Net Gain - Ghana

In the village of Patriensa in Ghana an innovative telecentre project is demonstrating that computers and electronic communication can make a positive contribution to village life, activities and incomes even in quite a remote rural location in sub-Saharan Africa. The village also now has an eye-catching and informative website that puts it firmly in the digital age and lets the world know about the village and the life of its people.

Patriensa is one of 26 villages and small towns in the Asante Akim North District close to and on the southern side of the centre of Ghana. This district has a population of about 130,000 and covers an area of about 1500 square kilometres. It is predominantly rural and many of the farmers are poor or very poor. Most grow crops such as maize and yam as well as vegetables for subsistence or local consumption. Provision of health services is very limited and there are few opportunities for earning an income outside farming. Consequently in many cases people with treatable illnesses become debilitated and unemployment and underemployment are high.

Regional Context

The Ashante Region in Ghana, centred on the city of Kumasi, is perhaps best known for its rich culture and its links to the historical extensive Kingdom of Asante. Outside Kumasi and the gold mining areas, economic opportunities are limited. However, in rural areas traditional community organisation is still active in many places and processes of community-based self-help continue to operate.

Although recent data are not available, there are currently likely to be only 20 to 30 internet subscribers per 10,000 people in Ghana. This is somewhat below the average for the whole of Africa, which is likely to be 40 to 50 per 10,000 people. This is in contrast with many countries in the North where the majority of households and businesses have direct access to e-mail and the internet; and those who do not would have considerable opportunities for public access and to learn about the services. Even in some African countries, such as South Africa, subscription rates are approaching 1000 per 10,000 of the population. In Ghana connectivity is far below this level. An additional barrier is the high cost of internet subscription, which is two to three times the cost for some countries in the North and South Africa.

In Ghana most of the relatively small total number of internet subscribers in the country are in the urban areas. In some parts of the rural areas internet subscribers are almost non-existent. Many villages are not connected to the electricity grid or to the landline telecommunications network. Very few rural people in Ghana are therefore in a position to see improvements from the opportunities that access to electronic information can open up, such as accessing a wide range of information, communicating more widely and enabling participation in a wider range of enterprise activities. There are also relatively few education and training opportunities in Ghana on digital ICTs (information and communications technologies), so this sector is still relatively underdeveloped and would be likely to offer significant potential for employing many more people in the future if its development is encouraged.

Development of the Telecentre

In many ways Patriensa, a small town of about 2000 people, is a typical settlement in Asante Akim North District and more widely in Ghana. What sets it apart from other similar settlements is the Asante Akim Multipurpose Community Telecentre (AAMCT) which has been steadily developed over the past five years.

The vision of AAMCT was created in a large part by Dr Osei Darkwa, a native of Patriensa who had studied in Norway and worked at the University of Illinois. He has also made a large personal commitment to the development of AAMCT.

The centre itself has been innovative in many ways. One remarkable feature has been that such a centre could be developed in this quite remote location where establishing digital ICT applications faced more difficult and numerous challenges than in more accessible locations. The main initial difficulty was that it was not possible to connect the telecentre to the electricity grid nor to telecommunications landlines.

To address the connectivity issue the project was able to obtain the support of the Greenstar Foundation, which had developed a telecentre concept based on using a solar photovoltaic power supply and satellite or cellular phone network communications.

The Patriensa Telecentre was set up in 2000 with the following facilities:

• Photovoltaic power array, provided by Deng Limited, a local solar power supplier;
• Family Sol*Saver water purifier, provided by Safe Water Systems of Hawaii;
• WorldSpace digital satellite radio;
• Hewlett-Packard 'e-PC' computer system incoporating 10 computers;
• Scanner and printer, supplied by Canon;
• Digital camera, supplied by Agfa;
• Library of CD-ROMs, assembled by Greenstar, covering a range of rural development and other informative and educative topics;
• Digital cellular phone and special data connection, supplied by Motorola, to provide a direct link to the Worldwide Web for the village.

In July and August 2001 a two-week cultural and artistic event was organised to formally inaugurate the telecentre.

Achievements

Since the centre began operating, its facilities and services have continued to be developed steadily. This development has been taken forward by the local Steering Committee and an international Advisory Board for the AAMCT. The Committee deals with day-to-day operational and management issues while the Advisory Board deals with the longer-term vision, strategy, opportunities and promotion.

The main achievements since the AAMCT was inaugurated have included:

• The development of health services including provision for traditional healing.
• The setting up and operation of a dedicated training centre that offers courses on digital communications, the internet and computer applications. The courses are fully accredited, and open to people from Patriensa and surrounding areas. AAMCT offers person-to-person training, and access to online self-teaching packages and online lectures and tutorials. Courses offered range from basic to advanced.
• Extension of the scope of the training courses to assist learners find work.
• Provision by the centre of basic education to adults who were unable to complete their schooling.
• The setting up of an electronic selling and marketing operation dealing in clothing items, ceramic mugs, decorated mouse pads and bags, produced or sourced locally.
• An e-learning resource centre for school pupils to use electronic resources and lessons for education through distance learning.
• The development of an informative website about the village of Patriensa and the AAMCT.
• The setting up of a guest house for Ghanaian and international visitors to the village and telecentre.
• The employment by the centre of 18 people, about half of whom are women.

Supporting New Jobs and Businesses

AAMCT has been proactive in identifying and developing new opportunities for jobs and incomes for local people. To achieve this the centre staff, in particular, have mobilised links with organisations nationally and internationally to seek collaboration. Outcomes of this have included the following.

• Computer hardware training

Outmoded computers and other used digital equipment, whether working or not, has been acquired from around the world to be used in training courses for trainees to dismantle then put together again, as well as for spare parts. It has also been possible to reinstate some of these machines for use in the centre. The aim of this training is to enable local people to find work as repair and maintenance technicians specialising in computer and other digital equipment.

• Software training

Local people have been trained in computer software applications, including Microsoft Windows Office, CorelDRAW and website development. The trainees should be in a good position to find jobs in the information technology sector, which is anticipated to grow rapidly in Ghana in the next few years.

• Bicycle renovation

An operation for sourcing and renovation of dilapidated bicycles has been set up by the centre. Most of the bicycles are shipped to the centre in collaboration with organisations such as Working Bikes, Pedals for Progress and Xaccess, which organise the collection of redundant bikes and spare parts from North America and other countries in the North, for shipping to Ghana and other developing countries where they can be refurbished and put back into use. In Patriensa the bicycles are rebuilt or used for building tricycles. Most people in the area have had to get about on foot. Now they can buy bicycles or tricycles from the centre at affordable prices. The cycles have been especially useful for farmers taking goods and produce to and from markets, for which the tricycle has been particularly important for transporting heavy and bulky loads, and for the health centre workers to get to outlying villages.

Man with one of the bicycles refurbished by AAMCT Credit: AAMCT - Patriensa

Stimulating the development of other business activities such as furniture making and traditional handicrafts.

Reducing the Digital Divide in Ghana

The AAMCT is one of only a small number of ICT-based projects that have been implemented successfully in Ghana. Some rural areas of the country remain at the lowest levels of digital connectivity compared with other parts of the world. The AAMCT model has great potential to be developed further and applied in other locations as well. A dedicated organisation - Ghana Computer Literacy & Distance Education (GhaCLAD), has been working on supporting digital initiatives in Ghana and was involved in the activities of AAMCT. It has been particularly active in organising training camps on ICTs for youths, seeking international ICT experts as volunteer trainers for Ghanaians and promoting the increase in the numbers of internet service providers (ISPs) and points of presence (PoPs) in Ghana and policies to facilitate this.

Further Information

AAMCT Patriensa
P.O. Box 502
Konongo, A/R
Ghana
E-mail:patmct@idngh.com
Website: http://www.patriensa.com/

Greenstar Foundation
5042 Wilshire Blvd., Ste. 575
Los Angeles, CA 90036
USA
Tel: +1-323-422-9602
mjnorth@greenstar.org (Michael North) http://www.greenstar.org/

Other Relevant Hands On Case Studies and Information Resources

Bridging the Digital Divide - China , December 2003, Series 4, http://www.tve.org/
ho/doc.cfm?aid=1380

Caribbean Connection - Dominican Republic , December 2003, Series 4, http://www.tve.org/ho/doc.cfm?aid=1378

Forecast Change - India , December 2003, Series 4, http://www.tve.org/ho/doc.cfm?aid=1393

Get Connected - South Africa , October 2004, Series 5, http://www.tve.org/ho/doc.cfm?aid=1608

Internet Oasis - Jordan , December 2003, Series 4, http://www.tve.org/ho/doc.cfm?aid=1379

New Bu$ - ine$$ - Zimbabwe, December 2003, Series 4, http://www.tve.org/ho/
doc.cfm?aid=1390

Rice Doctor - The Philippines , September 2004, Series 5, http://www.tve.org/ho/
doc.cfm?aid=1551

The Digital Revolution - Information and Communication Technologies , December 2003, Series 4, http://www.tve.org/ho/
doc.cfm?aid=1375

Acacia Initiative

http://web.idrc.ca/en/ev-5895-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html

The Acacia Initiative is primarily a programme of the Canadian based International Development and Research Centre (IDRC) and the African Information Society Initiative to research and develop ICT resources and applications in sub - Saharan Africa, link them to social and economic development and begin to close the digital divide. This web address is the entry point to a range of resources and findings on this initiative, including discussion of telecentre experiences, for example in South Africa, Uganda and Mozambique.

IDRC
PO Box 8500,
Ottawa, ON,
Canada
K1G 3H9
Tel: +1-613 236-6163
Fax: +1-613 238-7230
E-mail: info@idrc.ca

Other Information Resources

There are several other web-based resources that include some details about issues on digital connectivity and access to computer hardware and software, and case studies of resources development, for example of telecentres. Note that to access the full range of information on telecentres on these sites use the British and American variants of the spelling as the search term, i.e. ‘telecentres’ and ‘telecenters’. The following are some of the sites:

Drumbeat, the Communication Initiative - http://www.comminit.com/

iConnect Online - http://www.iconnect-online.org/home

ELDIS ICT for Development Resource Guide - http://www.eldis.org/ict/

TVE/ Practical Action gratefully acknowledge support for the HANDS ON programmes from the UK's Department for International Development (DFID), the European Commission (EC), the UN Foundation and UNDP/The Equator Initiative in collaboration with the Government of Canada, IDRC, IUCN, BrasilConnects and the Nature Conservancy.