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Analysis and Overview of case studies - research reportBatchelor S, Norrish P, Scott N, Webb M Jan 2003This overview has been generated as part of a research programme into Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sustainability factors. Funded by the Department of International Development, the research programme identified development activities that sought to benefit the poor and had an ICT component. In particular it considered the work of organisations where ICT had enhanced ongoing development activities, the ICT activity could be replicated without sizeable investment, and there was a measure of sustainability. Sustainability was taken to be more than financial cost recovery. Drawing from lessons learned in other development sectors, sustainability involves a combination of factors including among others, clear objectives, institutional frameworks, local capacity and development benefits. While perhaps not fulfilling all the features of a strong sustainable activity, the case studies were felt to hold points of interest for the wider global development community and have the potential to be replicated. ContentsSummary of what helped it succeed
Twelve Case Studies
A general description of the case studies is presented in Table 1. The cases have been presented as 4 page summaries, and a 6 to 12 page full study is available for each case.
The sustainability framework discussed in Section 3 was used as the basis for preliminary investigations into over 20 potential case studies. 12 of these were then identified for further investigation, primarily on the basis that they best met the criteria for the research - enhanced ongoing development activities, possibility for replication, and some measure of sustainability. The case studies have been compiled from information gathered during field visits to the areas in which projects are operating. This information is based on a mixture of factual data provided by case study projects, and information and opinion gleaned from a range of stakeholders in order to ensure that complete and balanced views of projects were obtained. Four categories of stakeholders were identified: those directly involved with the project e.g.:
users and beneficiaries:
those having an overview of project
local people affected by the project:
A summary of the preliminary (or Level 1) case studies is available. SustainabilityThere is of course considerable debate over the sustainability of ICT in development interventions. ‘In any discussion on sustainability it is important to clarify what is being sustained, for how long, for whose benefit and at whose cost, over what area, and measured by what criteria.’ . The accompanying paper “What is Sustainability?” discusses the background review the team undertook for this project. Accordingly the complexity of sustainability was taken as a core premise behind the research. Sustainability was taken to be more than just “ongoing financial cost recovery”. While this should play a part in the use of ICT in development, there are many occasions where the development benefits, or “non direct cost recovery”, may justify expenditure on ICT by Government, donors or NGOs from central budgets. The accompanying paper draws upon lessons learned in other sectors. Experience from technology orientated interventions intended to serve the poor, has found that there are a number of factors which contribute to sustainability. Using lessons and principles from the water, agriculture, environmental and livelihood sectors a framework was created to guide the case study writers. The research framework was developed through an iterative process with the project collaborators. A draft research framework, developed from the literature, was used to categorise the key sustainability factors and develop a guiding set of questions for local consultants to work through with the case study interviewees. In most cases, a selection of people were interviewed both those who were directly involved (e.g. project staff, users of the ICT or ICT output) and indirectly (authorities who knew of the project but were not involved). 20 case studies were identified and interviews were some basic interviews were conducted. These were called level 1 case studies. 12 of the 20 were identified for further investigation, and these have been designated Level 2 studies. The paper analyses the 12 Level 2 Studies only, although the remaining 8 Level 1 Studies are presented on the web site for visitors interest. The initial framework was developed after piloting and the final list of factors is given below.
·Objectives Hypothesis : - Clear objectives are which are held by the majority of stakeholders are needed to ensure organisational aspects of the activity are effective . The sustainability paper differentiates between Economic, Social and Institutional sustainability. The objective clarifies where the benefits may be found, what is the intended sustainability and whether these are intended to be based on direct or indirect cost recovery. ·Target groups Hypothesis : - the groups of people to whom information will be made available need to be clearly identified - the target group of the activity may not be directly the poor. Some target groups may be institutions that support development processes. Sustainability may therefore be affected by whether the institution significantly contributes to the development process and whether the institutional factors are in place. ·Intermediaries Hypothesis : - ICT are said to “disintermediate”, ie to provide the poor with more direct access to information. Potentially this removal of the “middle man” in transactions (both information and economic transactions) would credit the ICT activity with enough value to ensure its sustainability. · Policy environment Hypothesis : - ICT activities cannot be in isolation from the policy environment. ICT policies may restrict the ICT activity. Other policies may encourage or discourage the application of ICTs. If ICTs are to be part of a sustainable activity there will need to be a suitable policy environment. · Institutional arrangements Hypothesis : - Institutional sustainability is said to be achieved when prevailing structures and processes have the capacity to continue to perform their functions over the long term. What are the arrangements for the case study? · Key linkages Hypothesis : - Any development activity cannot be undertaken in isolation, and any organisation cannot work without links to the relevant authorities and other organisations working in connected areas. Links are needed to external sources of information. ·The project process Hypothesis : - Sustainability is said to be closely associated with the planning process of an activity, and its inclusion of both the target group and in some cases the long term indirect beneficiaries. ·Capacity Hypothesis : - The sustainability will be affected by the human capital available – the capacity of staff, volunteers and users to undertake the ICT activity. This may be technical capacity but is likely also to include organisational and management capacity. · Technology Hypothesis : - Sustainability of an ICT activity is likely to be strongly influenced by the technology used e.g. operation and repair may be critical to the success of the activity. In other sectors it has been found that some form of standardisation of a technology instrument has helped development ensuring a sufficient use to encourage a market that can supply spares and technology support. · Finance Hypothesis : - Replacement costs will form part of the economic sustainability, and cost recovery will encourage institutional sustainability. · Development benefits Hypothesis : - overall benefits of the ICT activity justify the costs. The premise was that all these factors would have to be in balance for a project to be in some form sustainable. The analysis therefore considered these factors and draws some of the common points arising from them. During the analysis it became clear that this framework did not present all the significant factors and the sections on content and language completed the analysis. Observations and FindingsThe DFID Policy paper on ICT role in the alleviation of poverty states that ICT must be embedded in the every day development process, and not isolated as a new sector. These case studies emphasise how the ICT in the study has been included in the context of an ongoing project in order to enhance or co-ordinate an action or activity. The one exception to this is perhaps Digital Village, which was a specific ICT project, standing alone, set up with the view to tackling a particular ICT related community need. ObjectivesHypothesis : - Clear objectives are which are held by the majority of stakeholders are needed to ensure organisational aspects of the activity are effective . The sustainability paper differentiates between Economic, Social and Institutional sustainability. The objective clarifies where the benefits may be found, what is the intended sustainability and whether these are intended to be based on direct or indirect cost recovery.
The objectives of each case study have been presented in Table 1, and not surprisingly, have a common theme of access to information. Most ICT projects represent the application of ICT in support of development objectives. Having said that, there are some projects that deal solely with technology, notably computer training projects. However, these are targeted at well defined groups where skills have been identified as an enabling factor. Overall, we can group projects around a core set of objectives although many of the studies address more than one facet: ·Enhancing information to planners ·Increasing citizens access to governance ·Enhancing livelihood incomes of the poor ·Enhancing livelihoods of the poor. Enhancing information to planners:- To CARDIN, MIGIS, and KUMINFO, the ICT is primarily a mechanism for increasing the accuracy of data available to planners – both Government and NGO. Whilst the indirect beneficiaries are poor communities and the projects each have a poverty theme, the direct users of the data are planners. In the case of MIGIS, the technology facilitates participatory collection of data and enhances and endorses the data coming from the rural people. One might put Deniva in to the same category, as the NGO network facilitates information exchange and flows among its members and to the government, again allowing the planning processes of development activities to have increased efficiencies. Increasing citizens access to governance (promoting good governance):- Revistazo and Gyandoot specifically seek to help citizens in their project area to access and exercise their rights through e-links to the relevant government departments. In the case of Gynadoot this is directly in facilitating users to access government forms and information services. This has had considerable impact on corruption levels. In the case of Revistazo, sensitive information about corruption is brought into the public arena and discussed often with the desired effect. One might put the MANAGE study in the same category since it attempts to facilitate communication between service organisations and ensure that access by citizens to finance (credit, banks) is eased. Enhancing livelihood incomes of the poor:- UDS, Digital Village and Food Marketers primarily seek either to prepare users for employment or to enhance existing employment opportunities. The Food Marketers are attempting to find new or increasing markets for traditional production by artisans. Digital Village on the other hand is seeking to prepare young people for the new markets by giving them new skills in computing. UDS offers access and training specifically to enhance opportunities for income. However, Gyandoot and MANAGE, by offering access to ICT also enhance livelihoods, and in particular MANAGE offers mechanisms for finance. Enhancing livelihoods of the poor:- The ACISAM project, with its distinct emphasis on mental health, illustrates how a community can be enhanced by broadcasting of relevant critical information. All the other cases also offer opportunities for communities to enhance their livelihoods by access to strategic information either directly or indirectly. For instance UDS aim to serve as an information resources for local NGOs and CBOs Table 2: Overview of organisational ICT project objectives
The case studies seem to support the hypothesis. There are various forms of sustainability and some of the case studies are not intended to show economic sustainability, but are supporting social and institutional sustainability. Target GroupsHypothesis : - the groups of people to whom information will be made available need to be clearly identified - the target group of the activity may not be directly the poor. Some target groups may be institutions that support development processes. Sustainability may therefore be affected by whether the institution significantly contributes to the development process and whether the institutional factors are in place.
The target groups are those group) that actually use and benefit from the project itself; they may be distinct from the intended final beneficiaries. Categories of target groups include: ·Government - highly educated, but, as the recent e-governance debates have illustrated, not always very ICT aware in terms of the realities of what ICT can do or how to commission them. ·Donors INGO and Large international NGO– highly educated, relatively ICT aware, access to resources (not only financial); ·Networks (national) – highly educated and resource rich, in order to perform function as a resource for other NGOs; ·NGOs (national) – large range of ability from very small, local initiatives driven by a charismatic individual, to large, professionally run organisations; ·CBOs – tend to be small, local organisations; since they have a reliance on community members this can often mean that levels of education and awareness may be low; ·Citizens – poor members of communities intended as ultimate beneficiaries of development interventions. Table 3: Overview of target groups for each organisation
CARDIN, MIGIS and KUMINFO who each have objectives focussed on enhancing the planning process, the target group are the institutions involved in the planning process. This is not to say they do not have interaction with poor communities. MIGIS for instance is intended to be used with communities to enhance the participatory planning process. Of the rest we can identify a difference between the cases that intend their services to be accessed by those who are to some degree computer literate and those that are for everyone in the community. ACISAM is broadcasting within a community, effectively acting as community television. Almost all the community will have some exposure to the broadcasts and no degree of computer literacy is required to reap the benefits of the service. The target group of Revistazo on the other hand, is the internet users of Honduras - “There are approximately 125,000 internet users in Honduras, mostly middle to upper class citizens, including NGOs, businesses, and government users. This obviously limits the accessibility and impact for lower classes. However, the middle and upper class people are the ones who have the power and influence to make legal/policy changes which will ultimately benefit the poor at a structural level.” Revistazo Case Study While the case studies illustrate a range of target groups, and support the premise that an ICT activity may not be targeted directly at the poor, there is little in the studies that demonstrates what the essential features of a target group are for sustainability. Some features can be deduced by considering the contribution to the development process and the benefits which is discussed below. IntermediariesHypothesis : - ICT are said to “disintermediate”, ie to provide the poor with more direct access to information. Potentially this removal of the “middle man” in transactions (both information and economic transactions) would credit the ICT activity with enough value to ensure its sustainability.
Associated with the target group is the role of intermediary. A much discussed aspect of ICT is the potential they have for “disintermediation” i.e. removing intermediaries from the process of enhancing livelihoods by allowing the poor a direct voice to the authorities and in their own planning, and direct access to the information they need. In any discussion of intermediaries in ICT, one notes a distinction between those who intermediate with some vested interest in the information (e.g. the corrupt official who might offer advice that leads to a bribe), and those that are “technical intermediaries” or intermediaries for access for example in Gyandoot and MANAG |
