Document(s) 9 of 18

Occupying 801,590 km² in southeastern Africa, Mozambique, which won independence from Portugal in 1975, is ranked among the world’s poorest countries with a GNP per capita of USD 230 in 1999 (World Bank 2000). Approximately 78.3% of its over 17 million people spend less than USD 2 per day. The quality of life for the majority of Mozambicans is poor: under-five mortality is 213 per 1,000; life expectancy at birth is 45.5 years; and adult illiteracy is 58% among Mozambicans over 15 years of age. The electric power consumption per capita was 47 kilowatt-hours in 1997, and in 1998 only 18.7% of the roads in the entire country were paved.

The current situation in Mozambique can be traced partly to the long and destructive civil war that ravaged the country for more than a decade ending in 1992. The problems have also been exacerbated by its proximity to Zimbabwe and South Africa, which were systems of apartheid. More recently in 2000, floods and cyclones devastated the southern and central parts of the country and wiped out many of the gains made since the end of the civil war in the early 1990s.

Telecommunications context

Mozambique is one of 25 countries in Africa that have established an independent telecommunications regulatory authority, and by the end of 2000 it had an Informatics Policy and National Information and Communication Infrastructure (NICI) plan in place to spur growth in the underdeveloped sector. It is expected that the policy and plan will enable the state to subsidize telecommunications services and reduce the cost of computer equipment.

There is one fixed line operator (Telecomunicaçies de Mocambique) and one mobile operator. The fixed line tele-density was 0.51 in 2001while the mobile tele-density was 0.80. Cellular phone services were launched in Mozambique in 1997 and by 2001, there were approximately 140,000 subscribers. There were 1,251 telephones in 2000 and 11,948 Internet subscribers.

Access to other forms of ICTs such as newspapers, radios, and televisions is generally poor in Mozambique. Available figures indicate that only 3 in every 1,000 people had access to daily newspapers in 1996; 40 in 1,000 had radios in 1997; and 5 in 1,000 had access to televisions.

Two telecentres, located in Manhiça and Namaacha, were the focus of this study, which was conducted over 2 weeks in August 2000. Two types of questionnaires were used to collect information from 238 users and 976 potential users (including staff and students). Interviews and group discussions were also held with telecentre staff, members of the local management committees, and representatives of other institutions in Manhiça and Namaacha.

Telecentre context

Telecentres as institutions providing access to various types of ICTs were first introduced to Mozambique through the Eduardo Mondlane University Informatics Centre (CIUEM). In 1999, CIUEM implemented a pilot project with support from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in which two telecentres were set up in the districts of Manhiça and Namaacha.

The districts of Manhiça and Namaacha share certain similarities. Similar in size, both lie within Maputo province and are easily accessible from Maputo, the capital city of Mozambique, which is about 74 km away on good highways. Inhabitants of both districts speak Shangana and Ronga (the local languages) and Portuguese, the official language of the country. Most government ministries are present in both districts as district directorates: the Directorates of Education, Health, Agriculture, Culture, Youth and Sport, Industry and Trade, and Public Works and Housing.

Manhiça District, located in northern Maputo Province, has a population of 130,000 and is characterized by high rates of migration by men to South African mines for employment. Manhiça has some industrial potential in the areas of Maragara, Xinavane, and Palmeira. It has 39 institutions and enterprises, which include nine state institutions, five political parties, four agro-industrial companies, two financial institutions, one agency of the Mozambique Telecommunications Company (TDM), one agency of the Mozambique Electricity Company (EDM), seven commercial establishments and hotels, and ten non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Manhiça also has one secondary school, one middle-level teacher-training institute, and a number of primary schools.

Namaacha District borders Swaziland and is located in southern Maputo province. With an estimated population of 31,259, Namaacha is an area with tourism potential. The inhabitants of the district are generally petty traders. There are twenty-eight institutions and enterprises in the district, which include nine state institutions, five political parties, two financial institutions, one agro-industrial company, one agency for TDM and EDM, five commercial establishments and hotels, and five NGOs. Namaacha also has one secondary school, one basic-level teacher training centre, and a number of primary schools.

Telecentre locations

Both the Manhiça and Namaacha telecentres are easy to reach because they are both located in the centre of their respective districts. The Manhiça telecentre occupies 75 m² in a building owned by the Castro Restaurant, while the Namaacha telecentre occupies 120 m² in the Namaacha Secondary School. There is little similarity in the physical layout of the two telecentres. Manhiça, like Nakaseke in Uganda, is one continuous room with no divisions between the various areas of the centre. Namaacha is organized to allow for clearly designated spaces for the different services that are offered, one of the few with such a plan.

Profile of users

The majority of users come to the telecentres in a personal capacity (81.1%) as opposed to representing institutions (18.9%). On the whole, males tended to dominate the use of the two telecentres. Of a total of 222 respondents, only 35.6% were female. The gender gap was wider in Manhiça, where men and boys constituted about three-quarters of the users. The gender differences in Namaacha were relatively narrower (see Table 12).

Although users of all ages could be found in the telecentres, users were overwhelmingly below the age of 40 (Table 13). The most active age group was between 17 and 25 years of age. In fact, at Namaacha, the 17–25-year user group constituted over 50% of all visitors to the telecentre.

In addition, the survey found that about 50% of the respondents had a secondary school education, and that 63% of the users were students. These findings confirm that most telecentre users were young. It is not surprising that approximately 75% of the users in Namaacha were secondary school students given that the telecentre is located within the grounds of a secondary school. Adult users included teachers from other schools in the town and a small number of other people with educational backgrounds ranging from those who were illiterate to those with a fourth grade education.

Although the users at Manhiça were also young, they came from different sectors of activity, not just schools. This is perhaps due to the fact that the telecentre is located by a national highway, in an area that is reasonably ‘independent’ of any institution, i.e., did not give the impression that it was mainly for the use of members of that institution. Namaacha telecentre in comparison appeared to give the impression that the telecentre was for the exclusive use of the school.

Table 11. Sex of telecentre users in Manhiça and Namaacha

Source: Survey, August 2000.

Table 12. Age of telecentre users in Manhiça and Namaacha

Source: Survey, August 2000.

An overwhelming majority of the users were urban dwellers who lived in the district capitals of Manhiça (76.1%) and Namaacha (94.8%). During data collection, a period which extended over 2 weeks, only one person visited the telecentre from a different district (Moamba), some 20 km away. This suggests that visitors from other districts used the telecentres. Conversations with telecentre staff and partners at Manhiça confirmed that users also came from the districts of Magude and Xinavane.

Equipment and services offered

A variety of equipment and material was available at the two telecentres: computers, photocopiers, facsimile machines, telephones, television sets, video cassette recorders, and print materials. Among the services offered were Internet access, email, word processing, photocopying, scanning, faxing, telephony, television and video viewing, library services, and training.

Frequency of use

In Manhiça, the same users went to the telecentre daily, some more than three times each day. The users came from the town and some neighbouring villages and districts, some as far away as 10–30 km. Table 14 shows the frequency of use of each service by males and females. Users were asked how often they used the services in pre-defined periods of 1 day, 1 week, and 1 month. The users had to specify whether they used a given service 5 days per week (5 D/W), 3–4 days per week (3–4 D/W), 1–2 days per week (1–2 D/W), 2 days per month (2 D/M), or 1 day per month (1 D/M). The figures in the table suggest that as the frequency of use increased, the number of women users decreased. Fifty-four percent men and 46% women used the centres one day each month, while 71% men and 29% women used them five times each week.

Generally, use was lower among females. Twice as many women used the Namaacha Telecentre (39%) as Manhiça (18%). The corresponding percentage of men users was 82% for Manhiça and 61% in Namaacha. In both telecentres, the most commonly used services were photocopying, computers for word processing and telephones, and the least used services were email, facsimile, and Internet access. Data for differential service use shows the telephone to have been most popular with the women whereas with the men it was photocopying and computer word processing.

Figure 2. Service used by sex in Manhiça and Namaacha

Table 13. Frequency of use of telecentre services by men (M) and women (F)

Source: User Survey, August 2000.

Table 14. Service used by sex in Manhiça and Namaacha

Source: Culled from Table 13.

A rank ordering of the most popular services based on the figures in tables 13 and 14 show that for women the order was telephone, photocopying and computer word processing in a descending order of use. For men, the reverse order was observed with computers as the most used and telephones the least used of the popular services.

Purpose of use

Telecentre services (email, facsimile, and telephone) were used for exchanging messages with relatives, friends, commercial partners, and counterpart institutions. The computers were used for several purposes, including word and data processing and entertainment (e.g., games). Most users required photocopying services for reproducing personal documents, school materials, and various documents for local institutions and administrative and economic agencies. At the time of the study, only the Commercial Bank of Mozambique had a photocopier in the entire area.

Most email users could manipulate the systems and software by themselves, but a few required the help of others because they were unfamiliar with email technology, lacked knowledge about how to use the computers, or were illiterate.

Impediments to use

In addition to problems related to illiteracy and unfamiliarity with the new technologies, several other impediments to the use of the telecentres were identified:

• Lack of publicity: Some people indicated that they did not use the telecentres because they were unaware of their existence; there was a lack of publicity in the communities about the facilities provided by the telecentres;
• Relatively high cost of use: Not all the users could afford to pay the fees being charged for some of the services, e.g., computer training courses, because of the low levels of household income of the residents of Manhiça and Namaacha districts. The Internet service was hardly used because of the related telephone costs;
• Poor physical facilities: The toilets in the telecentres were in extremely poor condition, were old, and not very clean; the Manhiça telecentre operates out of very small, cramped premises making the experience uncomfortable; the Manhiça telecentre operates alongside a church with daily services; there were only three computers for the users and one for the staff; and the library collection was not sufficiently diversified; and
• Poor infrastructure: Frequent interruptions of electrical supply were a major source of disruption at the Namaacha Telecentre, and in the district in general.

Relevance

The services provided to the Manhiça and Namaacha communities were reported to be of acceptable quality, despite the problems of constant power cuts at Namaacha, which affected the quality of some services. The quality of the Internet services was less than adequate because of the sluggish dial-up connection. The other services met the users’ needs and expectations. The users considered the telecentres to be extremely important for their daily activities. The only public photocopying services in the two districts were to be found in the telecentres. Alternative photocopiers, in a bank in Manhiça and a hotel in Namaacha, were charging five times the price charged in the telecentres. This was also true of the telephones – the only other public telephone was to be found at the telephone exchange.

Users were also asked to indicate what type of information they would like to have available and to rate how important this information was to them. The 933 respondents would like, in order of importance, information about: education, health care, sports, government information, trade, agriculture, religion, culture, weather, and entertainment. The three most important types of information identified by potential users were education, health, while sports, and culture, weather, and entertainment were considered to be less important.

User satisfaction

Interviewees expressed satisfaction with the fact that the telecentres were accessible to community members, who could now make use of ICTs and had the opportunity to communicate with the rest of the world. They also expressed satisfaction with what they described as effective use of photocopying, telephone, facsimile, and computer services at relatively low prices. The good qualities and qualifications of the telecentre staff were also appreciated.

Organizational users pointed out the benefits to their organizations of the use of the telecentres:

• Training workers in the use of computers;
• Typing, photocopying, and binding products at relatively low prices;
• Reducing postal costs due to the use of email;
• Reducing the use of human messengers for communication;
• Accessing information about goods and services both regionally and globally; and
• Facilitating the exchange of information between commercial partners.

Management, ownership, and sustainability

CIUEM has remained the implementing agency for the pilot project since it was started in 1999. It is regarded as the local owner of the initiative (Macome and Cumbana 2001). CIUEM has provided technical, financial, and management support to the telecentres.

Two male staff members in each telecentre were responsible for the day-to-day management of the telecentres. They had received technical and financial management training and could therefore handle low-level maintenance of computer equipment. A Local Advisory Committee (CAL) was formed for each of the telecentres as a way to involve local community members in the management of the telecentres. The CALs were charged with responsibility for the supervision and monitoring of telecentre activities. It was noted during the study that the Namaacha CAL had not made much contribution to the success of the telecentre because it was not very dynamic and lacked focus. When the investigations were conducted, CIUEM was preparing to hand over the management of the telecentres to the CALs, which were, along with the staff, being prepared to fully adopt the telecentres as community projects.

For the Manhiça and Namaacha telecentres, the factors that were considered to be essential for long-term sustainability were: the telecentres must own their own space; each telecentre should have a detailed financial analysis (which was not done in the present study); effective management teams must be identified and installed to ensure continuity; and government subsidies are necessary to reduce the cost of telephone services and computer equipment.

Conclusion and recommendations

The establishment of the Manhiça and Namaacha telecentres has made positive contributions. The telecentres were directly responsible for computer training, email, Internet, and library services being introduced into the districts. The telecentre users expressed great satisfaction with the telecentres because they were now able to use facilities that had previously only been available in the major cities of the country. The telecentres also had a positive impact on the organizations in the districts of Manhiça and Namaacha, and in the community in general, because they reduced the need for travel to Maputo to search of services or to communicate with relatives, business partners, and others. On the basis of the findings, it is recommended that:

• To ensure effective email and Internet services, a dedicated phone line to link the telecentres to the CIUEM, or an Internet and email server, should be installed in the telecentres;
• The telecentres should acquire premises of their own because, after the pilot phase, the telecentres may not be able to sustain themselves because of having to pay rent in addition to wages and other operational costs;
• Prices should be revised, especially for such services as word processing and the production of cards and invitations, and a system of subsidies should be introduced for students and low-income earners;
• Hours of operation should be revised to allow users to have access to the telecentres outside of normal working hours. The telecentres should remain open for longer hours and organize outreach activities focussed on the outlying regions of the district; and
• The telecentre should publish a local newspaper or bulletin, introduce other courses (e.g., accountancy, English language, keyboarding), install scanners, sell school materials and books, and acquire a colour photocopier.

Document(s) 9 of 18