SDNP Cameroon: Bridging IT Gaps
"People are poor because they don't have information. They lack the power information can give them."
Wawa Ngenge, National Co-ordinator, SDNP, Cameroon
If you subscribed to WAZA, a sustainable development networking tool of SDNP, Cameroon, you would be receiving several short articles each week, on a variety of subjects related to sustainable development in Africa. Forty-four organisations and individuals are on this mailing list, named for a Cameroonian nature reserve.Dr. Martin Sama, a researcher in tropical medicine and medicinal plants, is a WAZA subscriber. "Just yesterday I got information about the Ebola virus," says Dr. Sama. "That is important to me as a medical researcher. Because of SDNP, people know what's going on, even on human rights issues. People just didn't know before. Things happen in this country that you may only see on WAZA or other such lists. You don't get it in the media." WAZA provides not only information but also networking opportunities to subscribers, who are invited to add their own news bulletins to the mix, and to break off into smaller email discussion groups based on specific topics.
Top-down technology?
Since SDNP Cameroon was established in September 1996, it has struggled with the headaches of introducing cutting-edge technology in a country with a mostly rural population, a 63 percent literacy rate, a per capita GDP of US $2,355, and five telephone lines for every 1,000 people. Considering the odds, the mere existence and regular functioning of an email mailing list like WAZA is quite an achievement."In a country like Cameroon, these technologies are just top-down strategies," says Dr. Sama. "The basic structures were not laid down before SDNP came. For example, when a modem breaks down, there is no technician to look at it." And the deplorable shortage of telephone lines is a major constraint.
"When SDNP came along, people were willing to get the technology, but the means of getting it was not there. Even to get a phone was like going to the moon, and a modem is still as scarce as lion's teeth. People knew this was a necessary technology -- in Cameroon information is sacred. Cameroonians were eager to go out and look for information, because the government was not ready to release it. The problem was that the structures were not yet in place."
Making the Most of Resources
This is why SDNP's approach quickly became service-oriented, geared to helping people bridge the gaps in the local infrastructure and make use of the new technologies as best they could under (hopefully temporary) circumstances. And the provision of such services, as well as training, has been achieved not so much through spending money as through networking.Relying heavily on local resources, Mr. Ngenge managed to stretch the US $250,000 in UNDP project funds for an additional year beyond its planned two-year period. "We were rather parsimonious in the use of monies," he explains. "We didn't want to just go out and spend money without properly targeting our activities. So we chose the type of activities which required the least UNDP resources, and we called more on the resources of the network of members which we put together."
This network consists of nearly 300 members - scientists, NGOs, academics, government officials and a few private business people. This mix is reflected not only on SDNP-CM's steering committee but also is the nucleus of representation in its training workshops in Information Technologies (IT), its first subscribers to email mailing lists like WAZA, and its first users of SDNP-CM for Internet access. "These people worked with us to identify specific areas of information and communication technologies which they can apply to their daily activities," says Mr. Ngenge. "The tool they picked up the fastest was email, which they use individually as well as in discussion groups."
Targeting the grassroots
As an advocate for sustainable development, SDNP's ultimate target group also included the grassroots population in Cameroon, the majority who stand to benefit most from access to information about sustainable development. "People are poor because they don't have information," says Mr. Ngenge. "That is a kind of poverty, because it excludes them from decision-making. They lack the power information can give them."Ironically, of course, these are the very people who usually live beyond the reach of telephone lines, email and the Internet and who, if they can read and write, have probably never seen a computer, let alone learned how to use one. But many of SDNP's members serve as intermediaries, working with this grass-roots population. Among them are rural NGOs, women's groups, and farmers' associations. "Farmers need information," says Mr. Ngenge, "so we work with groups who use email to access information which can help the farmers produce, store and sell better."
Satisfied customers
In 1996, there was no Internet access in Cameroon and only a handful of email providers. By early 1997, SDNP-CM had set up an email server (using UUCP) connected to SDNP's server in New York, which functioned as a gateway to the Internet. Still, many people were skeptical about the new technologies. "We never understood what email was until SDNP installed it in our organisation," says Perpetua Mbonifor, Administrative Assistant at Bioresources Development and Conservation Programme-Cameroon (BDCPC)."It was not easy for them to convince us about the importance of email. It took almost a year before we were willing to accept the installation." (The cost of installation and initial training is 15,000 francs CFA, or approximately US $25. A modem costs 200,000, or about US $330.) Now, Ms. Mbonifor says she cannot imagine life without email. "It is the best tool of communication we have," she says. "We communicate with our partners abroad at least twice a day. Our organisation has saved money with the installation of email."
By holding workshops and conducting seminars, SDNP has trained more than 700 people in areas such as email, Internet access and web page design, all at no cost to the project. "We spent no project money on training," he says. "All the training is done with member resources. We meet once a month to give one-day workshops to people who come from all parts of the country, and then they carry the message back to their friends."
The members liked the arrangement. "At the monthly meetings, we are taught how to create web sites, how to visit web sites, how to download or check your mail when you are in another country," says Perpetua Mbonifor. "These meetings also help us make contacts and exchange ideas."
For a monthly fee of 10,000 francs CFA (about US $16), members receive email service via a dial-up line connected to SDNP headquarters at UNDP in New York, which involved a further savings to the project. "It was the only sustainable way we could go through the apprenticeship period of getting access to email on the Internet, when there was no full Internet access in the country," says Mr. Ngenge. "This came later, in March of 1997."
Internet Access made Easy
In June 1997, SDNP gained access to the Internet through the government-owned provider, Camnet, though it continues to handle email via New York. Still, on-line time is prohibitively expensive for the average Cameroonian, (approximately US $3.23 an hour) and commercial providers charge far more than SDNP for Internet access, while providing far fewer services."People went to the private sector and discovered that they couldn't afford it, so they came to us," says Mr. Ngenge. "Internet access can cost as much as 100,000 francs CFA (US $162) per month, for unlimited access. We were offering access plus multiple services for 10,000 francs. The average monthly salary of a civil servant with a Master's Degree and ten years' experience is about 100,000 francs CFA. That's a big part of the problem of access to the Internet in Cameroon."
Another aspect of the challenge is the poor quality of phone lines in Cameroon, particularly for the many network members located outside the capital. So, since few of their members could afford direct Internet access, Mr. Ngenge and his colleagues decided to include this access in the members' US $16 monthly fee, by using the service they already had: email. "If any network member needs research done on a specific topic," he explains, "they send us an email, we do the research, identify the appropriate web pages, download them, bundle them and send them out onto the network as attachments to email."
Unorthodox as it sounds, the system seems to work. "I think providing help with research on the web is one of the most important achievements of SDNP Cameroon," says Perpetua Mbonifor of Bioresources Development. "Before, I couldn't imagine that someone could write a paper without going to a library to do research. But having just an idea of what you want and using the Internet, you will find millions of papers on that topic. Now, the Internet is gradually replacing the library in our office."
But sometimes, the "millions" of items available on the Net can be a problem. In such cases, members bring a diskette into the project office and a project worker accesses the Internet. Then the members point out the documents they want to download on their diskette. "We find thousands of items, and they choose six or seven," says Mr. Ngenge. "We are not experts in their field. Only they can say, 'Oh, that title looks good,' so we download it onto their diskette." When appropriate, SDNP then places such information on its mailing lists for the benefit of all members who might find it useful.
The Help Desk
SDNP-CM has never forgotten that its mandate is to promote electronic communications, not to make money or accumulate clients for itself. This is why it unstintingly provides "hand-holding" of all kinds, not only for fee-paying members but for anyone who needs it, even the clients of commercial ISPs. With Cameroon's inadequate infrastructure and limited technical expertise, the SDNP Help Desk is often the only help in town."Anybody connected to the Internet, anywhere in the country, even if they don't use our server, can call on us for help during working hours, free of charge " says Mr. Ngenge. "We will help them solve the problem if it can be solved by phone, and if somebody needs to go to their site, they get charged the cost of transportation and a subsistence allowance, if it's outside of Yaounde. (SDNP-CM has no car or driver.) If it's in Yaounde it's totally free."
Since commercial ISPs seldom provide training or technical support, many people need help in performing simple tasks such as sending an email with an attachment. "One of our mandates is to promote the use of the Internet," says Mr. Ngenge, "and we do it by helping people understand how to use it. Unless they know how to use it, they cannot decide when to use it. If a lot of people succeed in using the Internet, then they learn to use it for their normal activities. That means our mission has been accomplished."
Planning for the future
At this writing, the SDNP-CM UNDP project is undergoing evaluation, and the future of SDNP-Cameroon is unclear. But Wawa Ngenge and his Management Committee are cautiously optimistic that once the issue of SDNP-CM's legal status is resolved, and it can use the revenues it has generated toward self-sufficiency, it will continue to play an important role in promoting the use of IT in Cameroon.In addition to doing more advocacy, awareness-raising and training, Mr. Ngenge would like to start providing email and Internet access to rural villages. Already he knows of a few cases where a local official, literate in English or French, has a computer, and access to electricity, and helps local people send and receive email messages. If and when SDNP-CM becomes an official Cameroonian entity, perhaps an NGO, it will have access to the US $20,000 it has already generated in revenues, and will be in a position to raise more money for such services from a variety of donors.
For Management Committee Chairman Ambassador Salomon Bakoto, the greatest contribution of SDNP-CM so far is that it was quite simply the gateway through which IT entered Cameroon! "Thanks to SDNP -- the public sector and the government now know that they can get information easily. Thanks to our meetings, they know there is a new infrastructure here."
But what of the technical, infrastructural barriers to the proliferation of IT in Cameroon? Wawa Ngenge sees such problems not as obstacles, but as opportunities. "The unique role of SDNP," he maintains, "should be to provide connectivity to those who, for any number of reasons -- inaccessible prices, poor telephone lines to the interior of the country, ignorance of the relevance of the technology -- are unable to get access to the Net from the private sector. This means that SDNP can not only complement the ISPs but expand the demand for them."
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