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WSIS Geneva-Tunis: A Road to Hamlet

Friday 12 Oct 2007

Nikhil Agarwal

Nikhil Agarwal ¹
SP Jain Institute of
Management & Research,
Mumbai

Through this article I wish to initiate a discussion among practitioners for further investigation and debate to answer the above questions.

Addressing the 'Real' customer
The primary task government and development agencies to rightly identify the end user and address their burning needs. Let us take the example of India: India is the largest democracy and second most populous nation on earth with 1.2 billion people³. The Herculean task in front of Indian government is planning the ICT for Development agenda for such a diversified and large geographic area. One of the few initiatives Ministry of IT, Government of India has taken is to phase out National E-Governance Plan⁴. The immediate tasks in front of policy makers is to educate the implementers/stakeholders, invite partnerships, involve local governments and create a nation wide awareness for ICT4D.

Many of the thinkers in India believe that development is directly proportional to economic growth of the country. The endeavor should be of IT led economic growth, which would eventually lead to developmental initiatives. In other countries, the approach could be different but the goal would remain the same.

Resource Silo Traps: Lack of Capacity Building
People, Process, Policy and Technology are the key resources trapped in silos [Fig. 1]. These resources can be integrated through ICTs. The focus should be on building the capacity for optimum utilization of resources and dissemination them to the root level. There is a greater need for 360-degree assessment for integrating the resources and the dialogue between the all stakeholders. To achieve sustained development, new resources will need to be created, as it is not sufficient to increase capacity from only the currently addressed resource silos.

There is serious gap between the understanding of the policy makers, stakeholders and the implementers not only at the global level but also at regional level. The assembly of multiple thought processes & platforms presents a number of related organizational challenges. These challenges have included the ability to manage disparate – and often global – cultures, the resistance of the stakeholders with more traditional viewpoints, and the expectation of the community in general. Finally, these entities have been especially susceptible to fluctuations in the global cultural-economic environment. The efforts should be to achieve synergy through technological and organizational convergence.

During the discussion on this issue with Dr. Dhrupad Mathur, he pointed out that interventions are required for comprehensive capacity building to promote the ICT4D agenda. This will include organized set of activities to overcome various impediments between ICT4D mandate and its implementation:

Strategic Level understanding and program monitoring capacities.
Various social, legal and behavioral impediments that may call for policy reforms.
Building capacities across various levels of the stakeholders involving; the political decision makers, bureaucrats, industry & citizens-at-large.
Encouraging the participation of the private sector in the form of various model like PPP [Public-Private-Partnership].

Moreover, it is the broad level policy direction at the top and the political will that can drastically determine the fate of massive initiatives like ICT for the developmental activities in the given region.

Where We Are: An Analysis
WSIS Geneva-Tunis has given us a framework and idea to move ahead. Through this looking glass an as-of-now evaluation is proposed.

The Push-Pull-Monitor-Realign review strategy matrix provides us holistic perspective of setting up the pace of the implementation and help us in aligning with ICT4D goals [Fig. 2]. The further research in this area would result in putting exact tasks in each quadrant. These tasks should specific to the needs of the local community.

The Road Ahead
Mr. Yoshio Utsumi, Secretary General, ITU has said in Tunis, “This Summit is just a beginning”. The Global harmonization should be supported by the national coordination. The next strategic level initiatives should be Public-Private-Citizen [PPC] partnerships to foster the un-interrupted flow of knowledge. Agencies should derive local yet standardized measurement systems to evaluate the work done.

Finally, the onus is on us, the thinkers and practitioners, to take ICT4D agenda further and make our community better then ever, and help the tribal boy in realizing the dream.

	Significance and Learning		• Formation of Collaborative spirit. • Commitment towards building global information society • ICT4D essential for sustained global-national-local development.
	Successes of What we have desired		• Knowledge and experience exchange. • Enhanced dialogue between policymakers and stakeholders. • Building new partnership • Global expansion of ICT4D
	Failures		• Failure to address the 'real' customer. • Time wastage in re-generating resources • Mis-Management of existing resources. • Non-visibility of Change management at various levels.
	What we wish to do next		• Identification of bottlenecks • Identification of the needs of real customers. • Management, allocation & dissemination of resources
	What were wrong assumptions		• Governments will accept ICT4D as major agenda. • Support of people/policymakers will be immense.
	What are new ideas		• Integrate routine development work with ICT. • Synergies the activities of various agencies. • Create a local awareness platform to educate users-stakeholders.

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