Civil Society meets to discuss input to Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Empowerment Charter

Submitted by Editor on 30 September, 2004 - 22:30.

Civil Society representatives met in Cape Town on 8 September to discuss their needs and concerns regarding the ICT Empowerment Charter. The importance of the Charter has been recognised by bridges.org, the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA), SANGONeT and many other Civil Society and non-governmental organisations in South Africa that use ICT as part of their efforts for socio-economic development. There has been little opportunity for organizations like these to participate, and many people were simply not aware of the process. The meeting highlighted several areas which it hopes will be addressed at the next meeting of the ICT Charter working group.

Over fifteen people attended the meeting in Cape Town with participants ranging from Neville Naidoo, ICT Charter working group representative and Chairman of the Black Information Technology Forum, Moira de Roche, President of Computer Society of South Africa, representatives of the Western Cape Schools Network, a local IT business group in Khayelitsha and several open source advocates.

The ICT Empowerment Charter is intended to address the impact of historical imbalances in South Africa by promoting the transformation of the ICT sector. The meeting in Cape Town hoped that the ICT Charter working group will also focus on the following areas:

1) The role of Civil Society in the ICT Charter debate
2) The global context of the ICT Charter
3) The ICT Council _ composition
4) The ICT Council _ function
5) Language as a factor in achieving empowerment
6) ICT in the context of Sustainable Development
7) Legislative barriers to bridging the digital divide
8) Corporate Social Investment (CSI)
9) Development in ICT
10) Other points

1) The role of Civil Society in the ICT Charter debate
The charter should acknowledge the importance of Civil Society in terms of achieving the goals of the charter. Specifically, sustainable development and bridging the digital divide should encourage the active participation and contribution of Civil Society as key role players and stakeholders. The charter has not been as inclusive as it potentially could have been. This may have been due to a lack of advertising and awareness. However a representative from the working group explained that it was communicated widely via a series of road shows across the country.

2) Global context of the ICT Charter
The ICT Charter should acknowledge the relevance of the WSIS (World Summit on the Information Society) Declaration and Action Plan in the context of bridging the digital divide. The ICT Council should give report back to WSIS (Tunisia in 2005) in terms of progress made towards bridging the digital divide and building an equitable information society as outlined in the WSIS Declaration to which South Africa is a signatory. The ICT Council should work towards forming partnerships with the NEPAD ICT working group.

3) The ICT Council _ composition
Civil Society should receive greater representation on the ICT Council. Allocation should be made for a Youth representative on the ICT Council to specifically focus on the needs of youth. This person should be under the age of 30 years.

4) The ICT Council _ function
There is a need for more effective integration and cooperation between ICT related community development initiatives in the country. The ICT Council is well place to counter this pervasive fragmentation so that we may work towards an integrated approach. Computers should also be placed in a development context within communities. This is important in terms of the sustainability required to achieve the Information Society. A framework for roll out is lacking in the charter.A national information campaign will be required to promote the charter and the issues around it to every South African (a similar information drive was identified in the Financial Services Charter) with the aim of building organisational capacity so that we may achieve more broad-based participation during the 2010 charter review.

5) Language as a factor in achieving empowerment
The charter should acknowledge the impact of language as a barrier to achieving the goal of economic empowerment and bridging the digital divide. The charter should be made available for people to read in their own language. The ICT charter website should be language sensitive and allow users to select their preferred language profile. When addressing communities due respect should be given to local language and culture.

6) ICT in the context of Sustainable Development
ICT should be used within a context of sustainable development _ as a tool and not as an end in itself. Merely putting PC_s into rural areas does not address the development needs of people when they are dealing with bread and butter issues. ICT should be used in the service of human development. Open-source technology is an important component in achieving sustainable development and should be encouraged. For example, open-source technology can be used to provide translation services for development projects.

7) Legislative barriers to bridging the digital divide
Restrictive legislation such as regulation on the licensing of WiFi service providers and satellite service providers in the VSAT band creates a barrier in terms of access to ICT and is hindering empowerment efforts.
The ICT Charter should promote further deregulation in the sector as a matter of great urgency because this could allow for greater bandwidth access for all, which in turn would enhance development efforts.

8) Corporate Social Investment (CSI)
Corporations have been known to _dump_ old equipment on communities in the name of corporate social investment; this _dumping_ practice should be acknowledged in the charter and declared to be unacceptable. The ICT Council should scrutinize the CSI projects of companies and hold them to standards of sustainable development and empowerment of local communities. The ICT Council should ring-fence a portion of the national CSI funding from companies and use that in ICT Council driven CSI projects. The Charter should promote the concept of the Triple Bottom Line (a globally accepted standard of measuring a company_s success based not only on its economic value, but also on the environmental quality and social impact of that company).

9) Development in ICT
The working group should work hand in hand with ISETT SETA in order to address the ICT shortage skills in South Africa.
There are many non-accredited institutions working in the community on ICT skills training. There should be a programme that would coach those institutions to be able to qualify for ICT accreditation.
There is no funding for higher level programmes outside learnerships as the SETA_s have no power to approve higher level learnerships.
Universities should not be the only bodies controlling higher levels of qualification.
There are no ISETT learnerships for National Qualifications Frameworks 6/7/8. These should be implemented.
There should be concrete research on the skills gaps within ICT in South Africa whilst looking holistically at the education system. This research should be fed back into the ISETT learnerships.

10) Other points
The charter should challenge the ISPs to deliver to underserviced communities.
Proudly South African Campaign - The charter should promote the Proudly South African Campaign.
Multinationals have pressured the Government into lowering the Black Economic Empowerment quota but still qualify for top-preferential treatment. This needs to be addressed within the charter.

Bridges.org, IDASA, and the other concerned groups and individuals in the Western Cape believe that the ICT Charter should be about empowerment for all, not just within business. The ICT Charter Working Group has asked for comments on the current draft by 17 September 2004, for a further revision before the final document is presented to Government on 30 September. These comments have been submitted to the working group.

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