332 research outputs found

    The perspective of stakeholders regarding access to ICT in rural communities of uMgungundlovu District Municipality.

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    Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg.Understanding stakeholders’ perspectives regarding access to information and communication technology (ICT) is a critical aspect of ICT for Development (ICT4D). The rural communities of uMgungundlovu District Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa were studied to investigate the current means of accessing information using ICT; the factors that affect access to ICT in the rural communities; the literacy level and technological skills of local communities and the stakeholders. The challenges that have the potential to undermine the implementation of ICTs were also identified. The study used a sequential mixed methods design that entailed the collection of qualitative data subsequent to the quantitative data collection to address the research questions. A non-proportional stratified sampling technique to collect data from 61 stakeholders was utilised. Self-administered questionnaires were used to collect quantitative data from 26 councillors, 5 municipal managers, 5 corporate services mangers, and 5 ICT managers, while semi-structured interviews were used to collect qualitative data from 20 ward committee members. The quantitative data was analysed using SPSS statistical software and the qualitative data was analysed with thematic content analysis. The findings of the study from the rural stakeholders’ perspectives revealed that radio was used the most to access information followed by word-of-mouth, cellular phone, newspaper, community gatherings, while TV, letter writing and internet had the lowest usage. On the other hand municipal managers recognise the need for ICT for the economic advancement of the region, which requires the adoption of suitable ICT policies and their annual review. Furthermore municipal managers understood that current information on the municipality website and access to the municipality website were important. Almost all of the Ward committee members had knowledge of Community based digital hubs and all of them wanted the Community based digital hub (CBDH) to be established in their communities. The perspective of the committee Ward members on the technological and computer literacy levels of their respective communities shows an even distribution between the community members with knowledge of CBDH and those without. The communities are not trained to use communication tools but their perception on youth training with respect to the use of communication tools were significantly different, since some of the youths have undergone some level of computer training on account of the schools they attended. The greatest challenge to the establishment of community-based digital hubs (CBDH) was lack of availability of land, followed by lack of electricity, shortage of skilled people to manage the CBDH, maintenance of the structure, difficulty of permission to build the CBDH and comunal land conflicts. Recommendations based on the findings of the study are presented, while further research should focus on the factors and challenges that influence access to ICT in rural communities in South Africa from the perspectives of rural community members

    Factors affecting how the youth in the townships use internet to seek employment: case of a township in Cape Town

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    Problem Statement: South Africa is currently facing a challenge of youth unemployment. The hardest hit are those from low income communities, as they in addition have limited access to information. The Internet has proven to be one of the ways in which recruitment is done and failure to access reduces the opportunities. The purpose of the research: The main objective of this study was to understand how the youth living in the townships use the Internet to seek for employment. The purpose of this study is to assess how the Internet use affect the youth when searching for employment. Design/methodology/ approach: An interpretivist approach was employed to understand how the youth seek employment. This study used a qualitative approach to collect the data. Interviews were done using semi-structured questions. Alampay (2006) Capability Approach (CA) was used as a guide to conceptualise how the youth from low-income communities use the Internet to find employment. Borrowing from the four main constructs (conversion factors, freedom, capabilities and functionings) employed by Alampay (2006) in his model, this study operationalised the Alampay (2006) CA model by adding the ICT commodities as the fifth construct. The CA was chosen as an appropriate framework for this study because the framework focuses on what humans are able to do and achieve when presented with the available ICT resources. Findings: The findings demonstrate that the lack of resources, income, information and digital skills affected the individual capabilities to effectively use the Internet when seeking employment. The success rate in finding a job using the Internet was low among job seekers. Commodities, individual differences, social and environmental factors affected how the youth (18-34 years) from low-income communities use the Internet to find employment. In addition, crime, poor network coverage, expensive data bundles and limited access to ICT resources were among the key factors that contributed to limited use of the Internet among job seekers. Research Contribution: This study seeks to close the gap in limited knowledge available in developing countries with regards to the use of the Internet among job seekers. Therefore, based on the study findings, this thesis has contributed towards adding value to the body of knowledge within the field of Information Systems. In addition, the findings can contribute towards assisting policy makers in solving challenges faced by the unemployment youth in developing countries when using technology to find employment

    Public Access ICT: A South-South comparative analysis of libraries, telecentres and cybercafés in South Africa and Brazil

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    Over the past decade, many developing countries have initiated programs that provide public access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) as key components of their strategies for social and economic development. However different countries have had varying levels of success. In this paper we present a comparative analysis of public access ICT in South Africa and Brazil. The two countries are the most developed in their respective regions. Drawing on results of a larger qualitative study of 25 countries, we seek to explain differences in the levels of success in public access ICT programs in South Africa and Brazil. We focus on issues of Access, Capacity and Environment, and seek to explain why Brazil ranks consistently higher than South Africa in all key variables of our analysis. This analysis helps to understand the relative strengths and weaknesses of the public access initiatives in both countries, and validates the analytical framework developed for this study

    Literature review of how Telecentres operate and have an impact on eInclusion. Exploratory study on explanations and theories of how Telecentres and other community-based e-Inclusion actors operate and have an impact on digital and social inclusion policy goals

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    This report includes the results of the research project ‘Exploratory study on explanations and theories of how Telecentres and other community-based e-Inclusion actors operate and have an impact on digital and social inclusion policy goals’. This study was commissioned by IPTS to feed into a forthcoming 2-year research project: Measuring the impact of eInclusion actors on Digital Literacy, Skills and Inclusion goals (MIREIA). The literature review presented in this report was designed to capture the theories and explanations represented in the existing body of research in order to: provide a comprehensive and multidisciplinary landscape on theories and analytical frameworks; analyze the value of these theories and analytical frameworks based on predefined criteria and; Develop recommendations on the most promising theoretical pillars that could inform the future research mentioned above. A two-phase research approach was designed: 1) An extended mapping of the literature from the last ten years in which over 100 articles, reports and books were reviewed, coded and identified the most dominant and/or common explanations in relation to the work of e-Inclusion actors; and 2) a selection, categorization, and in-depth coding of these explanations vis-à-vis different impact areas, as well as in relation to institutional capacity. As a conclusion it has been noted that although a lot of the research on eInclusion is set out to measure impacts, in reality studies often end up with some measures of usage and analysis of why expected impacts were not achieved. In addition, there is a large proportion of available literature on telecenters and other such eInclusion actors which is based more on perceived potential than on demonstrated fact and highly contextualized studies, making it difficult to identify valid or reliable trends. These findings will be taken into account in the development of the different tasks of the MIREIA project.JRC.J.3-Information Societ

    Sustainable Rural Development through Union Digital Center: The Citizen Empowerment Perspective

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    Sustainable development depends on the empowerment of the vast portion of rural people. Bangladesh Government has taken initiatives to empower the disadvantaged people (i.e., elderly, poor and minority) through digitalization programs, e.g., union digital centers (UDCs). This study aimed to investigate the influential factors on the empowerment process by adopting the individual and collective empowerment dimensions. A total of 400 rural people were selected with a judgmental sampling process and provided a structured questionnaire. Data were analyzed by using SPSS for descriptive analysis and CB-SEM using AMOS for effect assessment. Individual empowerment and collective empowerment have significant impacts on sustainable development. It is argued that for sustainable development and reaching development benefits to every house, rural people must be empowered. The findings will contribute to the body of knowledge theoretically and assume policymakers insights to focus on rural people's development with the nation. Future researchers can add other social factors. Keywords: Union Digital Center, Social Inclusion, Empowerment, Sustainable Development

    Access and Use of Information by Rural Communities in Arid and Semi-arid Lands (ASALs) of Kenya: the Case of Maarifa Centres

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    Telecentres are community knowledge centres that offer shared access to information and Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) for the benefit of community development in alleviation of poverty. This article presents a case study that explored the extent to which rural communities in ASALs region of Kenya access and use information from the Maarifa centres (MC). The objective was to examine access and use pattern of information by ASAL communities benefiting from the MC. Using a multiple case study, 80 respondents drawn from five Maarifa centres were interviewed. The respondents were users of the respective Maarifa centres. The Maarifa centres selected  were namely; Nguruman MC in Magadi, Mutomo MC in Kitui, Isinya MC in Kajiado, Ng’arua MC in Laikipia and Sipili MC in Baringo. Further, five focus group discussions were conducted with the respondents. Key informants interviewed included, Director of Arid Lands Information Network (ALIN); Programme Coordinators of Maarifa centres; Officers of the Communication Authority of Kenya and the ICT board of Kenya.  Major findings indicate that rural communities appreciate Maarifa centres as a source of information. The respondents valued Maarifa centres as intermediaries for accessing information for socio-economic development. The biggest achievement is the use of Sokopepe, an online knowledge management platform which can be accessed through computers or the mobile phone. The challenges that hinder effective access and use of information are mainly infrastructural which slow down information uptake and internet access. The study revealed that Maarifa centres have addressed most of the community’s information needs of government information through access to e-government services; e-commerce, agricultural development and knowledge creation, resulting in improved livelihoods. Provision of these services was possible through collaboration of the government ministries and agencies, development partners, funding agencies and community participation. Keywords: Telecentres, Information access, Knowledge management, ASALs DOI: 10.7176/IKM/10-5-04 Publication date:August 31st 202

    An investigation on individual empowerment of telecentres users : A case study of three Pusat Internet Desa (PIDS) in Northern States of Malaysia

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    Community informatics is an area that focuses on the implementation and application of information technology in communities. Empowerment as an important concept used in assessing the impact of technology within organizations and communities. The potential of empowering the communities is through the development of telecentres that provide a platform for acquiring various skills and knowledge. Nevertheless, previous studies indicated various problems in engaging community when using the telecentre. In addition, most of these studies were concentrating on the operational aspects of the telecentre rather than the users. Thus, the objectives of this study are to describe how psychological empowerment constructs such as intrapersonal, interactional, and behavioural reflect empowerment of Pusat Internet Desa (PID) users and propose a telecentre users empowerment model. This study had applied the psychological empowerment (PE) theory introduced by Zimmerman in 1998 to examine the empowerment outcome of the telecentres implementation. The study was conducted using qualitative investigation of the multiple-case study of PIDs. Data was obtained from the users through openended questionnaires and face-to-face interview. Observation was also carried out on the users’ behaviours and PID activities, while documentation reviews were performed based on the PID annual reports and bulletins. Data analysis was done using interpretation technique. The findings reveal that all factors; perceived control, self-efficacy, competence, motivation, critical awareness, decision making skill, problem solving skill, and coping and participation; show positive feedback except for leadership skill. This indicates that telecentre establishments can help in empowering the rural community in Malaysia. In addition, it is confirmed that the Zimmerman empowerment theory can be applied in the information systems environment. This study contributes to the development of a telecentre user psychological empowerment model. Moreover, it also contributes to the information systems body of knowledge particularly in the area of community informatics as well as to the telecentre establishment policies

    Mid-term assessment of the ACACIA program of IDRC, 1997-2000

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    ‘Acacia’ has invested $3.7 million in community telecentre activities, representing the most important area of program concentration. This review looks at outcomes of Acacia's projects; assesses how far the program is integrated; mechanisms which are in place to support integration and synthesis; looks at shared vision and understanding of Acacia's purpose and objectives among the National Acacia Advisory Committees, project leaders, and within Acacia and IDRC. It reviews whether projects are demand- or supply-driven, and which recipients are traditional IDRC partners

    Urban inequality and information and communication technologies (ICT)

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    Human societies are commonly faced with the challenge of addressing social inequality, but this challenge is one of the most “contested” arenas of urban planning in South Africa. Parallel high levels of socio-economic and spatial inequalities, a “revolution” that is based on information and communications technologies is exacerbating existing socio-spatial patterns. However, these ICTs are seen by some as having a dual character, and hence the potential to advance the social and economic well-being of the poor. Developing countries have thus embraced these new technologies as a means of resolving social inequalities. To what extent do ICTs achieve this? In addition, what role is there for urban planning in ensuring that ICTs resolves social inequalit
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