Document(s) 8 of 18

Located in West Africa, Mali is a country with a rich history and culture, although its entry into the twenty-first century has been slow and limited. Among the poorest countries in the world with a GDP of USD230 per capita, Mali has low levels of literacy and participation in formal education. Factors such as these have played a major role in keeping the majority of Malians out of the technological age. Women as a group are particularly disadvantaged. In 1995, the adult literacy rate for men was 39%; whereas, that for women was 29%. In the same vein, the net primary enrolment ratio for girls was 33% and for boys 47% (UNICEF WCARO 2001).

This chapter presents the results of a study conducted in Mali between December 2000 and February 2001. The sample of 135 individuals included users, potential users, community leaders, and heads of local organizations and government departments. In addition to the Timbuktu MCT, two private telephone booths and one cybercafé in the city were also investigated.

Telecommunications context

Mali has an ICT policy that is based on the principles of bringing information technology and communications services closer to the people and of reducing costs to guarantee access to all. The policy enacted in February 2000 when President Alpha Konaré organized the Bamako 2000 ICT forum became operational in May 2001 with the creation of the ICT Commission based in the Prime Minister’s office. Since then, a massive connection project has been started to link 703 rural communes based on the experience of the Timbuktu MCT pilot.

By early 2001, Mali was one of sixteen African countries with local dialup Internet access nationwide. The national telecommunications operator (SOTELMA) created a strategy for the provision of local telephone and Internet access across the country and introduced special ‘area-codes’ to allow Internet access to be charged at local call rates. This allowed Internet providers to create a national network at reduced rates, which has spread to remote areas of the country. In February 2001, there were 31,000 telephone lines serving the entire population of the country, and the number of Internet subscribers was estimated to be 1,000.

Timbuktu

The principal subject of this study is the multipurpose community telecentre (MCT) in Timbuktu. Although three private facilities were also investigated, data analysis and discussion concentrate on the MCT. The Timbuktu telecentre commenced as a joint project of the ITU, UNESCO, and IDRC in 1998. It was one of five on the continent. The others were in Uganda, Benin, Tanzania, and Mozambique, and of these, those in Uganda and Mozambique are also discussed in this book. When the study was undertaken, the projects in Benin and Tanzania were just starting and not included in the sample.

Timbuktu is steeped in history and dates back to the 12th Century. To the north of Timbuktu, a dune system with desolate landscapes heralds the Sahel or Azaouad desert. The area’s meagre resources and the harsh climate support only a nomadic existence. The tropical sub-arid climate is characterized by very long dry seasons and a very short and irregular rainy season. Temperatures reach a high of 45° C and a low of 7° C, and rainfall rarely exceeds 200 mm a year.

To the south of Timbuktu, only 18 km away, lies the valley of Issa-Ber, which is endowed with abundant water, is green for most of the year, and bustles with life. It is the centre of cultural activities. Settlements in Issa-Ber are permanent, and people are scattered in small villages dotted along the water sources. The town of Timbuktu is a small dot in the heart of a huge, flat, open country. Although the urban landscape is dotted by houses made of stone or earth, the rural houses are usually straw huts and skin tents.

The juxtaposition of the natural environments of the Sahel and the Issa-Ber are also reflected in the human contrasts. The nomads, the Arab and Berber caravaneers and the Tuareg herders, are quite distinct from the sedentary Songhoi farmers, and from the artisans, the traders, and workers of the informal sector.

Timbuktu has six preschool facilities, sixteen schools for basic education, one vocational training institute (for training teachers for middle and upper basic education schools), four madarassahs (Muslim religious colleges, one of which has a middle and upper school), and thirty Koranic schools. Education is provided in the Sonrai, Tamachèq, and Arabic languages.

The principal economic activities of Timbuktu are trade, agriculture (market gardening), livestock, and arts and craft. The ancient city is a favourite tourist attraction. Timbuktu is also an economic hub as it is the centre of local administration and a crossroads for merchants and citizens residing in Azaouad and on the banks of the Issa-Ber. However, the movement of people and goods is made difficult due to the poor state of the infrastructure. Rural inhabitants often move around on foot, ride on animals (horse, camel, and cattle), or travel in canoes.

Infrastructure and technology in Timbuktu is not as advanced as one would expect for a city of such historical significance. Timbuktu is at the junction of a road network, although river transportation is important during the rainy season when water levels rise. A new airport has made air travel in and out of Timbuktu easier.

Four radio broadcasting stations are located in the vicinity of Timbuktu: El Farouk, Lafia, Bouctou, and Jamana. The telecommunication sector in Timbuktu is characterized by:

• A digital telephone centre that provides for standard and telephone booth usage and some data transmission. The exchange has the capacity for eight telephone booths but only two are equipped and operating; and
• A digital transmission centre that uses a satellite earth station to link Timbuktu with Bamako and 13 districts in the region. Current carrying capacity is 472 subscribers, but there were only 344 subscribers at the time of the study.

Together, these systems support Timbuktu’s telecommunications infrastructure, which provides telephony and data transmission on the switched telephone network (PSTN) up to a maximum of 32 Kbits. In January 2001, there were 640 telephone subscribers in Timbuktu and over 400 pending applications for telephone lines. The telecentre was attracting many people on account of the huge level of unmet need and the demand for ICT services.

Findings

Layout and facilities

Initially housed in the premises of the Timbuktu regional hospital between April and October 1999, the telecentre moved to the Town Hall in premises made available free of charge by the municipality. The telecentre is located opposite the Place de l’Indépendance and the regional High Commission, adjacent to the local police station, and 400 m from the Mahamane Haïdara High School in the centre of town. However, the telecentre is in search of ideal premises. The construction of a large building (300 m²) that was expected to house the telecentre had stalled at the time of the investigation. The premises that are under construction are near the main town road about 500 m from the Town Hall, the current location, and not far from other public utilities.

At the time of the study, the telecentre occupied a total of four rooms. The largest room (25 m²) was being used as a training and reception area; the second room (24 m²) was used as the Internet and facsimile office; and the two smaller rooms served as the server room and the manager’s office-cumstore. The telecentre did not have enough room to create a waiting room or reception area to accommodate waiting customers. The number of waiting customers often exceeded the number of users, and there was no privacy for telephone users. The telecentre did have new and comfortable furniture, which included six executive desks, five metal tables, ten wooden tables, thirty executive chairs, and twelve plastic chairs. However, the telecentre staff felt the furniture was inadequate.

An inventory of the equipment available at the telecentre (see Table 3) showed that there were fifteen computers, four of which were not being used at the time because they had ‘broken down.’ The majority of computers were Pentiums. Of the four available 486s, only one was found to be in good working condition. A new monitor was found to be faulty. Other equipment included three printers, one facsimile machine, and one digital camera. Table 3 indicates that most of the equipment was in good working condition and that the telecentre was quite well equipped. The Timbuktu telecentre was better equipped than most of the others telecentres in this study. All the computers were using some version of the Microsoft^® Windows operating system (either Windows 95, 98, or 2000). Table 4 lists the software manuals and electronic documents that were available in the Telecentre most of these in French. The number of CD-ROMs is quite limited compared with the amount of hardware.

Table 3. Inventory of telecentre equipment

Source: Telecentre Survey, December 2000

Table 4. Inventory of software

Services and patterns of use

The telecentre was offering a variety of ICT services including telephony, facsimile, Internet access, and email. The most popular services were scanning, telephone (both out-going and in-coming) and facsimile, text processing, printing, and photocopying. The services were used to get or send information on education, business or trade, and tourism. Telephone connection is provided by SOTELMA, the public telecommunications provider, the only one used by the Telecentre. Telecentre users pointed out that the telephone connection is unreliable.

There has been a definite rise in the number of users since the telecentre opened its doors in April 1999 (see Table 5). The table shows that women represented 23.2% of all users between April 1999 and February 2001. Telecentre records of registered users show that youth constituted 48.5%, adults 51.8%, and the elderly less than 2%. The majority of users (over 84%) went to the telecentre in the morning. The exit poll indicated that few women (10–29%) visited the telecentre during the period of observation. Information collected from other sources (e.g., community leaders, opinion leaders, associations, women groups, NGOs, and the telecentre management committee) corroborates the low patronage of women users.

The telephone and facsimile were very popular for communication, with 42% of visitors making calls and 37% receiving and 26% sending facsimiles. The most popular computer-related services were: word processing, training, and computer games. The telecentre was used most often for social reasons – to communicate with family and friends. The use of email and the Internet was quite low. Forty percent of the users visit to acquire computer skills; whereas, only 10% access the Internet from the telecentre.

Communication was frequently effected by letter or by phone rather than by email, and 31% of the respondents indicated that they send letters ‘free of charge’ because they were hand carried by a friend or relative. Eighteen percent of those surveyed had recently paid between FCFA 500 and 1,250 for phone calls to other towns (e.g., Bamako). Respondents try to reduce the cost of phone calls by using other alternatives. A little more than half of the people stated that they rarely made long distance calls; whereas, fewer than 10% paid between FCFA 2,000 and 3,000 for long distance calls.

Figure 1. Timbuktu telecentre users for selected months

Table 5. Number of users in Timbuktu telecentre (April 1999–February 2001)

The figures in Table 5 show a clearer picture of the difference between men and women users when presented graphically as seen in Figure 1.

Also disadvantaged in terms of ICT access were the elderly. During 4 days of continuous observations, not a single person over 60 years of age visited the telecentre. Telecentre records also showed that of almost 4,000 users, only 11 (0.3%) were over 60 years of age. One participant in a focus group discussion had this say:

Needless to say, young people can more easily adapt to ICTs and are more interested in using computer science, especially the Internet, to access educational information. Moreover, young 15-year-old school goers, including girls, are frequent TC users. In the evenings, they go to tinker on the computer once most of the regular customers have left. One of them spent 5 consecutive days studying for a geography lesson on ‘Mali: A Physical Study.’

It was found that poor use or disadvantage was not a function of any serious physical barrier since access to the telecentre was within reasonable distance of the majority of actual or potential users. Most people (62%) who were interviewed lived less than 1 km from the telecentre. Another 31% lived between 1 and 3 km away. About three-quarters (74%) took less than 30 minutes to reach the telecentre, and all users reported that they often walked to the telecentre as they did to most other places (see Table 6).

User profiles

There are two types of users – individuals and legal entities or organizations. Among the individual users, 76.8 % were male and 23.2% were female. Youth represented 48% of all users. The users were generally educated, and the feeling that computers are for literate people was pervasive among respondents. A wide variety of professionals used the facility. Arabic speakers rarely visited the telecentre because there was no software in Arabic.

Legal entities or organizations that used the telecentre include cultural, scientific, educational, professional, tourist, development, and women’s associations in addition to members of the police force and staff of independent radio stations. These various groups had between 50 and 1,000 members, whose ages ranged between 18 and 40 years. Community leaders constituted a separate and distinct group. Although organizational users

Table 6. Distance travelled, method of transport, and time taken to reach various sources of information in Timbuktu

Source: Survey, December 2000.

were fewer than individual users, telecentre staff actively wooed them because of the volume of customers from them and also in order to establish a ‘constituency of customers’.

In addition to the direct users, there were other secondary users or beneficiaries. They are all the men and women who enter into what some of the key informants referred to as ‘contacts and dialogue networks’ with the direct users. Through these networks, the direct users convey the information they have received from the telecentre. This circle is extensive and reaches out to friends, colleagues, and relatives among others.

Direct users conveyed and shared the information they received with third parties. Fourteen users who were interviewed when exiting the telecentre claimed to share information with 68 other people. These included fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters, spouses, aunts, uncles, and nephews. Fifty-seven percent of the users interviewed said they conveyed the information they obtain to others such as friends (41%), clients (26%), and colleagues (15%). Most of the non-user beneficiaries were between the ages of 31 and 50 years. Three categories of Timbuktu residents were considered to derive indirect benefits from the services of the telecentre:

• Members of the user’s household and friends and colleagues with whom the user shares information;
• The non-user members of the associations and local agencies with whom the user shares information; and
• Business, social, and religious contacts.

In the December 2000 survey sample of 52 users and potential users, 47 were men and 5 were women. Forty-six percent of these users were between the ages of 31 and 40 years, 25% were between 21 and 30 years, and 21% were between 41 and 50 years. The exit poll indicated that of the 14 users interviewed, 4 were artisans, 2 were secretaries, 2 worked at radio stations, and 6 belonged to other professions. Among the artisans were a blacksmith, a cobbler, a tailor, and a driver. The ‘other’ professional category included a manager, an accountant, a computer hardware technician, a teacher, and an animal breeder.

Community leaders (e.g., Chair of the Chamber of Commerce, and President of the Youth Association) played a significant role in the Timbuktu telecentre both as a core group of users and as advisers to the project. There were differences in the types of services used by the different leaders.

For example, whereas the leaders of trade and commerce received training and used the Internet, the leader of the youth association used photocopying and document processing more heavily. It is particularly noteworthy that the leader of the women’s organization, only used the facsimile and telephone.

Reasons for use/non use

The primary reasons for using the telecentre were to send, receive, process, or retrieve information (Table 7). Training was also important, as were activities related to preparing project applications of those organizations embarking on their own projects. Table 7 also shows the amount each organization paid for the services they received from the telecentre during the year 2000.

Table 7. Types of information, service used, and cost of using telecentres

Source: Telecentre Survey, December 2000.

Associations and organizations were a significant source of revenue for the telecentre. The associations are organized in a network formed to support and facilitate the exchange of information among members as well as nonmembers. The associations and organizations usually communicate general information about their professions, culture, education, and tourism to each other and to third parties. The associations share information with national partners in Bamako, for example, and with international partners in Europe and in Arab, African, and Asian countries. The information communicated to external partners generally relates to development issues (especially fund-raising for projects) and inquiries about potential trading partners. Information on culture and tourism is also popular.

Prominent among impediments to use and difficulties that impair the effective use of the MCT is connectivity. When the evaluation team arrived at the telecentre for the study, for example, the telephone connection had been interrupted. The telecentre staff also reported that delays in the procurement and installation of a VSAT for the telecentre had caused serious difficulties for project implementation. The other technical difficulties experienced by the telecentre are shown in Table 8.

Table 8. Common technical problems encountered at the telecentre

Source: Survey, December 2000.

The telecentre staff solved all computer and computer-related technical and printer breakdown problems. Of the ten problem types highlighted as common occurrences six were solved by the telecentre staff, a reflection of their technical competence and self-reliance. The telecentre also offered electronic equipment maintenance services to the public. However, the staff had no competence in dealing with photocopier problems electricity or telephone problems and had to rely on external assistance. The major hurdles encountered in dealing with technical problems were procurement of computer spares and getting the telecom provider (SOTELMA) to resolve problems related to the quality of service provided.

Other than the technical problems, another reason for low or non-use was the cost of services. Fifty percent of questionnaire respondents felt that high service charges, in relation to women’s low purchasing power, were responsible for the small number of women using the ICTs. Close to two-thirds of the respondents (65%) expressed the belief that if prices were reduced there would be a significant increase in the number of women using the ICTs. A few steps had been taken by the Timbuktu telecentre to address the disadvantages that women suffer:

• Giving women visible positions of authority, e.g., as members of the telecentre management committee;
• Placing photos of women on the front pages of some documents showing them as trainers of men;
• Writing user manuals with women; and
• Providing a 25–50% discount on training fees for women.

Relevance and user satisfaction

Telecentre users were of the opinion that the services offered were relevant and useful because they:

• Opened up Timbuktu to the outside world;
• Enhance the speed and ease of external communications because the services were now available nearby;
• Provided rapid, sure, and affordable communication; and
• Promoted knowledge of computer technology.

They also believed that the best performing services were computer training, telephony, and facsimile transmission. The least developed of the services was content development.

In September 2000 the MCT supported a study to identify and design appropriate content and applications for various organizations and projects. About one dozen projects were investigated, but the content or applications had not been developed at the time of the study due to an absence of expertise among the telecentre staff and the lack of funding. Apparently the development of applications and content is proving to be harder than first thought.

Perhaps on account of the troubles with content development and other technical difficulties user satisfaction with the MCT was a mixed bag. All users interviewed maintained that the services offered by the telecentre were relevant and useful. Responses identifying what they did not like were not so unanimous. The list included a number of different things. For example,

• Lack of connections (43%) – connectivity is perceived as a real issue;
• Small premises (36%) – the telecentre is in a temporary location that is too small to accommodate a large number of people at one time; and
• Insufficient machines – which cause users to interrupt training sessions and results in non-completion of practical training requirements.

Users also felt that their information needs with regard to email, Internet access, and advanced computer training were not being adequately met. They pointed out that there was a very long waiting list of people who had applied for training.

Associations and groups were also concerned about the quality and quantity of information they obtained, and some offered such judgements about the telecentre as: ‘not good’, ‘has to be improved’, and ‘bad’. It was evident that the telecentre was not satisfying the needs of some of the users and they attributed their dissatisfaction to connection/connectivity difficulties at the centre.

Other users, however, declared that the telecentre had satisfied all their needs, and that they had succeeded in promoting their products and their profession at the international level. The telecentre was deemed to have failed in the following aspects: service organization and planning and financial management. Another sore point with the users was the delay in the construction of permanent premises. Unlike the unsatisfied users, the technical staff and the community leaders on the whole conveyed a favourable impression of the telecentre. They suggested that the telecentre was well managed and the telecentre and SOTELMA staff in Timbuktu highlighted some of its successful achievements to buttress their claims:

• Telecommunication staff: demystification of the computer, training of youth, and opening up of Timbuktu to the rest of the world;
• Key community leaders: support given to tourist guides and tourism; acquisition of new knowledge and opening to the world, improvements in communications quality and speed (authentic information in real time), proximity of ICTs, especially the Internet, and community training; and
• Staff, management, and management committee: promoting understanding and popularization of computer technology, time savings in business for traders, and tourist guides, creation of new services, and change in attitudes.

Sustainability

Management and ownership

Management has a direct impact on the sustainability of telecentres. With regard to ownership, project documents stipulate that the telecentre: ‘ . . . shall be the property of the district of Timbuktu . . . the latter may later decide to transfer the property rights . . . to a consortium/cooperative of local partners or to a private entrepreneur’.

The management staff and committee indicated that they believed that ownership was not a simple issue and they could not state categorically or convincingly that the telecentre was, at the time of the inquiry, the property of the community. The staff expressed the view that: ‘for the time being, no measures have been taken to solve this important issue, which is having an impact on the sustainability of the telecentre.’ Users, on the other hand, were enthusiastic in their declaration that the telecentre belonged to the community of Timbuktu. As a matter of fact the management and property rights for daily management of the centre as seen in recruitment, supervision, provision of financial and material resources, and price setting were exercised by the management staff and the management committee on behalf of the community.

The local management committee, made up of leaders of government technical departments, the Town Hall, and community and telecentre representatives is supposed to be responsible for administrative and financial management (revenue control, control of daily expenses and procurements), and recruitment. However, a national coordinator (man), a staff member of SOTELMA, the national provider, and a manager were responsible for the daily supervision and financial management of the telecentre. The roles of the committee and the national coordinator were not very clearly delineated and this caused some problems. Membership of the management committee also created difficulties. Members are often civil servants who are regularly changed and this leads to an uncontrollable and continuous turnover of members, which in turn affects the smooth running of the telecentre. The management body was known under different names: management committee, local management committee, steering committee, and management and steering committee, which made it also confusing for the community. Committee members refered to it as the local management committee.

Community participation in management

Community leaders (e.g., the Chair of the CAFO, the Chair of the Chamber of Commerce, and the President of the Youth Association) played a significant role in the Timbuktu telecentre both as a core group of users and as advisers to the project. The community leaders acted as advisors in the setting up of the telecentre and actively participated in negotiations with the local authorities for the land on which the telecentre was constructed. Although all those interviewed stated that the telecentre belonged to the community, the nature of involvement of the community as owner in the daily management of the telecentre suggested a different interpretation. Table 9 suggests that the management committee was performing only a small fraction of its mandate and that the manager appeared to have usurped most of the committee functions. One community representative in the management committee confirmed his own participation in supervision and revenue control suggesting that perhaps the committee was working as intended. But this was questionable; the exact nature of this supervision was neither clear nor apparently highly valued since the telecentre staff were also subject to supervision by officers located in the project executing agency, SOTELMA, the government telecom.

The wider community involvement in fund-raising was clear and appreciated. Funds were being raised for the telecentre building that was under construction. Fund-raising activities included community members organizing artistic and cultural events, making contributions of FCFA100 per family, and making personal and group contributions and grants.

Table 9. Community involvement in telecentre management

Source: Telecentre Survey, December 2000.

Although they were very involved with fund-raising, community members were not involved in the planning, running, and maintenance of the centre. The management staff were in full control of all these tasks. It was reported that, this has been a source of some disaffection for community members. They complained that they did not receive regular reports and feedback and pointed to this as being a sign of inefficiency. Community participation in management has been restricted to revenue control, possibly in compliance with funders’ requirements for community participation. Nevertheless, it was recognized that participation through representation of various social and socio-professional community groups in the management committee is important for the sustainability of the telecentres.

Telecentre finances

The telecentre depends primarily on donor funds to support its activities. Total partners’ grants to the telecentre amounted to just over FCFA 213 million in February 2001. This money was used initially to fund a launching seminar for the telecentre, recruit the coordinator, and purchase equipment. The staff was still being paid from project funds, and the telecentre was still a project of the three original principal partners, UNESCO, ITU, and IDRC. Supplementary funds were also being received from other donors. Revenues for services provided by the telecentre between 1999 and 2001 are shown in Table 10.

Although there have been significant increases in revenue between May 1999 and February 2001, it is impossible to determine the financial viability of the telecentre based on the available information because there was neither a general income statement nor a balance sheet at the time of the investigation. Although financial sustainability could not be adequately determined, the research did suggest several other factors that may contribute to the potential sustainability of the telecentre in Timbuktu:

• A conducive political and sociocultural context. For example, ‘the political parties and civil society have committed themselves to the success of the telecentre’;
• The economic necessities and resources exist to support the telecentre. The town’s major activities are trade, agriculture (market gardening), handicraft, tourism and hospitality services. Timbuktu is an important economic centre, a crossroads for several traders, and a melting pot for a number of cultures (e.g., Berber, Islam, Modern, African, and French);
• Timbuktu has historical significance and is a tourist centre of world renown;
• Timbuktu is technically equipped to support the services.

The researchers involved in the study believe that the context of the ancient town remains generally favourable for the development and sustainability of the Timbuktu telecentre. It is averred that all the significant political and development actors including the political parties, local administration, traditional associations, and NGOs, have great expectations for the telecentre. Faith it seems requires to be backed with some reasonableness

Table 10. Telecentre revenue (1999 to 2001)

Source: Survey; telecentre records.

and the staff and management committee members were aware of the need for sustainability and enumerated several factors that were affecting the MCTs income-generating capacity:

• The premises were too small for a telecentre, which meant that the large number of customers was cramped in the available space and privacy could not be guaranteed;
• Connectivity problems were persistent and, as a result, it was nearly impossible to have one week of continuous unbroken telephone connection, which greatly discouraged customers and needless to say grievously damaged incomes;
• Local capacity building is required to improve service delivery in the following skill areas: Internet, virtual communities, and educational strategies. Telecentre staff need training in project management, marketing, organization and support of virtual communities, equipment repairs and maintenance, technical repairs, education, office automation, the elaboration and application of accounting management tools including budget planning, income and expenditure accounting and the preparation of balance sheets.

The above impediments notwithstanding, it must not be forgotten that the initial intention and motivation was not to create a super successful capitalist venture but a flagship pilot project which would demonstrate some of the potentials and challenges of pursuing and providing public access in the difficult technical terrain of developing countries. Nowhere in the project objectives is it stated that the project would be making x amount of profit by so or so year. On the contrary, the project was to test the idea and the technologies for public access. Of course, in time, issues of sustainability would arise, by which time the tools and methods for both assuring sustainability and for measuring this dimension would have been worked into project designs from the start. It therefore seems that what ought to be measured at this historical period ought to be the validity of the concept of telecentres and the reliability of the technologies and management models for the kinds of environments into which they have been introduced.

Summary and conclusion

Although evidence of financial sustainability is lacking, the signs and impressions gathered suggest some positive effects that can be attributed to the pilot project in Timbuktu. Some changes observed seemed to have been related, to some extent, to the telecentre:

• The telecentre has created ICT services in the vicinity of Timbuktu. The opening of Timbuktu through communication has had a positive effect on business and tourism. Communication has been made easy, it is fast and affordable, and it takes place in real time;
• The telecentre has contributed to the pool of modern telecommunications equipment and services in the town;
• The telecentre has provided computer training for community members and this exposure to new ICTs has brought about a change in attitudes and knowledge;
• Other knowledge-related capacities have been developed among community members (e.g., librarians have been trained to use UNESCO’s computerized library automation software).

Experiences from the multipurpose community telecentre project in Timbuktu show that there are major lessons still to be learned and that a wide range of capacities must be developed to support a telecentre. However, the importance of the efforts to popularize the telecentre and the political support that was received should not be undervalued. People’s lives, attitudes, knowledge, and perceptions are changing. The young blacksmith who now regularly sends emails to his contacts abroad is ample evidence that the computer has become a familiar tool in daily life. This situation is not about to change. The challenge is now to build upon the experiences of the telecentre in Timbuktu so that new projects can address the weaknesses that were demonstrated in this pilot project.

Document(s) 8 of 18