Technology is never neutral. The history of human society provides many examples of technology empowering some individuals, groups, or nations while excluding others. The impact of ICT on the distribution of power and development has given rise to many questions: Is Information and Communication Technology (ICT) essential for the sustainable development of Malawi, considering the profound impact it has at both economic and social levels all over the world? How and when will developing nations be able to reach the ICT levels of industrially developed countries?
How can Malawi turn the ICT potential into real benefits for its people? Is it putting into place appropriate institutional, regulatory and legal framework that should effectively support successful deployment and utilization of ICT in all sectors of national development or is it having good ICT policy?
The answer to these and other questions requires an analysis of the relevance of development within the context of ICT.
The ICT Sector in Malawi is currently experiencing significant developments. The GSM (Global System for Mobile communication, a digital mobile telephony system) coverage is now at 85% with 3 mobile telephone operators that are operational. There are also 2 fixed telephone operators that are currently operational. With these operators Malawi is having a teledensity (The number of landline telephones in use for every 100 individuals living within an area) of 19% which is below the SADC regional average of around 40%. The country now is connected to the undersea optic fiber cable through Mozambique and Tanzania.
ICT AFFECTING THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIETY, MGDS
ICTs has helpful tools for enhancing accountability, transparency, citizen engagement, public debate, participation and local ownership of the development process — all of which will help achievement of the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy.
How then can government, organisations integrate ICTs into development strategies?
Mobiles and other ICTs have an immediate and striking impact at the family and community level, connecting people for personal, business and community reasons. Mobile devices save individuals time and money and are indispensable in emergencies and for connecting people to the larger world, such as for remittances and commodity pricing. Mobiles and ICTs can help people access information, improve their education, maintain social networks, participate in governance and community, and generate income.
Providing equipment directly is one way to think about ICTs in development programs. This includes ICT tools such as computers, mobile phones, video cameras, digital cameras, radio equipment, electricity, and Internet access. Often direct ICT support is considered for education programs and efforts focused primarily on ICT training or media projects. Computer centers and classrooms are an example, as is supplying mobile phones to project participants or GPS units for mapping projects or equipment for health programs. If this equipment and the information it collects are managed at the community or local organization level, it can enable people to assess and respond to local development needs in a powerful way.
The availability of ICTs is obviously a pre-cursor to using them in different programs and projects.
The wealth of knowledge and information that a development organization generates and uses needs to be documented, shared and communicated effectively in order to improve impact. Advances in knowledge management and on-line collaboration, including blogs, wikis and other social media tools and feedback mechanisms can bring immediate access to information and real-time discussion. Lower cost technology, notably in the areas of digital mapping, GPS, mobile mapping, mobile internet can help staff to carry out their daily work and improve information sharing and decision-making across departments and to engage and inform the public. E-Diplomacy, Engagement with donors can also be enhanced through ICT tools and social media, always taking into consideration the additional burden 24/7 demands can add to staff’s workload, and the child protection and other risks posed by more direct access to communities.
ICTs and social media can help make aid and development organizations more participatory, more agile, and able to pull in information from variety of sources and process it faster. This in turn can help pull people out of their silos and force them to consider new ideas and ways of working and thinking about challenges. Mobiles especially are helpful for better communication with community members and local organizations. Forward thinking organizations should be taking advantage of these new tools to gather direct feedback from those that they are supporting, for better dialog to improve their work, and for devolving helpful information to community members. Mobile data collection, for example, in addition to being a strategic tool for program implementation, can also be a way of improving the quality of data collection and increasing ownership by community members of their own data which support them to take back management of their own development processes from external agents. Mobiles are also a great tool for gathering data quickly from a broad subset of the population; data which can shape rapid responses and emergency interventions.
Twitter and blogging and other web-based services can serve as a springboard for deeper discussions and coordination among different development actors, government agents, institutions and the private sector. Social media is a way to share and discuss lessons learned and challenges faced, and to diffuse information about new ICTs and how they are being used by different agencies and individuals. Global partnerships can easily be initiated, developed and nurtured on-line. Organizations can provide on-line training opportunities to staff and save time and money by using new technologies such as forums, blogs for sharing and reporting, Skype and chat tools, and social networking. These same tools can be used to improve relationships with donors and with partners and staff working in disperse offices. However, in order for any of the above to happen, command and control practices that are common in large institutions and organizations need to be abolished so that the tools can be most useful.
NOTABLE ICT CHALLENGES IN MALAWI
The Digital Divide.
The wiki definition of Digital divide is a rift between individuals, households, businesses and geographic areas at different socio-economic levels with regard both to their opportunities to access information and communications technologies (ICTs) and to their use of the Internet for a wide variety of activities.[1]It includes the imbalance both in physical access to technology and the resources and skills needed to effectively participate as a digital citizen.
ICT developments leave the developing world behind at a much faster rate than advances in other fields (e.g agriculture or medical techniques) and, as the developed world has the necessary tools to successfully use these technological advances, the digital divide appears to be continuously and rapidly widening.
As a nation we need to move away from the traditional focus on number of computers, mobile phone handsets, the number of Internet websites, or available bandwidth as a way of measuring digital success. We need to focus on the broader impact of ICT on society. Other elements include a regulatory framework, financial support, available human resources, and other sociocultural conditions. These are the issues been addressed in ICT Association of Malawi (ICTAM) strategic areas.
Universal Access
Access for all? Another frequently mentioned concept in the development debate is universal access which means access for all. Supposedly, it should be the cornerstone of any ICT development policy, differing perceptions and conceptions of the nature and scope of this universal access policy remain. Creation of telecentres approach has been adopted by the Malawi government through MACRA (Malawi communication regulatory authority). The question of sustainability renders a lot of doubts to the approach. In some countries universal access is a well-developed economic and legal concept. Lets take for instance the case of South Africa and Botswana where providing telecommunication access to all citizens has been the basis of their Telecommunication policy. The result has been a well developed system of various policy and financial mechanisms, the purpose of which is to subsidise access costs in remote areas and regions with high connection costs. The subsidy is financed by regions with low connection costs, primarily the big cities.
On a large extent the following changes are hugely affecting the penetration of ICT into rural areas; power or energy, connectivity, environment and human capacity. These challenges can be addressed by using energy saving technology, connecting unconnected areas using mobile technologies, define our ICT infrastructure and providing ICT training to all.
While the country has seen some reduction in telephony and Internet charges, the cost of communication remains high. The country is still facing sporadic provision of services in terms of coverage, uncollaborated efforts on infrastructure development resulting in duplicated efforts and wastage of resources which could have been rationally shared among service providers. There still exists intermittent availability of service, lack of local content in terms of provision of information, and very low usage of technology throughout the country. Human resource capacity is still very low in terms of ability to produce technology for domestic and export consumption as well as in terms of managing huge investment of technology already made and envisaged. Regulation has been a major challenge due to the use of outdated laws and a lack of regulatory frameworks for the sector.
Import duty on some on computers and telephone handsets were removed to enable more people acquire such equipment, but there is still need to reduce the taxes further, as well as to reduce or remove all taxes on all ICT equipment and spare parts to promote innovations on ICT equipment assembly, maintenance and manufacturing.
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