use Photo-voltaic, low
operation costs)? Any experiences with "recycled" Matrix-printers or
similar devices?

Thanks

Cornelio
eNicaragua/niDG




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Re: [GKD] Knowledge Bank Evaluation Criticizes Dev. Gateway

[Cornelio Hopmann]

Dear GKD Members,

I would think it's extremely useful to precisely define that about which
we are going to exchange opinions.

To clarify some citations:

"Since FY97, the Bank has spent some US$220 million for corporate,
network, and Regional knowledge-sharing activities and more than US$60
million for its three main global knowledge initiatives, the Development
Gateway, the Global Development Learning Network (GDLN), and the Global
Development Network (GDN)." (p XIII, Executive Resume, Sharing
Knowledge, OED evaluation)

"The Bank has provided a total of US$15.5 million for the start-up of
the Development Gateway, of which US$7 million was spent before its
transfer to the Development Gateway Foundation in 2001. Following that
transfer, the Bank, as a member of the board of the foundation, agreed
to provide an additional US$5 million over the next three years through
its Development Grants Facility. Also, in FY01-FY02, the Bank provided
some US$3.5 million in grants through infoDev for the Country Gateway
program" (ibid, P 26).

The first point to clarify is hence whether the topic is "Knowledge
Management" by the WB or the Development Gateway project, which
represents a tiny fraction of money spent (and efforts involved). (By
the way 220 M in 7 years converts into about 32 M per year. A ridiculous
amount if compared with the scale of WB operations. I dare to suspect
that they spend more in travel-expenses yearly than in
Knowledge-Management, but that would be a complete different
discussion).

I do have my observations with respect to Information-Management by WB
and may subsume these into a simple statement: Please do apply to
yourself what you ask others, namely governments, to comply:
transparency and accountability, which -as a relevant WB paper states-
includes personal(!) responsibility for decisions and their
consequences, and requires full access to all relevant documentation.

However: the Development Gateway project is not (!) related with these
issues of project-auditing. Hence it's incorrect -and  by the way
therefore unfair- to pick the DG if you intend to criticize WB
Knowledge-Management.

Now let's have a closer look on details:
DG contains currently four components: Knowledge/Topics, DgMarketplace,
AiDA, and Country Gateway.

Again 2 citations:

"The Development Gateway’s current activities are financed by the
Development Gateway Foundation through funds provided by the
Foundation’s founding partners.21 Annual costs total approximately
US$6M, including management, administration, technology and services.
While funds are provided by the Development Gateway Foundation, the
World Bank provides all staff and services related to the operation of
the Development Gateway through a services agreement. The services
agreement for fiscal year 2002 reflected the full costs of operating the
Development Gateway, totaling $6M. The Country Gateway program team is
funded as part of this $6M, but Country Gateways themselves access
funding from a grant program, infoDev, and from the Gateway Foundation
directly (this is discussed in more detail in the sections on the
Country Gateways and Governance)." (p 16, Startup of the Development
Gateway, OED evaluation).

" Allocations to the dgMarket and AiDA are expected to remain relatively
constant, while the budget for Knowledge/Topics has been expanded to
accommodate an increasing number of development topics and focus
pages.23 The budget for the Country Gateway Coordination Team is
projected to increase, reflecting the anticipated addition of 10-20
Country Gateways over the next fiscal year. There is currently no budget
for the addition of new services. The Knowledge/Topics service continues
to be the largest cost center for the Development Gateway. It is also
the service most challenged to define its utility relative to its
beneficiaries and differentiate itself from comparator services." (ibid,
p17)

Both OED and Breton Woods project agree (!!) that DgMarketplace and AiDA
are useful activities, that may correspond to something like a BM
supported portal. And both (!!) agree that the other components are
"critical" or worthy for discussion of their cost of opportunity.

It's precisely at this point, where I start to wonder about honesty or
motives of those "progressives" who raise critiques. Why? Who ever had a
closer look to the content of the content pages of DG should have noted
that about 80% of the content is not (!!) WB-knowledge or knowledge
produced by WB affiliates. Why then that micro-tiny fraction of the
whole effort of WB Knowledge-Management, that contains the least
WB-knowledge, draws the major part of attention? And why is it attacked
on false grounds?

It claims also my attention that the emerging network of 58 locally
owned Country-gateways -by the way the Latin America Network of ccDG is
operating already as a true horizontal network among 18 nodes and the
people involved see  - is not
worthwhile to be 

Re: [GKD] Knowledge Bank Evaluation Criticizes Dev. Gateway

[Cornelio Hopmann]

Dear Scott (and GKD community),

(a) I'm involved with the Development Gateway project since March 2002
(as National Coordinator for Nicaragua)
(b) I've got working experience with WB as a local (!) consultant for
ICT related matters since 1994, therefore:

(1) the World Bank is a BANK not a charity-institution and related with
development only in so far as it provides credit-funds to implement
development projects.

(2) Hence the statement that WB makes its "best practice models"
compulsatory is correct only in so far as these "models" have a weight
in credit-application i.e. it's easier to get a credit approved if the
outlines of the project follow a WB "best practice" model. (But nobody
obliges anybody to use WB Best Practice if you don't go for a
WB-credit).

(3) Unless we are talking about HIPC countries, it's true that WB -as
Interamerican Development Bank or their similes in Asia and Africa- has
an active marketing policy for "credits" -as does any BANK- along
-according to their opinion- "proven" business models. But again it's a
local (or national) decision to go for those offers (or not).

(4) Please note: I do not defend the concept of any "best practice"
applicable anywhere nor do I argue against the observation, that much of
the content managed by WB Knowledge Bank reflects  WB Knowledge
(what else?).

(5) But I do think you should not raise critiques against the message
(i.e. content of Knowledge Bank) if your true aim is WB development
policy (by the way something impossible to implement without national
counterparts).

(6) Hence: if you would like to see a different institution -and managed
differently- then you should say so and not go for symptoms (It would be
like concentrating criticism on the content and management of Vatican's
Secret Archives where actually you would like to raise critiques about
the objectives, ways and means of the Catholic Church: ridiculous).

(7) But as a reminder: almost any "northern" international or national
NGO has likewise its own set of "best practice" or "desirable
development" models -e.g. the Breton Woods project-, such that it
conditions "its" funding for local projects as the WB does. The only
difference is: WB moves more money ... and that's it.


Cordialmente
Cornelio




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Re: [GKD] RFI: Impact of ICT on Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises

[Cornelio Hopmann]

observations and suggestions. Therefore the evaluation -and I'm afraid
the Bank as such- missed the opportunity to perceive the central portal
DG and the country portals ccDG as a thought potential- interacting
network of knowledge-sharers. IMHO being part of a dynamic network would
"dynamize" knowledge-sharing even internally to WB-operations.

(d)   The Bank should define what it defines as more strategic for its
impact (or increase in efficiency and effectiveness): tighter
coordination -at least formally- between the tops of the different
development-organization (and development industry) pyramids. (A
G8-group or Metternich approach, i.e. "world leaders meet to resolve
world-problems and the world listens to how to proceed then implementing
best-practice-solutions"). Or true knowledge-sharing during
project-planning, -execution and -evaluation between involved
stakeholders, which would fine-tune timelier decision-making. The first
resembles technically the Centralized Management Information system
approach with extensive ex-post audits and benchmarking from the late
70's to early 80's of last century -which in general failed-, the second
the smoother, more effective and efficient management philosophy of
empowerment, downsizing, networking and constant monitoring (Total
Quality, Out-sourcing, Just in Time), a philosophy which -powered by
Internet- enabled the productivity leaps of the late 90's.


Cornelio Hopmann

niDG  Coordinator




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Re: [GKD] RFI: Impact of ICT on Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises

[Cornelio Hopmann]

Dear Michael,

I am well aware of the claimed "global" impact of ICT on overall
capital-productivity, i.e. that improved supply- and distribution
chain-management reduced the amount of capital bound to goods in store,
that improved decision making reduced time-to-market, that standardizing
procedures in all types of financial services improved the ratio of
employees per client etc.

In general that ICT reduced, sometimes dramatically, turn-around-time of
invested capital with likewise dramatic increases in profits.

But I'm also aware of hundreds if not thousands of dot-com
business-models that simply burned billions of dollars, and that looking
backwards had no sound economic base right from the very beginning.

In "Development Policies" ICT & MISME (Micro, Small and Medium
Enterprises) combine two trendy models: the MISME as driving engine for
economic development and ICT as "enabling" if not "empowering"
technology.

MISME as development-engine parted from the statistically correct
observation that in many, many developing countries 40% and more of
"employment" is provided by micro- and small-businesses with between 3
and 15 employees. More over, that MISME acted as an absorbing buffer when
due to the impact of structural adjustment policies hundreds of
thousands of persons lost their jobs in public administration, formerly
public owned utilities or closed industrial plants. Not to talk about
MISME as a segment fed by rural-to-city migration. Balancing money
invested against jobs created, agencies found out that 1000 US$
channeled to micro- and small enterprises created -at least apparently-
more jobs than the same 1000 US$ channeled to industrial or big
infrastructure projects.

With falling prices for equipment -not to talk about re-cycled equipment
from "developed countries"- and improved communication-infrastructure,
ICT starts to appear as a possible "short-cut" to leverage even more the
very large informal sector in developing countries. Again there appear
to be "sub-trends": the first focuses on the role of the middle-man and
claims that by improving information-flows small producers in remote
areas may obtain "fairer" prices and small consumers in remote areas may
pay "fairer" prices. It should be noted however that already as a model
this trend does not tackle productivity but rather distribution-problems
(who earns the greater share). The second trend claims that ICT improves
dramatically access-to-market opportunities.

Despite that arts & crafts manufacturing represents only a tiny fraction
of the whole informal sector, there are literally hundreds of projects
that claim that they either already improved market-access dramatically
or that they will improve it.

So my question still is: is there any hard evidence that in a
replicatable and scaleable way ICT for arts & crafts has improved the
economic situation and impact of this segment or, more generally, is
there any hard evidence that ICT for arts & crafts is the most efficient
and effective way of using funds for global poverty-reduction. I like to
note, that about 80% of projects I've seen concentrate on market-access,
more precisely on improved marketing. Very, very few tackle the
management as such of supply, production and distribution. As an
example, I searched in vain for software packages to support
cooperatives, i.e. that would ease bundled purchases of supplies and
tools, manage the internal distribution of those supplies and tools, and
improve recollection of produced goods for bundled sales or exports;
where this would be precisely the counterpart to supply-, distribution-
and production-management in developed countries. 99% of the offered
"solutions" are for the individual usage by the individual micro- or
small entrepeneur.

In my humble opinion many "will-be-a-big-success" stories read as if
they were dot-com-era "business"-models. If as economy you have
excess-money to spend, "burning" some billions might not hurt much nor
many unless those who saw their retirement-funds vanishing, if however
your whole economy is on the brink -as in many developing countries-
"burning" money easily may drive you over the edge.

Yours

Cornelio




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[GKD] RFI: Impact of ICT on Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises

[Cornelio Hopmann]

Dear GKD Members,

In the same line of questions I raised earlier about measurable and
scaleable impact of ICT on Poverty Reduction, sustained by hard evidence
-best at before-after or control-group comparison-, I would like to ask
for more specific evidence of ICT-impact on the competiveness (and
survial) conditions of micro (<10), small (<50) and medium size (<200) 
enterprises (MSME).

I would like to be even more specific: evidence that ICT has sucessfully
improved the conditions of "low-tech" production, i.e. examples for
crockery-, leather-, clothing or furniture-handicraftsmen and alike that
improved substantially their income by using ICT.

Still more precision might be needed: I'm not looking for pilots or
lighthouse-projects where some agency threw in funds and that ended as
"success", but rather only those projects where a Return-of-Investment
analysis has shown that the increase in revenue would repay in
reasonable time those initial funds -only these projects are scaleable I
suspect. (And I would apreciate any large scale upscaling experience:
i.e. to find -in case of Nicaragua- 10 successful MSME among an universe
of say 30,000 MSME and to use them as "argument" is more of a joke than
a proof. It would become a proof if there is/was an upscaling process
from 10 say to 3,000 or so.)

And I'm not looking for second-floor projects like "banking for the
poor" or ICT-enabled MSME-business development services, I'm looking
just for plain, direct ICT-enabling of producers.

Any examples are highly welcomed.

Cornelio
niDG-eNicaragua




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Re: [GKD-DOTCOM] How Much Bandwidth is Necessary?

[Cornelio Hopmann]

Dear Joy,

Actually the situation is worse: in most cases the proposed indicators
for eReadiness do not permit to reflect adequately the local context,
i.e. they blur instead of sharpen the eReadiness-picture ... and hence
suggest bad strategies.

Example: obviously illiteracy is an obstacle to use ICT directly -- and
not only due to the lack of skills in reading and writing, but rather
more deeply: literacy comes along with the notion of abstract concepts
which are coined and learned as the fundamental part of learning to read
and write. You aren't taught only how just to spell words but how to
form arguments and to establish reasoning -- some say linearize
reasoning into cause-effect chains. If there weren't those deeper roots
of the problem, it would be sufficient to develop cheap
voice-recognition and "speech" software just so that all those
illiterates may send and receive emails - but practise shows that "this"
solution doesn't work beyond simple command usage in speaking
ATM-machines. To "dictate" a meaningful text ... you have to know how to
write it yourself.

Time as resource is another such abstract invisible concept, yet crucial
for ICT and it's benefits, even to realize that there might be benefits
ahead by using ICT.

As the Millennium Goals state we will have to live with illiteracy at
least for one or two decades more if not more  So correctly
"measured" eReadiness should not take simply illiteracy as an indicator
-- less as an average indicator, because the eReadiness of and for those
who are literate is something qualitatively different -- but rather
allow to "measure" which bridges are in place -- we had lots of examples
in recent email -- to "bridge over" the Digital Divide.

But here again we hit another conceptual wall of most indicators: they
are implicitly based on an Individual Consumer Model, appropriate maybe
for consumer societies but totally inadequate for
non-consumer-societies, i.e. they allow only to measure (and express)
individual and direct access to ICT (even if the "individual" is an
enterprise) and not group or collective access.

Again an example: assume that you got a literate member of those large
families (clans) we still find in many of our countries. Then -- for
eReadiness-indicators -- it makes absolutely no difference whether he
alone uses Internet or whether he does Internet Access on behalf of his
whole -say 40 person- family. Now take the following alternatives: (a)
train this person, using Internet until now only for his own sake, to do
a better job serving as bridge for his whole family or (b) find another
literate family member and get him/her alone on the net. Standard
Indicator logic would favor the second alternative (100% improvement)
while development logic (effectiveness) would incline balance obviously
to the first. (You may substitute "family" with "community" and vary
usage conditions -e.g. a cooperative and price-info etc. - and will have
a splendid explanation why so many ICT projects are "statistically" a full
success but in reality a complete waste.)

Cordialmente
Cornelio

PS: those interested may find a complete country-report of Nicaragua
based precisely on the above observations about the methodical flaws of
standard eReadiness at http://www.eready.org.ni/Ereadyconcept.htm (in
English)



Joy Olivier wrote:

> Yacine Khelladi wrote:
>
>> I believe all projects should be started like this from the needs, and
>> build a sustainable capacity to manage ICT integration/appropriation.
>> Whatever technology is used or available. And IMHO yes, every project,
>> ICT4D project, is somehow unique, not necessarily scalable, as ICT is
>> just one element in the complex "development process" equation.
>
> I'm writing a paper on e-readiness assessments and the Millennium
> Development Goals. A conclusion I've reached is that access to
> technology is not the point. It's exactly as Yacine says - ICT is only
> an [albeit powerful and potentially very useful] element of development
> initiatives. The problem is poverty, and the digital divide is just
> another manifestation of existing inequalities and injustices. I do
> think that access to ICT is important for equality and empowerment, and
> that becoming part of the Information society broadens options and
> opportunities, but access is not enough. ICT for Development initiatives
> need to strive towards enabling "Real Access" (see www.bridges.org),
> with a specific goal that this access is going to achieve.
>
> Instead of measuring e-readiness (how ready a country/community is to
> gain the benefits offered by ICT in terms of policy, infrastructure and
> ground level initiatives), we rather need to consider the application of
> ICT for concrete goals. While those offered by the Millennium
> Development Goals are only proxies for the complex and multi-faceted
> phenomenon of poverty, they are at least concrete goals to which our
> leaders have committed. Mainstreaming ICT through inclusion in nati

Re: [GKD-DOTCOM] The Role of the Private Sector

[Cornelio Hopmann]

Let me preface my comments by some more general considerations:

(a) No matter how wealthy he might be, a donor is only willing to
finance operation costs -- or even a substantial fraction thereof -- for
1 or 2 years.
(b) As accumulated cost for ongoing operations rapidly exceeds inital
investments (due to breakdown or obsolence), most projects should
consider "operation cost" and "relacements" right from the beginning
(it's: only the first PC is for free, you have to pay already for the
next one).
(c) As a consequence of (b), many if not most projects collapse, once
the original donor disappears.
(d) To prevent (c) there is a new buzz-word: sustainability
(e) However, the concept of "sustainability" holds a deep and
fundamental misunderstanding about the difference between NGOs and
for-profit companies.
(f) In the "North" (or whatever synonym you like) a NGO gets funding
mainly from donors, endowments, tax-reducibles, public money.
(g) In the "South" (or whatever synonym you like) there are no rich
donors nor a huge amount of persons interested in tax-deductions, and
public money is urgently needed for 1,001 tasks -- ICT4D is just one
among many.
(h) Thus, sustainability in the South actually means: those who benefit,
one way or the other, have to pay for the services they receive -- at
least for the direct costs (e.g., for replacements, upgrades, expansion.
Whoever is the provider has to charge for those costs - regardless of
whether it's a so-called Small Business or a NGO).
(i) Another way to look at it: most private small businesses are not
really "for profit", but rather are a way to for someone to generate
self-employment income, i.e., the small business is not expecting to
generate revenue for share-holders or interest for capital-investment.
(j) This makes the "Northern" distinction between small business ("for
profit") and NGO ("charity") -- found in many fund-applications of World
Bank, Regional Development Banks and Big national Donor Organizations --
not only incorrect but counterproductive. (In the "Southern" context,
aquiring sustainability means going into business and charging fees,
just like any other business).
(k) With respect to national public funds: assignment of extremely scare
public funds to subsidize ICT4poor seems reasonable and ethical if and
only if using ICT vs. other means will save money. Example: a Nicaraguan
Teacher is paid roughly 0.58 US$ per class-lesson assuming
class-frequencies of 35 and more. Operation of 1 single PC costs roughly
the same per hour. Nicaragua has a recognized deficit of some 10,000
primary and secondary teachers in public education, mainly due to budget
limits. Under these circumstances, spending 1 single US$ (or asking the
parents to pay) to sustain a School-computer is not only a waste but
anti-ethical.
(l) Corolary from a-k: the usage of ICT in the "South" can only be
sustained if it provides measurable economic benefit, either in form of
services directly for end-users, or in the form of reduced costs (or
extended coverage) compared with traditional approaches to providing the
same or similar services.

Having said this, here are my answers:

> KEY QUESTIONS:
>
> 1. What specific elements does a policy environment need in order to
> encourage the private sector to expand access to poor, isolated,
> underserved areas? Where do such policies exist?

Drop the artificial distinction between "for benefit" NGOs and "for
profit" micro and small enterprises.

> 2. What lessons have we learned about the risks and rewards of creating
> public-private partnerships to expand access to the underserved? Where
> have these lessons been applied, and where have they worked?

Assume that, unless there is a clear benefit for the public sector, as
explained above, public spending in PPP must and will tend to 0. Thus,
the contibutions will be only for limited administrative costs,
administrative and policy support.

> 3. What are specific, unexploited opportunities for public-private
> partnerships to expand access to the underserved? Please provide
> examples where these opportunities can be exploited effectively.

Use smallest-scale bids for local would-be service providers, open to
NGOs and small businesses. Treat both as part of the local
micro/small/medium-enterprise environment, and provide support, etc.,
to both that are normally given to any of these types of enterprises.

> 4. What concrete lessons have we learned about stimulating/supporting
> local businesses to extend access to the underserved? Please be
> specific. Where have these lessons been applied effectively?

If you don't do as expressed above, realize that the utmost probability
is that your (donor) project will be history as soon as you stop
throwing in money. (You have the odds of the experiences of thousands of
Tele- and Info-centers against you).




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Re: [GKD-DOTCOM] What Can and Should be Brought to Scale?

[Cornelio Hopmann]

Dear Stella,

May I start with a critical remark to your remark:

> We discussed the issue of whether local communities should determine
> what pilots go to scale at the Dakar symposium. The general conclusion
> was that you don't need baseline studies or focus groups to know there
> is a huge deficit of information and communication at community level in
> developing countries. You and I were never asked whether we wanted
> access to radio, TV, newspapers or the Internet before these things were
> made available to us. The CMC was seen as a basic tool that communities
> could use for their needs. It is also true that there is great demand
> for CMCs in Africa.

May I note that you weren't asked, either less obliged, to pay for
radio, TV, newspaper before they were made available to you.

Yet under the slogan "sustainability" many -- from the comunity level
upwards to state-level -- are obliged to pay (or you intend to oblige
them) as you yourself wrote:

> We have no model to go on here, but we believe that as well as the
> essential local leadership, there has to be genuine top level political
> committment to facilitate the supportive public policy and regulatory
> environment that is required - hence the mobilisation of Heads of State.
> The also has to be real conviction on the part of donors and a
> multistakeholder approach. At present, we are preparing the launch of
> the initiative. The next stage will be the formation of consortia of
> partners in the 3 countries to plan the project strategy in detail.

Which -- taking into account the lack of democratic culture and
consensus building in many, if not most, developing countries -- boils
down to making top-level arrangements instead of an offer in an open
marketplace -- an offer which can be accepted or rejected individually.
Rather you make the leaders commit themselves such that the respective
communities (and states) as such pay without choice. Not very honest.

Let me add some observations: scaling up is not as simple as just to
repeat the same example (pilot) over and over again. If it were, I
suspect including  all the initial "hidden" costs of foreign expertise,
donor-institution support etc., etc. into the repeat-budgets would kill
any project scale-up as "economically not feasible", therefore the
key-question is not if the root (or pilot) -project may be repeated but
rather if the way it was done permitted upscaling at lower costs (or by
extended leverage of the initial investment) using local resources.
(Which by the way makes it obvious that any pilot that does not include
local capacity building beyond the needs of the pilot itself can not be
upscaled).

Second: upscaling itself -- even more, upscaling ICT -- normally adds
complexity (and hence costs) to the whole system. As an example, it
poses different situations whether you have to feed by a central hub 20
VSAT-receptors or you have to feed 1000.

As known from enterprise-development-histories, many enterprises
successful on one level of scale, went broke just because they didn't
succeed in adopting management and organization on time when they
entered the next level of scale.  And it's known that there are negative
thresholds, which means a required initial investment in organization,
tools and equipment, which doesn't pay off unless a certain minimal
market-position with respect to the next scale is obtained. (Upscaling
implies discontinuous steps unlike simple growth that fills up a
existing potential).


Cornelio Hopmann
niDG Coordinator and in ICT4D since 1983





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Re: [GKD-DOTCOM] How Much Bandwidth is Necessary?

[Cornelio Hopmann]

I would like to throw in my 20 ounces of salt ... and support Pam
McLean.

Stories from my life:

When changing the German National Research Center for Computing in 1985
for the Engineering University of Nicaragua I felt like I was
transported to the moon - dark side. Whereas in Germany I had already
access to uunet and email, a simple letter exchange from Nicaragua back
to Germany required 3-6 weeks.

Therefore I was extremely happy when I succeded in 1988 to connect by
long distance phone calls (Nicaragua--Vermont) 3 times a day Nicaragua
as Blue Internet Node (.ni) to UUNET...Suddenly affordable turn around
time was 48 hours -instead of 3 weeks- and more over the usenet
Newsgroups provided an excellent mechanism for getting help from
technical communities and their volunteers. (all by phone-calls and
compressed email transfer).

In 1994 we went online as a country (!!) sharing with Costa Rica a 64K
link (!) to the IX in Miami. Again a substantial change as from there on
we had not to pay for connection time -as in the phone-times- but rather
the limit of "what is transferable" was defined by "mean time between
failure" ie. it was possible to send everything (or to get everything)
if only the transmision-time did not exceed a couple of hours. We even
had software to schedule up/down-loads to low-traffic hours during the
night. (In that respect: there are hundreds of proven solutions still
around from those times where Usenet was a Dial-Up connected Network,
yet covering the whole globe with already hundreds of thousands of users
and hundreds of nodes. Many of those are still shipped as unknown parts
of FreeBSD or Linux with BSD compatible solutions, such that there is no
need to re-invent the wheel. These include Batched Mail-transfer not the
extremely resource intensive SMTP peer-to-peer email. Scheduled
transfers, the whole usenet-news mechanism with decentralized
multi-origin feeds yet locally made consistent etc. etc. etc.)

Obviously today  with a Cablemodem at my homeoffice -still in Nicaragua-
and effective 8-9 KB/s it's nice to chat with my son using WEB-cam (He
is on a 7 month visit to Germany). Likewise downloading 20 MB in minutes
facilitates ... but it's only a gradual change compared with the jumps
before.

Concluding Remarks: If WiFi and other Broadband Technologies cut
connection costs substantially, they may be extremely useful. However I
suspect -except true Broadband online comunication- that in 99% of the
cases a mix between distributing bulk information using DVD/RW as media
and combining it with a low-bandwidth connection will solve the problem.
(As an example: communication of medical information from remote places
can be split into burning lots of Info onto an DVD/RW and have it
shipped by what ever means are available combined with text-chat with
the counseling central hospital once the DVD arrived there. Assume you
get 3.6 GB of information this way in 12 hours to the hospital, it would
need almost 9 hours to send the same content through a 1 Megabit/second
direct connection).

Likewise 99% of eLearning-materials can be shipped as DVD/RW -as it does
not change day by day- and then locally combined with either
character-email or character-chat.

Hence: if the alternative is to connect many (and through-out the
country) by low-bandwidth or a few with megabyte links, go for the
first. The latter will come -almost by itself- as technology costs fall
and demand increases.


Yours

Cornelio






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Re: [GKD-DOTCOM] Bringing Connectivity to Under-Served Communities

[Cornelio Hopmann]

Dear GKD Colleagues,

Jean-Marie Blanchard wrote:

> Main barriers to Internet penetration are identified as: lack of Telecom
> infrastructure, limitation of population income, not adequate enough
> content and applications, lack of local expertise and population
> awarenessAlcatel is participating in a lot of field experiments, all
> demonstrating that most of these limiting issues could be fixed,
> provided a relevant approach is followed. For example, funding of
> network infrastructure construction is quite solved when project
> profitability is proven thanks to offering useful end-user services with
> high local added value; so, it becomes possible to attract potential
> investors; moreover, Internet illiterates and lowest income people could
> afford connectivity thanks to community centers. So, universal access to
> Internet can be no more a dream!

My apologies but this is a circular argumentation.

Jean-Marie starts off by saying at first that there is insufficient
infrastructure, continuing then that there is limited income, not enough
content and applications, no local expertise, no awareness. In any other
field of market-economy the straight-forward conclusion would be that
you try to sell a useless product and that therefore there is no demand
and hence there are neither sales nor much product to sell. (Unless
there is some strange conviction close to secular religion as if
Internet penetration as such constitutes something desirable - despite
that it's apparently of no valuable use).

Please don't misunderstand me: I was an Internet-pioneer already en
1988, long before the Internet-hype started and I'm still almost
fulltime engaged in promoting appropriate use of Internet in a
not-so-developed country, Nicaragua. Yet I would insist that -- as in
any market -- the starting point should be real needs (i.e. things that
can be better solved or addressed using among other
Internet-technologies). "Better" includes more efficiency - economically
- but by no means is limited to more efficiency. 


> In Saint-Louis (Senegal), one pediatrician serves more than ten thousand
> children. Here, the experimental project uses the Internet as a bridge
> between the patients (a group of one thousand infants) and the doctor.
> 
> The weight of a child can be considered a key health indicator. It is
> measured twice a week by "weight collectors", local women equipped with
> scales to weigh babies and a laptop computer to collect data. The
> measurements are then uploaded to the pediatrician's database via the
> Internet. Within five minutes, the doctor is able to detect which
> children have odd weight curves and require further attention. When that
> happens, he sends an e-mail to the weight collector, who in turn informs
> the family that the baby needs medical attention.


Just counter-productive examples: your Tele-doctor is counter-productive
for Public Health Education because instead of providing the local
weighers with pen and each parent with a chart where they jointly put
the weight-measure and compare it against standard-curves - and by doing
this increase Health Awareness not only for the parents - you just
electronify the very old fashioned "wise man", who - only God knows how
- is capable to predict which child is going to fall ill and which not.
And as the poor and illiterate paid the "wise man" a couple of thousand
years ago when he "predicted" seasons and eclipses, they now pay for
health-predictions ... where in both cases if they were not kept
ignorant they wouldn't pay a cent.


Yours,

Cornelio




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[GKD] ICT for Season-workers, Landless Peasants

[Cornelio Hopmann]

Estimadas & estimados,

A little bit ago I posted a request for references to ICT4POOR projects
which -based on empirical evidence- had improved the economic situation
of the poor or the miserable. I did receive some references though not
much and most either talking about potentials or about sustained
ICT-projects -admirable as such- or projects with indirect benefits for
the poor -like good governance, environment-protection, health-services,
education-services and alike- yet nothing that would show dot-com (in
the blow phase) profits for the poor, less the miserable.

This time -along the same maybe Socratic line of exercise- I would like
to invite anyone to respond who has references to ICT-projects, that
brought direct and specific benefits to (a) season-workers (like
cotton-cropping, coffee-cropping, tea-picking and similar) (b) landless
peasants -e.g. smallest agro-producers, who work on ever changing small
pieces of land (c) the already hundreds of millions of workers -mostly
women- that work around the globe in sweat-shops, as example putting
together fine clothes, shoes and appliances for top-shops in 1. world
metropolis.

First obviously I'm interested in results of concrete projects. Here in
Central-America the drop of international coffee-prices left about
500,000 or even more season-workers without any job opportunity where in
our specific case the groups (a) and (b) intersect. On the other side
the maquila-industry (tax-free-zones, sweat-shops) form the fastest
growing segment of our 'industry' with again I estimate there are about
2 million women working from Guatemala to Panama under conditions close
to the description of The Working Class in England almost a 150 years
ago, yet for each opening there are at least 20 applicants.

But second I am starting to suspect -looking at so many projects that
supposedly will benefit handicraftsmen, small agro-producers or small
sales-shops, 1 phone ICT-service providers and alike - that many of us
are, maybe, victims of a repeated occurrence of an Emile (Rousseau)
phenomenon: as it appears as if the named groups own their means of
production (or working) and determine the way they produce (work), it
appears likewise 'trivial' that with a little bit of information brought
by ICT they can easily change their way of making their living. (As
opposed to the target-groups of my question, where even to anybody from
the OECD countries it appears difficult to name direct economic benefits
of extended ICT-usage, as they work and live in already ready 'framed'
contexts).

My apologies if I'm producing only noise.

Sincerely

Cornelio

niDG coordinator




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[GKD] RFI: ICT & Poverty Reduction

[Cornelio Hopmann]

Dear GKD Members,

Maybe that I'm just ignorant or that I don't know how to use search
engines on the web. Therefore I would appreciate any reference to
assessments and reports that show by evidence (before - after) the
success of projects (or programs) using ICT as key (or at least
fundamental enabling) element to reduce real poverty.

Let me state my question more precisely: (a) I'm not looking for
development projects where ICT helped to increase efficiency,
effectiveness or transparency of public or private spending (b) I'm not
looking for projects where job opportunities in ICT were created (c)
I'm not looking for results of educational projects, where ICT is used
to supposedly improve affiance, effectiveness or coverage of education.
(d) I'm not looking for similar projects in health. (e) I'm not
interested in potentials or projections but in hard facts.

I'm straight looking for projects where the people (or the community)
was poor (miserable) before and where by using ICT themselves they
were less poor (less miserable) after and ICT is the key element for
success. Any reference with concrete cases & data will be extremely
welcomed.

Sincerely
Cornelio Hopmann




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Re: [GKD] World Computer Exchange Article

[Cornelio Hopmann]

Hi Don & Timothy and all, to throw in my 10% of IMHO:

(1) Computer-waste (or Garbage) is highly toxic. Therefore most OECD
countries, at least those of the north, have very strict rules in place,
sustained by laws and regulations and enforced by high penalities, about
how to handle this waste to minimize negative impact on environment.

(2) As a consequence, in many countries especifically in many States of
the US, Canada and the European Union, you have to pay to have someone
to receive (recycle) your old PC. Fees range from 15 to 35 dollars per
piece.

(3) This makes donating (!!) your scrap to someone for poor third world
countries a lucrative business-operation-, not charity by no means.

(4) Obviously, as with used tires, there is no similiar legislation in
place in any third World country, less something like recycling and
non-impact disposal of non-recyclables.

(5) Yet still extending the period of use may bring some benefit to the
receivers, however you (and organizations like World Computer Exchange)
should start to worry about final disposal and its conditions.

(6) In most countries -due to high energy prices- the equipment as such
represents only a very reduced fraction of total cost of ownership.

(7) Additionally you have to take into account, that average PC
equipment is designed and constructed for average Northern office or
home environment, means environment-temperatures not higher than 23
degrees celsius. Higher environment temperatures cut life-time of
critical components -eg. linear inverters in power-supplies, X-ray
tubes, memory chips and processors- higher but linear: rule of thumb 10%
above designed enviroment temperature cuts life-time by 30%. Therefore
in tropical zones you have to use either air-conditioning, which triples
energy spending, or an average new brand (!!) PC fades away in 3 years.
(All this based on my very personal & very practical experience working
in the tropics now for 17 years).

(8) Without refuting hence the usefulness of almost 0 up-front costs, I
do have the experience that many places were lured into insustainable
Computer-lab-projects just by these almost 0 up-front costs. Both
institution and its customers (clients) where deeply frustated when they
first had to face the real costs of operation and second - when equipment
failed out - there was no next donation around the corner.

(9) As a consequence, you should not only ask for a maintance- and
operation-plan but you yourself should start to schedule the next
donation for the same place/institution to replace definitively
worn-out equipment within at most 3 years after the first donation.

Regards
Cornelio



Don Cameron wrote:

> Hello Timothy and all,

> I read your response with considerable interest as I am involved with an
> organisation (NFP) called ComputerBank Australia who are undertaking
> similar work donating computers preloaded with Linux (Debian) to the
> disadvantaged in Australia and East Timor. Our mutual tasks, goals and
> objectives sound very similar.
> 
> My current role with ComputerBank is to work as an advisor with the
> Volunteer Coordinator to implement and formalise appropriate volunteer
> management procedures. May I seek your input or assistance on some of
> these matters? (as well as that of other list members with experience in
> this area?)
> 
> Information on ComputerBank Australia is available at:
> http://www.computerbank.org.au/
 




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[GKD] Literate Societies and the Internet

[Cornelio Hopmann]

Dear all,

Just as I had a recent presentation on the topic in El Salvador (for
directors of primary and secondary schools, I'll forward the ppt in
Spanish to whomever likes a copy), I would like to describe another pitfall
or mistake committed many, many times by people from the north.

They still do - as I did when arriving in the south 17 years ago - assume
that the northern way of a literate society is the standard prototype of
social organization, something that is wrong, completely wrong.

What means literate society? It means a society in which - lieu of a very
low rate of functional analphabets - social organization can be based on
written rules and  written communication. The literate society is a
rather recent achievement of the north, as it goes far beyond individual
literacy - you need at least 2 generations of ordinary literacy before
you can switch your social system.

When you don't have written rules and written communications, you do
need other means to organize a society, namely direct personal relations
by which small groups organize themselves and in which you have to build
chains of intermediates to guarantee society coherence at large. (Most
parachuters from the north misunderstand these necessities at the
beginning only as nepotism, clientelism and so forth).

Internet has a literate society as original background and - to my
experience - simply will not work as expected if you transfer it into
the context of an illiterate society. More, as stated above, the switch
is a generational process not something that can just be pushed within a
few years. It's not a question of local content, cheap access or
Simputers - none of these changes the context.

Internet is therefore useless in an illiterate society? It is not, if
properly deployed. First and most important the literate-illiterate
frontier has to be an explicit part of the design  (e.g.. combinations
with local Radio or local TV are not just less costly alternatives, they
are ideal elements to bridge between both worlds). Similar others - like
local technicians, local health- and education-personal, lawyers or
law-procedure-helpers, more advanced merchants, religious ministers
etc.- may act - as they do already in the pre-internet world - as
bridging agents. And second - that was my key-point in the above
presentation - intellectual skill training aimed to the internet-context
and -usage but executed using just pencil and paper may help to prepare
the next generation both for the literate society and Internet usage.
(e.g. why not setup a paper-mail system within a school, where using
invented nick-names, chain-letters, a physical mail-box and a pin-board,
kids and teachers are trained in using written communication - instead
of the accustomed oral & direct communication). Similar is true for
content-appreciation (which of the 80,000 pages Goggle returns, tells
the truth?) or introduction of written rules. Almost all
Internet-Collabra features had had there predecessors in the
pre-internet times, such that they can be implemented (or simulated)
even without any computer, or 1 local computer, or a local-only network
long, long before the Broadband-Highspeed-Multimedia Internet arrives.
(I dare to say that without this previous training the BHMI will be
useless at best).

Anyone else with similar experiences?

Cornelio




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Re: [GKD] The Great African Internet Robbery

[Cornelio Hopmann]

Philipp Schmidt wrote:

> The ARPANET, the first stage of what has grown into today's Internet,
> was implemented by the U.S. military. It was then extended to be used
> by U.S. universities mainly for research purposes. It seems that
> anybody wanting to connect to the network that was up to this point
> payed for by U.S. tax money, should cover the costs needed to do so. If
> you want to come to the party - you pay for transportation.
> 
> In addition the high costs of telecommunications in Africa are mostly
> due to monopolistic structures and mismanagement and I dont think the
> U.S. is to blame for that. Please jump on me - if you have evidence
> that says otherwise - I would be more than happy to revise this opinion.

Dear Phillipp,

Have a look at the below -taken from the ITU news-server- and you'll
find that there do exist other opinions. And as you might note the US
delegation rejected even the very weak recomendation to look bilateraly
for more apropriate solutions.

By the way: an Internet-E1 connection from Nicaragua to the Backbone
somewhere in the US -- without any (!) local TELCO costs -- takes
between 9,800 to 24,000 US$ a month -- depending on the period of the
lease. This is 8 to 18 times what the same service -- no tax money
involved anymore -- costs within the US. As obvious final enduser in
Nicaragua either have to pay 8 to 18 times what they would pay in the US
or get a 8 to 18 times poorer service (means email only, no high graphic
web, no larger downloads).

As long as this situation persists, there is a unilateral tariff-barrier
which provokes in turn digital divide ... and even the most efective
local TELCO can't change it.

At the same time and applying general ITU principles, telephone traffic
is handled on shared cost base with precentages varying according to who
initated the call and who pays for it. Long distance moreover is only 3
times more expensive than same service within the US.

Cornelio

---

International Internet Connection

The discussions on this very contentious issue found a positive outcome
on the last day of the Assembly. The purpose of the recommendation is to
set out the principle according to which there should be bilateral
agreement when two providers establish a circuit between two countries
for the purpose of carrying Internet traffic. The possible need for
compensation between the providers has also been recognized. At present,
when providers install Internet circuits, they generally have a choice
between the "sender-keeps-all" or peering system of bilateral
connections when traffic is more or less balanced, or the asymmetrical
system whereby the initiating provider pays for the whole connection
with the other country (full-circuit cost).

The Recommendation endorsed by the WTSA, which represents a very
delicate balance between the various interests, calls for arrangements
to be negotiated and agreed upon on a commercial basis when direct
Internet links are established internationally. The Recommendation
requires only that the two providers involved reach a mutual agreement
and does not prescribe any particular formula or system, thus leaving to
providers their freedom to determine the forms or methodologies to be
used in implementing the principle.

The Recommendation, which is voluntary, suggests that parties involved
take into account the possible need for compensation for elements such
as traffic flow, number of routes, geographical coverage and the cost of
international transmission among others when negotiating such commercial
arrangements. In addition, the Assembly agreed that while international
Internet connections remain subject to commercial agreements between
operating agencies, there is a need for on-going studies in this area.
The Chairman recalled that the decision made in Montreal provided a
framework for future discussions and was therefore only the beginning of
a process where issues would be further analyzed. Two countries - the US
and Greece - made reservations and stated that they would not apply it
in their international charging arrangements.

The full text of the Recommendation can be found here:






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Re: [GKD] The Great African Internet Robbery

[Cornelio Hopmann]

You should be more precise:

The world except US is being ripped off by the US Telcos.

Reason: the situation you describe is true for all Internet-connections
from outside the US.

According to ITU we're talking about 500 Million (!) US$ anually at
least that US Telcos would lose (or would have to charge to their
US-clients) if the normal standard of halfway would be implemented.
Please note that this does not give only unfair advantage to US-telcos
but also unfair trading advantage to us-based companies (lower
connection costs). The issue as such is recognized by ITU, however -due
to close US-resistance as in other world organizations- not even a
recomendation to change was possible.


Cornelio



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[GKD] Analyzing the Harvard e-Readiness Guide

[Cornelio Hopmann]

Dear GKD Members,

I accepted to do an e-Readiness evaluation of Nicaragua based on the
Harvard Evaluation-guide (which by the way is the almost the same as the
Worldbank and the GDG-Foundation use).

The more I get into it, the more I feel that this approach does not fit
to the specific situation of developing (hopefully) countries.

Reason: the guide concentrates only of available infrastructure & it's
usage producing the indirect impression the higher the scores, the more
effectively (and appropriate) you are using ICT.

As it concentrates only on supply and usage of ICT leaving out basic
economic and social data, the final results are simply incorrect.

Reason: ICT costs at least the same -if not more- in developing
countries compared to the OECD-states. However the cost-structure of
everything else -except maybe electric energy- is completely different:
food normally is cheaper, housing -lower quality accepted- is cheaper,
salaries are lower etc.

Therefore the costs of opportunity (both in terms of pure money and in
terms of effectiveness) of ICT compared with almost everything else are
completely different.

Rational local decision-making has to be based on these local
cost-of-opportunity structure and not on what might be it's counterpart
in OECD countries.

However the above mentioned guide leaves just 0 space for this type of
consideration.

(Striking examples: if the Internet-connection-costs of a Computer-lab
for a secondary school are equivalent to the whole budget for all
teachers of that school, then it's simply nonsense to fire the teachers
to set up the lab: the gain in efficiency and effectiveness would be
extremely negative. Or: a complete toolset to produce high-quality
handicraft furniture costs more or less the same as a fully equipped
computer. Buying that toolset will have by far more impact on the
economics of the workshop than buying a computer). Anyone else with
similar experiences ?


Yours,

Cornelio





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Re: [GKD] Digital Divide vs. Social Divide.

[Cornelio Hopmann]

Dear GKD Members,

At some point in this discussion, the question was raised whether those
with access are yielding.

I 'connected' Nicaragua to the Internet (blue node in 1989, online 1993)
and I'm doing know -13 years later- a global eReadiness study, among
others to evaluate how far we've gotten in those 13 years (and if not
why). I'll try to carry out the study in a participative way - at least
in principal for those may be 100,000 that now do have access (when we
started, we were exactly 12) using a website ,
email-lists and so forth.

However exactly this approach proves again that even for the 'haves'
there are more fundamental barriers then just access or literacy. (Many
of my would-be counterparts have university education). I pinpointed
this barrier already 6 years ago, doing a study about use and impact of
all types of information-systems (traditional, like libraries,  and
modern IT-based ones) on real development in Nicaragua.

Finding: we from 1. World (I'm originally German, moved from a German IT
research center to Nicaragua in 1985) tacitly assume that our model or
practice of decision-making is universal ... and it is not. The
'western' model - shaped basically by enlightment already in the 18
century - has more or less the following sequence:

(1) problematic situation (or desired situation) encountered
(2) identify underlying problem
(3) gather evidence and look for additional information
(4) develop alternative courses of action based on evidence and
information with pro's and con's
(5) apply decision mechanism among alternatives (consensus, established
hierarchy, elections )

Within this model -obviously- the lack of information becomes crucial
.. and who is better informed takes advantage.

However if the decision procedures are not rational (=not enlighted),
but almost exclusively based on personal power to take decisions (or
group arrangements, that as social balance empower to take decisions),
there is no need for information.

Additionally, normally decision-making implies allocation of resources.
But if there are simply no excess-resources -beyond pure survival- there
is no space left for any decisions to make. (Curiously enough: exactly
lack of resources and hence the missing base for true decisions produces
that plethora of Analysis, Diagnostics, Studies and so forth, that eat
up about 60% of so called cooperation for development and that -once
done- sit in some shelf to dust (or age in some Global Development
Gateway). Anyone else with similar experiences ?


Regards,

Cornelio




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