Community Multimedia Centres

The Digital Divide in Figures:

• In 1998, nearly 50% of Internet users were women, while the percentage of female users in the developing countries lagged substantially behind (for example, less than 5% in the Middle East).
• Five hours Internet access per month can cost US$50 in Africa: the same amount buys unlimited access on high-speed networks in Europe.
• One in three people in North America have access to the Internet, compared to one in 2500 in South Asia and one in 125 in Latin America and the Caribbean.
• In 1996, only 11 African countries were connected to the Internet. In August 2000, 54 countries were connected.

This is a programme of UNESCO addressing the digital divide in some of the poorest communities of the developing world.

Community Multimedia Centres combine local media, especially radio, by local people in local languages with information and communication technology (ICT) applications in a wide range of social, economic and cultural areas. An interactive and participatory approach ensures that the ICTs are genuinely enabling technologies for all members of the community. The centre can integrate radio, ICTs and a public library into a single facility or they can be linked as separate facilities into networks.

The Community Multimedia Centre is a gateway to active membership of the global knowledge society.

COMMUNITY RADIO + THE COMMUNINITY TELECENTRE = THE COMMUNITY MULTIMEDIA CENTRE

COMMUNITY RADIO is low-cost, easy to operate, reaches all members of the community in their own languages and, as a local, grass-roots media, it maximises the potential for development to be drawn from sharing information, knowledge and skills within the community. Community radio not only informs, educates and entertains; it also empowers the community by giving a strong public voice to the voiceless, which encourages greater accountability in public affairs.

THE COMMUNITY TELECENTRE allows even the most remote village to communicate and exchange information with the rest of the world, to locally manage, produce and access information for development. With training courses and the presence of facilitators, many people, and not only the best-educated, can use the ICT resources individually or in small groups. For example, the use made of the telecentre by teachers, health workers and NGOs directly benefits students, patients and citizens.

THE COMMUNITY MULTIMEDIA CENTRE, by integrating the two, actively combines local contact and global contact, local content and global content, offering new possibilities for engaging a community in its own development. The added value of the Community Multimedia Centre derives from the unbroken continuum of information and communication that is established: between the literate and the illiterate, between local, national and international languages, between the spoken and the written word.

The Multimedia Centre enables members of a community to become recognised actors in the process of developing knowledge.

Local people can develop their own community database, sound archive and library, building up a store of local and external information for educational, informational and developmental requirements. Even the illiterate can participate, actively identifying the type of informaiton needed and responding to information gathered on 'radio-browsing' programmes where the community radio presenter searches Internet on behalf of the listeners, or benefitting from specially-designed multimedia applications. The more a community is in charge of its own access to and exchange of information, the more meaningful the knowledge acquired or generated will be to that community.

Community Radio and Multipurpose Telecentres are now successfully operating in many communities in developing countries around the world. Ther are today unprecedented opportunities for disadvantaged communities to harness ICTs by setting up Multimedia Centres. Public authorities and the international community can facilitate this effort through solidarity and cooperation which supports:

• the development and use of the full range of ICTs, especially linking community radio networds and the Internet
• the production, translation and sharing of content and development-oriented applications
• the implementation of pilot projects corresponding to different cultural and development situations
• the inventorying, evaluation and exchange of experience at the national and international levels
• appropriate national policies to encourage community action and cooperation ont he basis of successful models

With telecentre facilities, even the most remote village can access data, communicate and exchange information with the rest of the world.

Figures based on UNESCO's 'Telecentre Cookbook for Africa'.

Equipment accounts for only part of the cost of a cummunity telecentre, which typically requires an investmnet of US$50,000 to US$100,000 for premises, promotion, training, information materials, application development and possibly the costs of improving local telecommunication infrastructure, to which must be added recurrent costs (salaries, maintenance, depreciation, etc.). In contrast, a community radio station can be launched for less than US$10,000 ad recurrent costs are lower.

To recover costs, the telcentre seeks subsidies or contracts for some services and charges for others. For poor farmers, a simple phone call may help price a crop - a good investment. A small payment to access and printo out an administrative form kept on the computer saves villagers a costly and time-consuming journey to town to pick up the form.

Partners

This programme has been launched within the framework of the Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP). UNESCO is the designated 'champion' agency for the world-wide GKP component in this specific area (GKP Action Plan, Access Theme, Action Item 3) which invlives UN system agencies such as ECA, FAO, the ITU, UNDP, UNFPA and the World Bank, as well as bilateral development agencies includeing CIDA, IICD and IDRC, and international NGOs such as APC, AMARC, One World, ORBICOM and VITA. Community media associations and NGOs involved in communication for community development in the participating countries also play a central role, serving as local project partners.