The Fourth Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning (PCF4)
    Home > Papers > Kennedy Edwine Onyango
Kennedy Edwine Onyango

The Promise of Technology and Power of Partnerships..

Kennedy Edwine Onyango
Community Initiatives and Social Support Organization (CISSO)

Abstract
The promise of the Technology-mediated Open and Distance Learning through Internet, cellphones, radios and computers extend the reach of schools and libraries to new users, and to serve traditional users in new and more compelling ways, has pushed many projects in the developing world into the new territory of digital knowledge exchange.

Knowledge is more essential for development but how can poor and underserved communities in the developing world become “information-rich”? How can information and communication technologies (ICTs) be applied through tele-medicine, distance learning, electronic commerce, thus harnessed for development? How can inequality of access be overcome – can social and digital divides be addressed together? GRASSUP NOW Initiative, an ICT-Enabled-Open and Distance Learning Programme being implemented by a consortium of three civil society organizations (CSO’s) in Kenya with the support of the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) have been addressing these in the past two years

GRASSUP NOW Initiative partners have discovered that digital knowledge distribution is transforming, convinced that digital technology offers new ways of fulfilling their core missions of education, research, and cultural enrichment, the question of what to put online and how to sustain digital collections is hotly debated and this paper is built on this.

Introduction | Launch Digital Think | Buy the book

"The Promise of Technology and Power of Partnerships.."

Presented by;

Mr. Kennedy Edwine Onyango

Director-CISSO

P.O. Box 337 Mbita, Kenya.

E-mail: cisso@africamail.com

During the:

The Fourth Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning (PCF4)

Technology is largely an enabler - but it's probably one of the few phases of technology where users directly and largely appear to determine the direction of technology.

So whether it's connecting or others, or setting levels of increased privacy - technology enables what we want (or don't want) in our offline lives. Similarly - the notion of circles of trust. Or establishing organic relationships.

That said - this is the first time we've gotten on this level of connectedness. We'll just have to wait and watch!

This is the dawn of the connections power in human civilization. We are living, you and I, in the first seconds of a society reshaped by empowered individuals connected by digital networks, of lives shaped by unprecedented volumes of information and shifting notions of knowledge and trust. Institutions like media and governments are bending under the weight of change, of social and economic disruptions to the way people acquire and apply knowledge.

New institutions and conventions are taking shape. Partnerships are springing up everywhere. But we are a decade into the visual Web. Digital knowledge sharing is NOT new, is NOT unexplored terrain in the new communications frontier.

Perhaps we are in the Morse Code stage or the silent film era (one camera, no lights); pioneers have already experimented with Flash, with different combinations and permutations of interactivity, with components that hint at a richer, more satisfactory digital future. Forms and techniques of enhancing partnerships have historically taken time to evolve from the first experiments to stylistic and production conventions, and great artists have long sought to challenge such conventions. Even now, Hollywood production conventions are crumbling as digital editing and rendering create new processes and artistic possibilities for video-based media. Meanwhile, digital games have eclipsed movies as the bellwether of youth culture and experience.

It's Connectedness, Not Technology, That's Transforming Society; Is the northern hemisphere more connected then the southern hemisphere? Is the so-called developed world more connected than the developing worlds?" Our understanding of connectedness, at least in this instance, is about technology saturation - in other words, how many people have Internet access. This is an important issue, but, I think, a too-narrow view of what connectedness means.

I am everyday amazed by how I can surf the 'Net, come across an item of interest, and, with little difficulty, connect with the person responsible for it, no matter where that person is in the world. How many times have I sent out emails to people in the farthest reaches of the globe who have never heard of me but who respond within a few days? This sense of being one email away from 95 percent of the people around the world with Internet access (the other 5 percent being heads-of-state, celebrities or people who are too self-important to acknowledge me), of being able to communicate with any individual with an email account, of being able to reach out to many people separated by millions of miles with one email is, to me, connectedness.

It is this is the kind of connectedness that is transforming media, politics, advocacy... everything.

More concretely, by practicing the following steps, organisations working in ICT-enabled development can perfect and enhance their contributions to sustainable development.

  1. Stimulate ownership from the start. Include and engage all relevant and interested stakeholders, including any beneficiaries, providing opportunities for them to participate in, and ultimately to own the process and the results.

  1. Incorporate needs and demands into formulation and evaluation. Before and during the activity, check and continuously monitor the concerns of the stakeholders, using the results and feedback in activity design and re-design.

  1. Envision the route ahead, the intended results and the role of ICTs in these. Prepare and plan for sustainability questions and issues from the very beginning.

  1. Integrate and anchor ICTs in wider organisational or development activities and processes. Ensure that ICT applications are part of any wider plans and strategies, and that any broader problems or goals are addressed through the ICTs.

  1. Partner to reach results. Public and private partnerships help to mobilise the commitments, resources, expertise and capacities needed to make ICT-enabled development sustainable.

  1. Foster creativity and entrepreneurship. Use ICTs to innovate, to push boundaries, and to empower appropriate behavioural changes. In development, `business as usual' is usually not sustainable.

  1. Strengthen capacities to design, decide upon, and execute ICT-enabled activities. Make sure that all the skills and aptitudes needed are identified and can be acquired or obtained.

  1. Influence policy and practice through networks, lobbying and dissemination. Create and exchange knowledge and lessons for use in ICT-enabled development activities, advocate at the policy level for sustainable infrastructure investments and regulatory frameworks, and educate the broader public on these issues.

Ownership

A critical issue in the sustainability of ICT-enabled development activities is the notion of ownership. Local ownership means that a local development actor or actors takes responsibility for the conceptualisation, formulation and implementation of an activity, or parts of it. It implies that the vision, goals and objectives of the activity as well as its results and achievements (or failures) are fully internalised by the actor(s) concerned. It is not just the ICT component that needs to be owned. The wider development activity should also be owned by and respond to the needs of its other stakeholders. It is not enough that an ICT activity is owned by an ICT manager or specialist. It must also be owned by the organisation or initiative in which it is based.

Demand Responsiveness

A key element of ownership is `demand responsiveness.' This basically refers to the extent that the activity directly responds to the needs of various stakeholders and beneficiaries, and provides opportunities for these groups to themselves determine the priorities to be followed and the actions to be implemented.

Greater demand responsiveness of an activity is likely to lead to greater ownership. Therefore, determining `whose' demands need to be addressed is critical for the sustainability of any activity. There are many, sometimes conflicting parties involved (donors, providers, organisations, NGOs, beneficiaries). Open and accessible processes and mechanisms to assess, respond to and update demands are critical to this process.

Demand is inherently tied to socio-cultural and political processes and is therefore a dynamic process. Flexibility in programme design and execution is required to ensure its sustainability. Demands change, as expectations and awareness increase. There is a strong relationship between local socio-cultural, political and economic processes and the way in which a development activity evolves. Only by understanding these dynamics do we understand what allows a project to be(come) successful and sustainable.

Mobilising Stakeholders

Ownership can be enhanced by ensuring the active involvement of public, private and not-for-profit actors in the identification, formulation and implementation of activities. This stimulates awareness and acceptance of an activity and helps to provide a firm foundation within a community.

A donor attempt to create a network is a frustrating undertaking when the purpose is not sufficiently demand-driven. Therefore if the need for a formal network is identified, contributing to what is already available, if the right players are involved, may be more successful and efficient, than building something new.

Multi-stakeholder participation often catalyses the distribution of information, resources and partnerships. Role identification, clear definition and communication of the project vision prior to kick-off facilitates stakeholders' ability to relate to the project at hand, and can facilitate mobilisation of the participants for the goal to be achieved. Local actors should lead such communication roles to ensure that the activity is being carried by the right actors. Thus, while community access centres may require national support, community ownership ensures that the individual centres are effective. [Author ID1: at Wed Oct 23 16:45:00 2002 ]

Shared Ownership

Different types of projects require different types of ownership, and as the ownership of a project or activity is embedded in the social context and is dynamic, the type of ownership assumed by each partner during different stages of the project needs to be re-defined accordingly. To the financier (the budget owner), we need to also acknowledge the important roles of committed content owners, project owners (intellectual property), programme owners (a vision or concept of a project), etc. In other words, ownership is often decentralised.

0x08 graphic

IN a pilot phase therefore, different groups of owners should be involved in defining roles. In this process, one should distinguish between owners and sponsors (sometimes also referred to as stakeholders - the local partner, and stockholders - the development agency).

Generating ownership and awareness is a process that takes time and requires significant effort by the project owners and stakeholders. The various actors should be prepared to invest time on the issues at hand. For example, local politics can influence the outcome and the running of development activities. Both official and unofficial stakeholders may therefore need to take ownership. In networking, members need to feel ownership, otherwise there is little chance for it to become sustainable.

Scalability

Scaling or replicating suggests that an idea is ready for rollout and therefore that it can be sustained on a larger scale. The shift from a pilot project - which can generally be much more easily controlled - to a large- or full-scale programme affect ownership in various degrees: Up front awareness raising and political buy in during a piloting process can help in successfully scaling up an activity in a sustainable way; competition among different actors, power issues within an activity, or redefining the project to please a donor can have negative effects on sustainability. Lack of attention to future scaling options in the design phase is also a potential weakness.

The essence is that a project can operate at a low/semi-independent level, driven by an individual. However, once it has been scaled up to the organisational level, it immediately needs to attract other owners and sponsors and it has to compete to become accepted as a legitimate task for the organisation to spend its resources on and be responsible for. Scaling a project up involves power dynamics as well as, social, cultural, organisational and economic structures. In such processes, one can expect a shift from individual to organisational vision, resulting in a shift in ownership. [Author ID1: at Wed Oct 23 16:45:00 2002 ]

Incremental upscaling may in some cases be more appropriate than massive implementation. Trying to replicate a pilot in a larger context doesn't necessarily succeed. However, if a pilot or implementation project fails, this need not lead to closure, but rather should be considered as a learning process, and perhaps a signal to re-engineer the process, or to redefine the concept. Sometimes downscaling can be more appropriate in terms of sustainability.

When the decision on scalability is made, the questions of demand and ownership should be addressed. Scaling a successful pilot up may not be appropriate or desirable everywhere. Actions and conclusions should follow accordingly.

Donors and Development Agencies

Where funding is provided from external sources, the sustainability of an activity is closely associated with the migration path and transition from dependent project to (semi-) independence. Many projects fail when the donor funding stops, suggesting that the main owner was actually the donor.

In such cases, it is most critical that `donors' do not act as `donors' but as joint partners with a stake in the success of the project. Their contribution is funding, expertise in the areas where it is limited or is lacking and perhaps political clout. A clear phasing out of donor inputs and a phasing in of local inputs is necessary. Local partners provide other inputs such as ownership and project management. This joint responsibility is needed at all phases of the project cycle. Sustainability can be enhanced by:

  • Building realistic expectations from day one, outlining the up-front commitments from all the parties, a clear strategy or vision as to whether the aspirations lie in financial sustainability or macro-economical sustainability. This includes a clear role definition for the parties involved, evaluation milestones and a balance between what is donor-driven versus demand-driven.

  • Building an a priori understanding of the inputs to be provided from the donor or development agency regarding the implementation and management of the project, with an emphasis on local ownership and capacity strengthening.

  • Including lessons learned from both successes and failures, and a clear understanding of the local context and situation, which affect implementation trajectories. This is especially important when a donor hypothesises that a successful project in situation x is also likely to succeed in situation.

Political Issues

Sustainability is also affected where political problems dominate the ownership issue. On a micro level, this can mean insufficient or conflicting ownership of processes (e.g. budget owners versus conceptual owners), lack of clarity on who is in charge, or an incomplete transfer of ownership along a hierarchy or organisational structure.

At a macro level, shifts in government can have significant effects on the sustainability of an initiative. Political involvement in a premature phase may hamper progress and momentum through bureaucracy or the desire to turn a project into a political statement. Politicisation may cause antipathy to a project when a new policy maker takes over. On the other hand, ownership by policy makers can provide the clout required to implement an initiative sector-wide or to gather funds, which can contribute to the sustainability. Because of the multitude of social and political contexts, there is no single solution to this dilemma; however, awareness can minimise the effects.

At both levels, these problems can be addressed by including, first of all, analysis of the organisational structure in the planning phase of the roles and structures; one can then allow time for networking and restructuring of ownership if these problems occur, thus avoiding conflicts down the line. Furthermore, when one includes a broad buy-in and involvement of owners, ensuring that there is a constant flow of communication between them, there is a broader foundation that can sometimes buffer adverse political effects. Generating awareness amongst a multitude of owners and pre-defining ICT policies, will allow an initiative to be less vulnerable when political shifts occur and, in a bottom-up approach, generate more clout when lobbying for support from policy-makers.

Roles and Actions for Ownership

In dealing with ownership, key issues concern the definition of `owners' versus `stakeholders' and filling in the corresponding roles and processes accordingly. This includes defining levels of ownership, collective or individual, acknowledging the need for different approaches for different people and different projects, and sharing in accountability and success. Sustainable project ownership involves dynamic dialogue, negotiation between all relevant parties (including official and unofficial government, such as local elders or unofficial authorities), management of risks and resolving tensions.

Multiple owners imply multiple agendas/interests and the need to find ways to share and resolve these. All owners need to feel as much ownership as they want, and not all owners feel equally committed. Each member needs to feel that its concerns are being addressed if it is to take some ownership. There is a need to re-visit and re-define the ownership positions that different project owners have during the life cycle of a project. To enhance sustainability, it is important to consider the involvement of different stakeholders, including government, NGOs and private sector entities. Donors, in fact all actors, can also be owners, but only of what is agreed by all. All in all, it's the most critical and trickiest factor of sustainability.

Ultimately, ownership is an integral part of a programme at every level from day one, as the commitment and involvement of the parties involved directly affect its sustainability. By recognising strong ownership as a fundamental building block and by spending sufficient time and resources on it - not only to sustain the project, organisation or network, but also by capacity building, an idea can germinate into something sustainable. By broadening the scope of ownership, the sustainability of the project is more likely to be achieved thanks to a wider bearing surface. Although networks are not necessarily the (only) way to achieve this, they provide an important, if not essential contribution to creating sustainable ownership.

Gradual transitions are needed from a stage where the sustainability of an activity is mainly influenced by the funder(s), to a stage where the local stakeholders are themselves the critical factor in sustainability. Some concrete actions are:

  • Explicitly address ownership issues in the activity design and visioning phases.

  • Be flexible in allocating time and resources to develop ownership.

  • Acknowledge that there are different types of ownership, and that these are affected by many socio-cultural, economic, political, and organisational factors.

  • Encourage ownership by the right actors at each level (not just with those directly involved).

  • Distribute roles and include key players in dynamic dialogue - include beneficiaries, donors and policy makers here as well as any activity champions. Their enthusiasm and background knowledge can catalyse the success and advocate ownership.

  • Link ownership to capacity building to enhance sustainability and underline the benefit for participants to stay involved.

  • Differentiate between owners and stakeholders, and identify the role of donors.

  • Development agencies should create an enabling environment rather than being creative themselves, i.e. act as stakeholders (`stockholders'), rather than owners (`project managers'). Introduce incentives that encourage ownership.

  • An environment analysis that takes account of socio-cultural factors, by joint local and international teams prior to project implementation, can enhance awareness and understanding of the project setting.

  • Project owners, enabling and funding partners have an important role to ensure broad buy-in to an activity. A true pro-poor strategy is often difficult to implement for development agencies because of the difficulty of reaching this group. Therefore, mobilisation of stakeholders facilitates indirect access to this group, e.g. via NGOs, churches, focus groups, etc. Although many needs and demands can be identified, addressing them normally requires joint action by several organisations, each with different roles and added values. This is why multi-actor approaches are critical - a single (type of) organisation cannot identify or encompass all these roles and all these values.

Ownership

leader

manager

employees

clients

suppliers

financiers

interest groups

Research
Support Tool
  For this 
refereed conference paper
Capture Cite
View Metadata
Printer Friendly
Context
Author Bio
Define Terms
Related Studies
Media Reports
Google Search
Action
Email Author
Email Others
Add to Portfolio



    Learn more
    about this
    publishing
    project...


Public Knowledge


If the information you require about PCF4 is not included on this website, please email:
pcf4.information@gmail.com

home | overview | program | registration | call for papers | submission | papers | sponsors
accommodation | travel | social | contacts | hosts | COL Awards | exhibition | links
  Top