Creating and Sustaining ICT Projects in Mozambique

This report is found on Section II: Gateways, chapter eight on the The One to Watch: Radio, New ICTs and Interactivity publication

Introduction

We are standing on the threshold of the knowledge society, in which access to and command of knowledge and knowledge-systems are decisive factors for cultural, political and economic development. As a result, educated and affluent populations all over the world, including in Mozambique, find themselves increasingly part of a knowledge-based and ICT-driven economy.


But what does this mean to the majority of people living in Mozambique - who are neither educated nor affluent and who live in one of the poorest countries in the world at the very early stages of democratization. What promise does the knowledge economy hold out for a country in which even mid-level education is the privilege of a small urban elite and where thirty years of war have resulted in a basic mistrust within communities that has all but destroyed the social norms necessary for the holding and passing on of traditional knowledge? What role will ICTs have in a country with a virtually non-existent telecommunications infrastructure and in which bad infrastructure and unfavourable weather conditions make crossing the country by road impossible for most of the year, while crossing by air costs some four month's salary of a well-paid civil servant? What will be the role of the media in a place where as recently as three years ago most senior journalists outside of the capital had never seen or touched a computer, many had never watched TV, and where the media are still largely concentrated in the capital, some 2000 kilometres south of the northern border with Tanzania?


This reality places most Mozambicans so far away from the digital divide that one might ask whether modern information and knowledge systems are even relevant to the majority of the country's population - a provocative question that can be addressed by highlighting a few important points.


First, the right to development is shared by all people. If relevant information is not accessible, it is impossible for individuals and communities to become aware of important aspects of their situation, analyse it, and take action to improve it. Denying access to information and knowledge systems to certain parts of population also denies them the right to (participate in) their own development.


Second, even a remote community in Mozambique is interconnected with the outside world through family, political, administrative, economic, cultural and environmental ties. In order to influence their own development, rather than being the object of external decisions and developments, communities and individuals need access to information and knowledge, and they need the means to make their voices heard.


A more interesting - and difficult - question is how to provide access, and thus empowerment, to much larger parts of the Mozambican society than is currently the case. The next section of this chapter looks at a number of opportunities and obstacles to ensuring access to both infrastructure and relevant content. Following that we will look at UNESCO's approach to creating relevant and sustainable media for the Mozambican context with community radio. Finally, the last section deals with the question of how these (and other) approaches can further develop in order to reach a growing segment of the population.

Conclusion

Mozambique has had its share of white elephants, the remains of optimistic development plans that do not succeed for a variety of complex reasons. The collapse of dreams carries along disappointment and frustration among the development beneficiaries - and the loss of yet a bit more willingness to strive for things to ever change.


After years of war, natural catastrophes and a life at the bottom of all international economic and human development statistics, Mozambique deserves better. UNESCO Mozambique is presently one of three parties spearheading the initiation of a national community radio network, with the core mandate to establish sustainable systems in the area of training, technical maintenance and appropriate financial solutions. These efforts are at an initial stage of development. But we need to start somewhere. And without such concerted efforts, we will not go anywhere. While real magic seems to come from nowhere, we know that in Mozambique, the community magic for social change will only work if it is a result of concerted efforts of development actors based on understanding and analysis and directed by empowered community commitment.