Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft (CDG) - the German NGO for international training and human resources development - has recently launched the two projects IT@ASIA and IT@AFRICA with the aim to support ICT consultancy South-South networks and to stimulate the development of local content services.
Hoffmann & Reif have conceptualized the two CDG “ICT for Development” projects and helped to set up the partner network of IT consultancies in Africa and Asia. We provided the open source based applications for project management and two information portals that helped to organise the initiation phase of the two projects covering three continents. Hoffmann & Reif also elaborated the concepts for the ICT partner evaluation. We then conducted more than 30 workshops and talked with more than 300 IT experts in Africa and Asia. About 100 candidates for a comprehensive e-business training in Germany were interviewed. In July 2002 the initiation phase of IT@ASIA and IT@AFRICA ended and the German consultancy FAKT started to prepare the actual programme implementation phase.
The core of both projects is a comprehensive training package on e-business for junior and senior IT consultants.
In Africa the countries involved are Malawi, Namibia, Tanzania, South Africa and Zambia and in Asia Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
Through IT@ASIA and IT@AFRICA national and regional networks will be stimulated and enhanced and eventually become a South-South knowledge network for IT consultancies in emerging markets. Enabling open source based knowledge building applications are provided and e-business projects of the partners supported.
The initiation phase in winter 2001/ spring 2002
The objective of the initiation phases of IT@AFRICA and IT@ASIA was to identify ICT consultancy enterprises with an e-business strategy that should be supported and eventually become part of an international ICT knowledge network in emerging markets of the South.
In Asia ten workshops with senior management and eight assessment centers with applicants were undertaken in Bangkok, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Manila, and Phnom Penh from April to May 2002. More than 50 candidates were interviewed. The programme was presented and discussed in more than 75 companies and institutions engaged in IT consultancy. The CDG project team talked to more than 200 IT-consultants in the region.
In southern Africa a similar effort was undertaken in Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia.
30 Asian candidates were finally short listed. In September 2002 twenty of them will come to Germany in order to participate at a 12 month e-business training programme. There they will join their 20 counterparts coming from Africa.
For the senior managers of the partner institutions both in Asia and Africa CDG will offer workshops in the region and in Germany.
The programme has a focus on small and medium sized enterprises and pursuits gender balance. While in the IT@AFRICA project 56% of the participants are women this ratio could unfortunately not be achieved in Asia.
The programme also offers “Public-Private-Partnerships” with benefits to larger enterprises and institutions, such as Telecom Operators, IT companies, Chambers of Commerce and Industry and universities. Strategic partnerships have already been initiated with important institutions and large companies. In the next couple of months a number of
“Memorandum of Understanding” between CDG and these institutions will be signed.
IT@ASIA and IT@AFRICA provide innovative features which intent to improve the sustainability of e-business in emerging markets.
The action oriented training programme includes the support of e-business projects
As part of the application process all potential partner institutions had to identify e-business projects which the junior consultants will support while being in Germany. Workpackages with milestones were defined and became an important part in the CDG evaluation procedure as well as in the curriculum development process.
Only those candidates became short listed who had provided an e-business project that was based on the e-business strategy of their company and which was already in its first implementation or a mature planning stage.
The e-business projects will be supported by the curriculum of the training programme. The training modules will cover the issues which are important for the e-business implementation process described by the partners. Furthermore the e-business projects will be matched with the profile of the German IT companies in which the Asian junior consultants will spent a four month internship while in Germany.
Enabling applications are offered to the consultancy institutions
Both CDG projects in Africa and Asia are managed with the support of an open source based knowledge building platform and a “collaboration space” on the Internet. These applications have already proved to enhance considerably the project management efficiency in CDGs other large scale distributed projects. They have the capacity for supporting distributed Internet publishing and operating as a platform for a virtual academy.
The applications will be offered to the partner institutions free of charge. It is suggested that they become incremetally part of their business portfolio. This approach has been already successfully implemented in the CDG project SANTREN, a major knowledge network for environmental research and training in the mining industry of the “Southern African Development Community” – http://www.santren.com
Productisation of training for multiplying institutions
The CDG training programme on e-business - including an e-learning component - will become a training product itself. It has an open license for the partner institutions and will be marketed by them in their region thus reaching a much higher number of trainees than CDG could accommodate at this time.
Sustainability and impact through support of business networks
The ultimate goal of IT@ASIA and IT@AFRICA is to initiate regional and international networks of IT consultancies through business oriented IT training to multiplying institutions.
These networks will act as multiplyers and further distribute the products and service frameworks of the partner institutions.
Enabled knowledge owners of the South offer knowledge services to global marketplaces
IT@ASIA and IT@AFRICA enable the consultancy partners to produce and publish their knowledge on the Internet and offer their services on international knowledge marketplaces. In the South knowledge is available in abundance but it has been locked. For most of the actors almost no channels haven been available. Providing platforms in the South for knowledge deployment is as promising as tapping into the Earth’s biodiversity with the help of forest canopy access systems in tropical rainforests.
The knowledge landscapes in the South are certainly as relevant for the development of human kind as is the biodiversity in the rainforests. Take for example the competencies of the SANTREN Geologists with regards to environmental management in the mining industry of Zambia. Their knowledge is highly relevant and contextual. With enabling Internet applications at their website http://www.santren.com these Geologists do now provide their knowledge and knowledge related services to the Mining industry in other regions of the south – with significant competitive advantages.
IT@ASIA and IT@AFRICA - two timely and responsive development cooperation projects
Developing countries remain cut off from the informated business processes of the North if they do not build up their national ICT infrastructure and services and develop their human resources accordingly. They also miss out extensively business opportunities and their competitive advantages cannot be positioned efficiently. At the same time a vast proportion of knowledge resources of human kind remains locked and untapped.
During the journeys of the projects initiation phase through the regions in winter 2001 and spring 2002 Hoffmann & Reif witnenessed the enormous efforts all countries undertake to close the gaps and to overcome the digital divide.
All countries have established ambitious programmes for the ICT sector. Take Cambodia as an example: supported by South Korea the government just launched an ambitious US$ 26 million e-Government programme in which 27 ministeries get networked and - to name but a few – applications for the administration of residents, real estate and vehicles will be introduced.
Deregulation and privatisation are on their way. The ITU “Center of Excellence”, based in Bankok provides numerous training programmes including e-learning to support the Telcos in their transition phase.
The basic rationale for ICTs – rationalizing business and administrative processes in order to become more cost-efficient and market oriented – are clearly recognized.
Technological advance common in the North is needed in the South. Many experts see it as the only way to overcome the still growing gap between the North and South.
ICTs for education as a means of providing access to knowledge to a larger population of learners is high on the agenda everywhere. “Hungry minds” are challenging governments and demand access to education in a way traditional brick-and-mortar institutions are not able to fullfill. How – for example - should the 15 million teachers necessary to provide primary education for every child by 2015 become a reality? As Sir John Daniels, UNESCO’s assistant director-general for education said: “you’re not going to train 15 million just by adding a few seats in traditional teacher training establishments.”
Many governments and development agencies have recognized this issue. Japan launched the US$ 15 billion “Comprehensive Development Package” with a focus on ICT supported education and training in developing countries. Australia launched a similiar programme, the US$ 750 million “Virtual Colombo Plan”. The World Bank has been a pioneer in providing ICT development programmes for education and training for more than 6 years. IT@ASIA and IT@AFRICA will become part of these bold global initiaves.