Anita Gurumurthy IT for Change Bangalore, India Anita@ITforChange.net

We need to examine why and how skills and knowledge are positioned within the dominant ICT for development paradigm and explore the routes that we would like skill transfer within the information and communications for development theory and practice to take.

ICTs have transformed the ways in which we learn, with spectacular outcomes. From the radio to the Internet, the potential in these technologies for information and skill transfer is now well demonstrated. While it is true that ICTs provide new paradigms in education – from distance learning, learner-centredness, peer to peer exchanges, etc., the dominant ICT paradigm is not consistent with the social and ethical objectives of education. Within the ICT debate, skill transfer has been positioned within the framework of the market rather than of development. Thus skills have been constructed almost completely as constituting those capacities that can be monetised or as a commodity for exchange. Within the context of a discussion on MDGs, such a definition is indeed very narrow and negates the needs of the vast majority. The poorest certainly need livelihood skills, but their freedom from poverty is predicated also upon a whole range of other skills that can empower them socially and politically, and these capacities lie beyond the framework and logic of the market.

We need to examine why and how skills and knowledge are positioned within the dominant ICT for development paradigm and explore the routes that we would like skill transfer within the information and communications for development theory and practice to take.

Education/skill upgradation through ICTs: The state of the art
The dominant paradigm in the use of ICTs for education is antithetical to respect for diversity, for local control of knowledge and individual creativity (proprietary software being a stark case in point).

We know that the major ICT corporations have kept close links with education institutions in the South. The efforts of Cisco, Microsoft and Hewlett Packard and many other ICT corporations in the field of education invoke the language of ‘development’ and of ‘corporate social responsibility’, and many of them have begun sponsoring gender academies, hosting proprietary systems seminars, lock-in software certification conferences, as they have sought to engage the local labour force in jobs in the IT industry. It is a moot point whether such initiatives are really opening up opportunities on a level playing field or if these are geared towards producing a new form of dependency - a passive, uncritical acceptance of corporate globalisation. Critiques of this model are beginning to emerge in the work of NGOs like ISIS International Manila, engaged in global advocacy for an equitable information society.

The increasing privatisation of education and the consequent entry of global media and ICT corporates into this space has seen the emergence of a new agenda for education: the creation of a new breed of internationally-immobile work force with low, but highly specialised skills, ready to plug into the global production chain of knowledge industries. The deskilling of the workforce in poor countries in the global information economy is now well documented.

ICTs for development has adopted a market-led approach and within this, approaches to build the information base and skills of local communities for their livelihoods, like MNC-led agriculture extension programmes that use ICTs, have predominantly been synonymous with a submission of local communities to multinational corporate interests. In the short run, this seems like a win-win situation – the corporate gets local produce for its global markets and local farmers get cutting-edge information and ‘assured’ incomes. But almost invariably, this

arrangement is a zero-sum game for local populations – the ICT infrastructure and communication media are controlled not by local people but by the corporates, and in the long run, the survival of local agricultural practices and markets is endangered.

The alternate paradigm – Relocating skill-building into the development arena
The consequence of the digital divide is mainly in the exacerbation of information poverty of the unconnected. Those who are not connected to telecommunication networks are also those not privileged to be part of human networks that bring tangible and intangible benefits. Conversely, the connected are privy to the network effect, and are the information-resourced. In the information age, we find information following familiar paths, seeking those within the existing web of interconnections. Development goals can be attained only if information and skill transfer is based on a social justice approach that can build new webs of exchange and expand existing webs to include those who are traditionally marginalised, and have limited access to information resources.

Community initiatives that train women in ICT skills can and do change women’s self-perception as well as community perception of women

ICTs do afford liberating opportunities for a power shift. They can enable greater democratisation of information and greater participation in knowledge creation. However, they build upon social patterns of exclusion and inclusion and co-constitute the power structures at local and global levels.

Therefore, the strategic use of ICTs for information and skill transfer require two things – one, that we see access to the right information in itself as a skill, and this includes the capacity to use information and two, that information and knowledge are taken out of traditional citadels of power – offices of the government, elite institutions and bureaucratic structures – and transferred into spaces and in ways that the marginalised have access.

Skills thus need to be defined in broader terms – to encompass not just employment related skills, but those that are needed for social and political empowerment. The construction of skills as a commodity for exchange drives skill-building, upgradation and transfer into market frameworks. For a poor woman, skill-building begins with learning how to address her social relationships differently, and to be able to engage with the different social institutions with confidence. From learning how to use a telephone to negotiating the middle-men in her village, she requires capacities that can enable her to become more autonomous. Information, knowledge and skill transfer thus need to enable people to gain control over their lives. The use of ICTs by organisations in the grassroots holds great potential for such an alternate model.

New paradigms of information / knowledge creation and sharing are required if we are to transfer information and knowledge into the hands of the disadvantaged. The open source software movement has reclaimed the concept of the public domain and the need for technology production and deployment that allows everyone to shape ICTs. Such an open content paradigm, a copyright model that makes it legitimate for whoever seeks digitised development content with the potential to change lives, is the need of the hour. If the animal husbandry department has a CD that a poor woman can pick up skills for rearing milch cows, it has the responsibility to reach it to the largest numbers of women who may want to access it. The dissemination of the CD cannot be constrained by whether copies can be made and if any new version of the CD (with changes or translations) may be illegal.

Learning from alternatives
Many initiatives demonstrate empowering paradigms. The CD ROM from Uganda –called “Ideas for earning money” shows the tremendous value of information that meets livelihood needs. Closer home, ICTs have been used by SEWA in a myriad ways – to preserve traditional skills by nurturing markets for them and bringing to women’s doorstep the information that helps women negotiate the public space, understand and deal with markets. Video conferencing has been used to provide unique opportunities for connecting people to experts. Dhan Foundation, an NGO in South India uses this tool to reach significant information from the government’s development machinery to local communities.

It is increasingly evident that simple applications and software and locally produced content can make a tremendous difference to people’s lives. Radio has been used in initiatives across the global South to preserve local knowledge, disseminate information and as participatory media.

Community initiatives that train women in ICT skills can and do change women’s self-perception as well as community perception of women. The critical thing here is to link women’s skills in ICTs to community needs – the MSSRF experience in Pondichery, and the experience of Tilonia barefoot college that trains men and women to use GIS for water management, testify to how women trained in ICTs not only play a useful role as change agents, but are able to spiral into a personal empowerment trajectory.

Towards institutionalising the alternate
Attention and action are required at 2 levels: Global systems – be they globalised markets or a market-driven ICT for development paradigm - that undermine sustainable models at the local level, need to be challenged. Alternate paradigms, built on local contexts, need to find their way into mainstream institutions. Skill- transfer models using ICTs have to be relocated from the market into the arena of development. For this, the new possibilities of information delivery and capacity building through ICTs need to be institutionalised – within development departments, in government schemes and in NGO strategies.

Note: This paper was presented in One World South Asia Fourth Annual Regional Meeting, March 4, 2005.