Document(s) 10 of 18

Uganda is a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, and multi-religious landlocked country of 241,038 km² with an estimated population of about 20 million. The population density based on the 1991 census was 85 people/km², much higher than that of its neighbours in eastern Africa (31 people/km²). Only 13.4% of the total population lives in urban centres; however, the rate of urbanization is increasing mainly because of migration during and after the civil wars. The size of the urban population is projected to increase to 8,876,000 by 2016 – an increase of 370% from 1991.

In 1992, Uganda, among the world’s poorest countries, had a per capita income of under USD 170 (World Bank 1993). Uganda’s economy is predominantly agricultural, with over 80% of the population depending directly or indirectly on the land. In 1998–99, agriculture contributed about 43% to overall GDP, with food crops accounting for over 28% of the agricultural output. However, the contribution from the agricultural sector to the overall GDP has declined due to structural changes in economic activity over the past dozen years. This trend reflects a reduction in the reliance of the economy on agriculture.

There has been a remarkable improvement in overall GDP. In 1998–99, real GDP achieved a growth rate of 7.8% in comparison with growth rates of 5.4% in 1997–98 and 4.5% in 1996–97. Per capita GDP grew from 1.7% in 1996–97 to 5.1% in 1998–99, and per capita income now stands at USD300. Despite Uganda’s impressive growth rate, poverty is pervasive and income inequality persistent.

A republic since independence in 1962, Uganda has a decentralized administrative structure. District Local Councils (DLCs), headed by chairpersons, are at the apex of the local administration, which has five tiers of local government linked to the central government. The five tiers are usually referred to as: district level (LC5); county level (LC4); sub-county level (LC3); parish level (LC2); and village or village groups (LC1).

Telecommunications context

Uganda is often cited as a model case for good telecommunications development practice. In the early 1990s, the country was described as being ‘seriously underdeveloped’ in terms of telecommunications and services were much worse than the regional average. The situation significantly changed after reforms, which started in 1994, and dramatically changed the telecommunications environment placing Uganda ahead of its East African neighbours in matters of institutional and service innovations, e.g., the deployment of ISDN, falling tariffs and an appreciable increase in teledensity. Unlike its northern neighbour, VSAT and other service licenses have been issued with relative ease and interconnectivity resolved. Interconnectivity is a major headache for many national telecommunications providers where one or more mobile service providers exist alongside the incumbent or primary national operator. A 2000–2001 review of telecommunications objectives pledged that counties with populations of 500,000 and over would have basic access to telephony and an Internet POP would be established in every district to enhance the use of telecentres and similar services. The Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) is the chief proponent of these positive changes.

The UCC was set up by the government to improve communication services and bring operations in line with global developments and expectations. The Uganda Communications Act of 1997 mandated the Commission to:

• Ensure fair-play among service providers;
• Provide general protection to customers;
• Eliminate political interference in the communications sector; and
• Enhance national coverage of communication services.

In pursuance of the last objective, the Act provided for the establishment of a Rural Communications Development Fund (RCDF) as the means to achieve the objective of universal access. The RCDF has been established, and the fund is being used to leverage investments in rural communications services from the private sector (service providers and investors) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on a competitive basis. In 2002, the fund obtained a USD5-million grant from the World Bank to support the establishment of public phone centres, access points and Internet POPs in rural districts. A national ICT policy framework (UNCST 2001) and a rural communications development policy (UCC 2001) have been drafted, but are yet to be approved by parliament and made into law.

Uganda liberalized its communications sector early with the introduction of Celtel a mobile operator, which was joined by Mobile Telephone Network (MTN) in 1998. The Uganda Telecom Limited (UTL) and Uganda Posts Limited (UPL) were created from the former Uganda Posts and Telecommunications Corporation (UPTC) in 1997 and UTL remains the main provider of telephone landlines in the country (see Table 16). MTN was granted an operating license for both fixed and mobile service but unlike the mobile service, which has spread to major towns across the country, the fixed line service has been mostly used for corporate and business clients in and around Kampala. A major reason for this is the state of infrastructure. UTL and MTN have deployed fibre optic rings around Kampala in a metropolitan area network (MAN) that also uses the existing copper access network (Hamilton 2002). At the time of the study, there were three mobile telephone operators in Uganda (MTN, UTL, and Celtel), and in the last 2 years the telephone density has tripled on account of the increase in mobile telephony.

At the end of 1997, UTL had an installed capacity of 79,825 lines and 50,829 subscribers, accounting for a telephone density of 0.28 lines per 100 people. Seventy-three percent of all the lines in service are in Kampala. In rural areas, users have to travel, on average, 24 km to reach the nearest telephone (Uganda Bureau of Statistics 2001).

Uganda has a fledgling Internet market served by more than ten licensed Internet Service Providers (ISPs) with a current subscriber base of about 6,000, which is growing by 50–100% each year. Almost all of the subscribers are located in Kampala. Uganda, like Mozambique and unlike Mali and Senegal, does not have a policy of local dial-up tariff for Internet access.

Table 15. Telecommunications indicators, December 1996 to July 2001

Source: UCC 2001.

Telecentre context

Three telecentres (MCTs) and two cybercafés were the subject of the investigations reported in this chapter. The three multipurpose community telecentres (MCTs) in the study were those in Nakaseke (reputed to be the first such facility in Africa), Nabweru, and Buwama. The cybercafés were in Bugolobi and Wandegeya, both located in Kampala. Data was collected from 889 individuals in January 2001 using a variety of instruments, which included a questionnaire and, interview, observation, discussion, and document-analysis guides in addition to an exit poll.

Wandegeya Cyber-Mart

The Wandegeya Cyber-Mart is located in one of the city’s suburbs (Wandegeya), about 2 km north of Kampala city centre. Wandegeya is a small trading centre with a few shops, food kiosks, and a fairly big food market. Most of Wandegeya’s shoppers reside in the nearby slums of Katanga and Makerere-Kivulu. To the east of the trading centre is the Wandegeya National Housing Estate, which is home to mostly middle-income civil servants and Makerere University. Makerere University is among East Africa’s biggest universities with a student population of over 20,000. The cybercafé is situated a few hundred metres from both the housing estate and the university.

Bugolobi Business Centre

The Bugolobi Business Centre is located in the centre of the Bugolobi trading centre, about 3 km from Kampala city centre. The trading centre is quite small, with a handful of shops and a sizeable fruit and vegetable market. Bugolobi is situated near a large residential housing estate, the Bugolobi National Housing Estate, which is inhabited by both the well-off and the poor.

Buwama Telecentre

The Buwama telecentre is located in Buwama sub-county in Mpigi District. The sub-county covers about 39 km², and its headquarters, Buwama, is approximately 64 km from Kampala in southwestern Uganda. The sub-county consists of 10 administrative parishes and 57 villages. The one major trading centre in the sub-county is in Buwama, where the telecentre became operational in June 1999. The sub-county has a population of 350,000 and a 30% literacy rate (according to the census of 1991) and about 6,824 households.

Coffee farming, horticulture, and fishing in Lake Victoria are the main economic activities. Subsistence farming of bananas, sweet potatoes, and cassava is hugely popular, and the sub-county is generally food secure all year round. There are only two health centres and one sub-dispensary in the sub-county.

The information and communication network in the sub-county is very poor with only one sub-post office. Telephone services (cellular network) have been introduced recently after more than 15 years of non-existence. The Buwama telecentre is one of two, the other being Nabweru, started as part of the Acacia Initiative.

Nabweru Telecentre

The Nabweru telecentre is located at Nabweru sub-county headquarters in Mpigi District, approximately 6 km northwest of Kampala. It is in a periurban sub-county bordering Kampala that is made up of 6 parishes, 26 villages, and 3 major trading centres located at Nansana, Kawanda, and Kawempe. The telecentre situated in Kazo-Nabweru parish was opened in May 1999.

The sub-county covers about 25 km² and has about 53,290 inhabitants. Nabweru is one of the fastest growing sub-counties in the district. The major economic activities are trading and farming, and the sub-county is dotted with small trading centres and small-scale agro-processing industries for maize and coffee. There are 1,103 businesses (mostly retail shops), 8,000 farming families, 4 health centres, 27 clinics, and 21 drug shops in the sub-county.

Nakaseke Telecentre

The Nakaseke telecentre is located in Nakaseke sub-county in Luwero District about 44 km north of Kampala. The Nakaseke telecentre was opened in March 1999 as the first rural telecentre in Uganda. It was a project of a number of national and international donors: IDRC Acacia, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), and UNESCO, among others.

Nakaseke sub-county is divided into five administrative parishes, which consist of 42 villages and an estimated population of 18,000 in 1998. The sub-county had one hospital and a relatively good educational infrastructure, which included 23 primary schools, 4 private secondary schools, and a primary teacher training college. The dominant economic activities in Nakaseke are crop and animal farming.

When the telecentre became operational in 1999, there was only one fixed telephone line in Nakaseke. By the time of the study about 2 years later, the telecommunications infrastructure had expanded to 250 lines and there were two public phones in the sub-county in addition to the two in the telecentre. Mobile telephony had also reached the sub-county with 15 individuals owning mobile phones.

Figure 3. Location of community telecentres, Uganda

Findings

Facilities

All three multipurpose community telecentres were being housed free of charge either in public community centres (Buwama and Nakaseke) or in government buildings (Nabweru). The two cybercafés (Wandegeya and Bugolobi) were operating from rented premises.

In all but one of the facilities, Wandegeya Cyber-Mart, staff indicated that they did not have sufficient workspace, especially for administrative purposes. Only in Nabweru and Nakaseke were there separate offices for the managers. Furniture was adequate in both Buwama and the private cybercafés, but Nabweru and Nakaseke indicated that chairs were in short supply (Table 16). Nakaseke had five times as many chairs as the other multipurpose community telecentres, but the staff still considered this number insufficient. This was on account of the library, which attracted many users who, unlike users of other services, tended to stay longer. Table 16 shows the space occupied by each of the telecentres and the opinions of staff with respect to its adequacy. Surprisingly, only in the smallest telecentre was space considered adequate.

Table 16. Facilities at community telecentres and private cybercafés

Source: Survey 2001.

Table 17. Equipment available and in actual use in the telecentres and cybercafés*

Equipment

There were 5–7 computers in each telecentre, with the exception of Wandegeya Cyber-Mart, which had 22 computers. Most of the computers were Pentium II clones. In Nakaseke, three of the seven computers were 486s. All facilities had at least one laser printer, one or two telephone lines, a facsimile machine, a photocopier, and a television set. All except Bugolobi had an uninterrupted power supply (UPS) and at least one overhead unit (Table 17). Except for Wandegeya, the telecentres were generally as well equipped as the cybercafés; however, the telecentres tended to have a wider array of equipment, some of which seemed to be underutilized.

Services offered

A wide variety of services were being provided to the public in the telecentres: telephone services, facsimile services, email and Internet access, library services, and training. No radio or library services were offered by the cybercafés. All the telecentres except Buwama had access to the Internet at the time of the survey early in 2001.

All facilities, except for Wandegeya Cyber-Mart, offered telephone services (see Table 18). The Buwama telecentre, whose connection was provided and maintained by the private provider MTN, was having problems sustaining telephone services on account of weak network signals. Telephone services were for both out-going and incoming calls although the latter were less frequent. Telephone charges in the Nakaseke and Buwama telecentres were lower than in Kampala. Both Telecentres had MTN lines and had received a small subsidy from the company that was passed on to customers. Call charges in Kampala were as follows: Local call (1 minute) 100 shillings (0.06 USD), long distance, 230 shillings (0.13 USD) and international call, 1450 shillings (0.81 USD). Tariffs for mobile services are higher and sensitive to congestion with peak time charges higher than for off-peak periods. MTN charges were; Call on MTN network (1 minute) 170 shillings (0.09 USD) off-peak, and 210 shillings, peak. Call to other network (1 minute) 250 shillings (0.14 USD, off-peak) and 325 shillings (0.18 USD, peak). The cost of calling a landline for the same time period was about midway between the cost of calling the same network and another mobile network.

Table 18. Services offered at each of the telecentres and cybercafés*

Source: Survey 2001.
Note: Buwama, Nabweru, Nakaseke telecentres; Wandegeya and Bugolobi cybercafés

Pre-paid mobile telephone service charges were even higher yet these are very popular. In all the community telecentres, pre-paid phone services could be obtained from call boxes located usually on the telecentre premises on a wall outside for example. This meant that these call boxes were available to the public anytime even when the TC was officially closed.

Facsimile services were obtainable only from Nakaseke, Nabweru, and Bugolobi, which was the only facility offering Internet-based facsimile services. The facsimile services offered in Nakaseke and Nabweru were limited to East Africa. This limited coverage was a constant source of complaint by users at both sites. The telecentre staff reported that there was a huge demand for fax services to Europe and North America but did not state why these were not being offered. The Nakaseke and Nabweru telecentres had considerable technical difficulties with incoming facsimile messages but the reason for this could not be established. In Buwama, the facsimile machine had not worked since it was installed due to what the staff called ‘incompatibility of technology’. All the facilities, except Bugolobi were providing skills training in basic computer familiarization and in the use of software packages such as Microsoft^® Word and Excel, email and Internet applications. None of the TCs offered any technical training or technical support to customers as seen in Timbuktu MCT. All centres, except for the Wandegeya Cyber-Mart, were also providing photocopying services.

Table 19 shows that, in general, the telecentres were offering a wider range of services than the cybercafés. It is difficult to state whether this is good or bad. What seems clear is that the cybercafés appeared to have a niche for themselves and were refraining from wading into already taken territory (e.g., photocopying, which abounds in the city). The telecentres appeared to be ‘jacks of all trades’. It could be argued that the telecentres had a moral imperative to be multifunctional because they were usually the only such facilities in the areas where they are located. The founding ideologies for the two types of facilities also differ markedly. Whereas the telecentres have a development, social, and economic empowerment motive, the cybercafés are primarily profit-oriented market ventures. To spread their services thinly over a wide service arena would therefore seem antithetical.

Access

Telecentre use and users

The survey findings suggest that computer use among a random sample of both potential and actual users had improved between the start of the project and the time of study. In 1999, when a baseline survey was conducted close to the start of the Buwama and Nabweru projects, only 13.6% of respondents claimed they had ever used a computer. In 2001, of the 505 respondents, 41% said they had used a computer. But less than half (44.2%) of the survey respondents were using telecentres or cybercafés (Table 19). This result shows the low use of these facilities by rural populations. Seventy-six percent of the sample stated that they use neither the telecentre nor the cybercafé and indicated that the preferred method of sending and receiving information was by word of mouth through human messengers and informers. This seems to suggest that for a large number of rural folk the telephone or newer forms of information and communication have not become commonplace. This is definitely different from the perception in Senegal where the telephone is seen as a daily tool. In contrast with the total sample, a large number of respondents in rural Nakaseke (61.1%) used the telecentre unlike in Nabweru (30.0%) and urban Bugolobi (33.3%). The Nakaseke telecentre was the most heavily used, followed by Wandegeya (55%). This pattern of usage in Wandegeya was thought to be a function of the location of the cybercafé near the Makerere University Campus because students constituted a sizeable user population.

Most of the computers in the community TCs were under utilized and the studies have suggested that usage is largely restricted to the processing of text and documents. Data from the exit poll confirms the ubiquity of the use of word processing software across most of the telecentres. Word processing was the only service offered by all five telecentres in the sample. The exception was Wandegeya, where 91.7% of its clients indicated that they had used the Internet. The high usage of Internet and email at the cybercafés (especially Wandegeya) was reinforced by the observation that all 19 visitors during the 4-day observation period used the Internet or email.

There was minimal use of computers for email or Internet in two of the three rural telecentres, and the situation did not change much between 1999 and 2001. In Buwama for instance, in 1999, 1.5% of the respondents stated they had used a computer for email and Internet. In 2001, the corresponding figure was 5.5%. The situation in urban and periurban telecentres was much different. In Bugolobi, Wandegeya, and Nabweru, the percentage of respondents who had used email once in their lives was 42.9%, 78.3%, and 42%, respectively; whereas, 17.5%, 61.8%, and 44.4% had used the Internet. The use of email and Internet services in Nabweru had clearly dramatically increased in 2 years. In 1999, the figures for email and Internet use were 6.7% and 5.1%, respectively. Poor Internet use in the rural TCs can be explained by two main reasons; poor electricity and weak and expensive connectivity. In Buwama, the cost of wireless connectivity from MTN was huge yet it was not always guaranteed because of the line-of sight requirement based on the under developed level of wireless infrastructure. Tales were told of how one had to find the best point/location usually on high ground to get or receive the best quality voice relay. In Nabweru, although the electricity situation was not as bad as in Buwama, the huge telephone bills were a constant worry. Of the three telecentres (Buwama, Nakaseke, and Nabweru), only in Nabweru was the use of email and Internet recorded. Nabweru, is located on the outskirts of Kampala and therefore has access to more developed telecommunications infrastructure. Like the entrepreneurial telecentres in Senegal, Buwama rented its generator to augment revenues.

Service use shows a concentration on telephone and television services in the rural telecentres, and on email and Internet in the urban cybercafés. In Buwama, 30% of respondents made and received their telephone calls from the telecentre, whereas 35.7% watched television in the telecentre (Table 19). In Buwama, television and video were popular for entertainment, particularly among children below 16 years of age, who represented 51.5% of all users (see Figure 5). A continuous stream of viewers was observed in the telecentre during the 4 days of data collection. The radio and audiocassettes were also a great hit in the Buwama telecentre. In rural Nakaseke, the library was by far the most popular service for both adults and children followed by photocopying and newspapers. In the course of the 4 days of data collection in Nakaseke, 76 children below the age of 16 years (54% of all visitors) came to the library. In Buwama and Nakaseke most use was made of the services on location as videos or audiotapes were not usually borrowed or taken away from the centre as is common in the city.

Figure 4. Percentage use of the services offered at the three telecentres

Table 19. Percentage of services used

Continued

Table 19. Continued

Source: Survey 2001

User profiles

This study once more demonstrates that more males than females make use of telecentre facilities. The survey showed that 48.1% of the men, as compared with 39% of the women, were using all the telecentres and cybercafés at the time of the study. This trend was reaffirmed by two other sources of information, the exit poll and document analysis, which showed that women comprised about 30% or less of all users. User registration records kept by all three telecentres showed that a lower proportion of females (29.0%) were registered telecentre users. Buwama had the smallest number of registered female users (19.6%) while Nabweru had the largest (39.0%), and Nakaseke had 27.0%.

Figure 5. Men and women registered users of community telecentres

The majority of the users (71.4%) were between the ages of 18 and 50 years. Close to one-third of the users (27.1%) were children below the age of 16 years. Usage of telecentres by children was concentrated in Nakaseke on the library (54.3%) and in Buwama on watching television (51.5%). The youngest users were found in Nakaseke, and the oldest were in Buwama, which had the widest age range of users (see Figure 6). Very few old people used the telecentres and no handicapped individual was seen using any of the community telecentres in four days of continuous observation.

Figure 6. Observed usage of telecentres

Service delivery

The quality of service was directly related to the state of equipment and related factors such as availability of electricity and the quality of telephone connectivity. Power failures were a constant source of irritation. Several pieces of equipment at the telecentres were out of service. This is in sharp contrast to the situation in the cybercafés. Despite the fact that Wandegeya Cyber-Mart had more computers than the three telecentres combined, its computers were all working; whereas a total of 4 of 17 computers in the other telecentres were not working. A number of reasons were cited, one example being that the rural telecentres found it difficult to get urban-based technicians to help with technical problems. Another reason was the bureaucratic red tape that the telecentres were required to go through to get problems fixed usually with the project-implementing agency. Delays in equipment repair translated into unreliable and inefficient services, and compelled customers to seek other alternatives (usually in private cybercafés).

Table 20. Frequency of technical problems and how they were handled

Source: Survey 2001 (S = solved by; F = frequency of occurrence each month).

In addition to unusable ‘out of order’ equipment, some other equipment were underutilized, e.g., UPS. In both Buwama and Nabweru, these had never functioned. Both telecentres had a standby generator they could use in cases of power failures, but staff in both Buwama and Nabweru indicated that the generators were rarely used because, in addition to the extra costs incurred for fuel, their power output was too low to run all of the electrical equipment. Consequently, in the case of Buwama, the generator was often hired out to generate some revenue for the telecentre. The cybercafés and the Nakaseke telecentre depended on inverters instead of generators. The inverters, unlike generators, did not consume fuel and were practically noiseless.

Telecentre staff were asked about the type and frequency of equipment-related technical problems they encountered and how they solved them. The telecentres depended more on others for solutions; whereas, the cybercafés relied on their staff to solve technical problems (Table 20). This suggests that the cybercafé staff were more technically skilled than those of the community TCs. There were frequent interruptions in electricity supplied by the Uganda Electricity Board. Telephone services also broke down fairly often and affected not only telephony but also email and Internet services. Again, the Wandegeya Cyber-Mart was an exception because it relied on wireless access technology; whereas, the other telecentres were using dial-up access to the worldwide web. Dial-up access is painfully slow and inefficient because it is prone to frequent disconnections. Bugolobi was planning to change from dial-up to wireless access, and Nabweru was dreaming of installing wireless connection/network. Buwama, which had a wireless line connection, was not altogether free from difficulties as indicated earlier.

In Buwama and Nakaseke, staff cited the long distance the technicians had to travel from Kampala to solve technical problems as a major constraint. This was costly and the equipment was sometimes damaged if it needed to be transported to Kampala for repair. The telecentre staff complained that the companies contracted to handle technical and maintenance problems were always slow to respond. Another general complaint was shoddy work done by the technicians. In many cases, the work was poor and the problems soon recurred.

The rural telecentres in Nakaseke and Buwama had the most intense connectivity problems. For a good deal of the project duration, Nakaseke and Buwama have not been able to offer email and Internet services mainly because of poor connectivity. Both telecentres are connected to their ISPs by cellular technology, but the ISPs are concentrated in central Kampala where the networks are most efficient. Rural wireless networks are being developed at a slower pace because of the physical challenges created by the terrain and the associated costs.

Power supply – i.e., electricity – was a major problem. All the TCs except Wandegeya indicated that they suffered electrical/electricity problems many times each month (Table 20) and all five facilities relied mainly on the Uganda Electricity Board for electricity. Although Buwama and Nabweru each had standby generators, they were inefficient and ineffective because of the high cost of fuel. Their power output was also too low to run all the equipment and in particular, the photocopiers, which generated the greatest revenues. The generators were therefore rarely used for the purpose for which they were intended. What this means is that whenever there was a power failure or interruption (which was and still is quite frequent), electricity-dependent services were shut down until the supply was restored. Under conditions of long power interruption, the UPS equipment was not particularly useful. Although electricity interruptions were common and frequent occurrences, users still felt frustrated by them.

• ‘Power here can spend 2 days without being on so it means no business for those two days’ (Nakaseke, Focus Group Discussion); and
• ‘I went to the centre to make photocopies but throughout the week the photocopier was down so I decided to go to Semuto, a distance of more than 10 km away’ (Kyamutakasa –Nakaseke, Focus Group Discussion).

Unlike Buwama and Nabweru, the Nakaseke telecentre and the cybercafés depended on batteries to power the systems and equipment during power failures. The batteries were said to be better than generators because they required no fuel.

Impediments to use

Several factors were cited during the focus group discussions (FGD) as being impediments to wider use of the telecentres.

• Limited range of services: It was noted that telecentre managers failed to provide an attractive range of services to capture or fully satisfy the information needs of local community members. For example, some
  FGD participants pointed out that they would have benefited from a personal announcements service on FM radio stations via the telecentres. One FGD participant commented that: ‘Our kind of business is local and the people we correspond with are local, we use radio announcements. How do we benefit from the telecentre?’
• Poor location of telecentres: The FGD results indicate that the locations of all three community telecentres affected accessibility and use of the facilities. The Nabweru telecentre is located in the administrative centre of the sub-county, the same location as a police station, a prison, and the sub-county magistrate court. These three institutions are law enforcement agencies that constitute a veritable and powerful threat to some users even when they are innocent. In Buwama, the telecentre is tucked away off the main road, making it invisible and inconvenient. In comparison, the Nakaseke telecentre is on the main street, but this also creates problems. The noise from passing traffic and vehicles disturbs library users and there is no privacy for telephone users who can be seen from the road.
• Accessibility: Unlike the rural telecentres, the cybercafés were relatively easy to reach because they are located in Kampala. The cybercafés were within 500 m of 37.0% of the user’s residences in Bugolobi and of 17.0% in Wandegeya. The rural telecentres in Buwama and Nakaseke were far from many of their users. In Buwama, 21.9% of the users had to travel between 1 and 5 km and 34.0% had to travel more than 5 km to reach the telecentre. The situation in Nakaseke was even worse: 47.0% had to travel between 1 and 5 km and 36.1% had to travel more than 5 km. Whereas the majority of respondents in the urban telecentre and cybercafés (41.3–65.6%) did not have to spend any money to reach the service points, in Buwama 30.0% and in Nakaseke 12.0% of users had to spend between UGS 1001–5000 (USD 1 = UGS 1700) to reach the telecentre and access the services. Some users stated this was one reason for not using the telecentres more often. Community members asserted during the focus group discussions that potential clients who did not live in the vicinity of the telecentre found it difficult to access the services, especially if they had to incur transport costs to get there and back.
• Non-functional services: Some telecentre equipment does not work for a long time due to delays in getting technicians to fix the problems or in getting supplies from Kampala. This discourages users from
  returning or drives them away altogether, as seen in the views of two FGD participants: ‘I went to the centre (Nakaseke) to make photocopies but throughout the week the photocopier was down so I decided to go to Semuto trading centre; At times the computers don’t function properly, the mouse sometimes refuses to work.’

During a monitoring visit to Nabweru in October 2000, it was observed that the printer was not being used and had not functioned for more than 1 week because ‘there was no cartridge’. It was found that the telecentre was waiting for the implementing agency, the Uganda National Council for Science and Technology, to authorize the purchase and supply of the cartridges.

• Poor publicity of telecentre services: There was not a great degree of awareness about the telecentres, especially in Nabweru. Twenty-seven percent of respondents had no knowledge of the existence of the Nabweru telecentre. A further 27.0% who knew of the telecentre did not know how far it was from their homes. It is not clear if this was due to poor publicity of the telecentre and its services, or simply symptomatic of city life where alternatives abound and anomie a way of life. Some FGD participants felt that this was due to failures in publicity and sensitization. The discussants suggested that this could be remedied through outreach, sensitization seminars, and advertisement in both the electronic (radio) and print media.
• Privacy: In practically all the facilities there was little privacy, especially when using the telephones. This observation was affirmed during the FGDs when it was pointed out that:
  The arrangement of the telecentre does not allow us to feel free, for example where the phone is placed, you can never talk anything confidential unless you tell the receptionist to go out. At times you would want to quarrel with someone on the phone, but you cannot when everybody around is listening.
• Inconvenient hours: The community (Nakaseke, Buwama, and Nabweru) telecentres keep public, i.e., government 8-hour days. This severely limits the times when the facilities are open to the public. The telecentres do not operate at night, on Sundays, or during public holidays. Yet these are precisely the times when more people might wish to use the facilities. The cybercafés are open longer.
• Cost of services: Although FGD participants found it difficult to suggest reasonable and affordable charges for the various services, they felt that telecentres ought to charge lower rates than the market. The reason for this feeling among community members was their perception of the telecentres as community projects. This same view was expressed during the baseline survey of 1999. Some of the FGD participants claimed that:
  The cost of computer training is unaffordable, for instance ‘Introduction to Computers’ is UGS 15,000 and by the time you finish about four packages you will have spent something like UGS 150,000. The cost of services is a bit high, and yet some of us stay very far, which means adding transport expenses on what you pay for the services . . . The rates should be reduced given the income of the people around.
• Poor management: The Buwama telecentre had suffered from interminable management difficulties, which have had a negative impact on service delivery. There had been disagreements among the staff and between the staff and the local management committee, which affected the smooth running of the TC. One fine day the manager simply absconded, but mercifully without taking any of the equipment!

These difficulties were said to have been largely due to the absence of guidelines specifying the roles and responsibilities of the staff and the local management committee.

Relevance

To examine relevance, users were asked why they used the telecentres and cybercafés. The main reason for which more than half of the users visited the telecentres and cybercafés was social – to maintain contact with family members and friends. The use of the telephone for social reasons was much higher in rural telecentres (Buwama 77.4% and Nakaseke 63.9%) than in the cybercafés. However, the use of facsimile, email, and Internet for social contacts was higher in the cybercafés than in the telecentres. In Wandegeya, 54.2% used facsimile, 62.5% email, and 36.4% the Internet to communicate with friends and family members compared with only one respondent in Nakaseke who used email and Internet for the same purpose. The findings presented in Table 21 suggest that ICTs were more relevant for social activities than for development-oriented action. The most prevalent purpose for making and receiving telephone calls, or sending and receiving faxes and email was social – for contacting family and friends. Between 1.0 and 20.0% of users visited the TCs for business or commercial reasons. Over 50% visited the TCs for entertainment yet very few visits were made to the same TCs in search of government information.

Information needs expressed by community members placed education and the acquisition of new skills topmost followed by health information, production information, and information about governance and government information. However, the communities preferred sources for this information were often not the telecentres. An analysis of the sources of information used by community members revealed a high dependence on sources external to the telecentres or cybercafés, although the telecentres fared better than the cybercafés in this regard.

Table 21. Purpose of last visit (expressed as percentages)*

Table 21. Continued

Table 21. Continued

* Purpose for which the users employed the services the last time they used them at the telecentres (in Nabweru, Buwama, and Nakaseke) and cybercafés (in Bugolobi and Wandegeya).

Focus group discussions show that the communities served by the telecentres appreciated the services on offer and expressed happiness that the services had been brought close to them. This was especially true of the rural telecentres of Buwama and Nakaseke, where such services did not exist before the projects.

‘The telecentre has exposed us to what we did not know before. Like I did not know that the photocopier would enlarge or narrow what you want to photocopy ‘(Bongole–Buwama Focus Group Discussion). ‘Before a photocopier was brought we used to go to Mitala Maria, 3 km away, to photocopy’ (Mbizzinya–Buwama Focus Group Discussion). ‘Some people did not know about computers but have seen and learnt about them and even bought theirs after copying ideas from the telecentre’ (Nakaseke Focus Group Discussion).

Table 22. Where there is no telecentre*

Source: Survey 2001.
* Alternatives (expressed as percentage) for access to the services available at the telecentres and cybercafés.

Further evidence of the importance that the communities attach to the telecentres is reflected in the proportion of respondents at the exit polls who would have had no alternative if the telecentres did not exist. Almost a third of the users in Nakaseke (33.3%) and Nabweru (29.2%) had either no alternate location or did not know where else to obtain the services they had received from the telecentre. Considered as a group, 52.2% of those polled as they exited the facilities, said that they would switch to other telecentres or cybercafés if the ones they were now using did not exist. In Nakeseke, 73.7% of the users would have had to travel over 20 km to obtain the same services, and they pointed out that the cost of these services would have been higher than at the telecentre. The cost of using alternate services in Buwama and Nabweru would also have been higher, but in the city the alternatives were easily and cheaply available.

Participants in the focus group discussions were asked about the direct benefits they received from the use of telecentres and cybercafés. These benefits included ease of communication; savings in money and time; being able to duplicate things (photocopying) quickly and cheaply; access to various types of information, especially on modern techniques of farming; knowledge of happenings in the rest of the world through reading newspapers; job advertisements for community members (volunteers); the acquisition of new skills through computer training; processing documents; and access to global information through the world wide web. In Buwama, most participants singled out the entrepreneurial-skills development seminars organized at the telecentres and conducted by the NGO ‘Council for the Economic Empowerment of Women in Africa’ as having been of particular significance:

The telecentre conducts seminars that teach about good farming methods, rearing animals, poultry, crafts, business, and bookkeeping. These are of great benefit to the community (Jalamba–Buwama, Focus Group Discussion). Through the seminars, women have come to learn from one another and how to improve on what they do (Bongole– Buwama, Focus Group Discussion).

In Nakaseke, the library service was rated very highly by focus group participants:

The library has helped many students especially those who stay near. Other members of the community go there to read newspapers, and
children go there to play computer games and watch videos. The services are not discriminatory, they cater for all ages both young and old, men and women alike (Nakaseke, Focus Group Discussion).

The individual case studies conducted at all telecentre and cybercafé sites indicated that these facilities had significant impacts on the lives of some of the users:

• ‘After watching a telecentre videotape on maize growing in Tanzania where the soil is hard and rocky, I was challenged because the soil here is better. I embarked on a serious program of improving my crop quality and quantity. Since then, I have experienced an increase in both the quality and quantity of my maize produce, which has helped me improve on my income and feed my family. My maize garden is very productive and almost a model to other farmers in the area’ (Steven Kityo, Buwama).
• ‘With the knowledge I acquired through watching videotapes at the telecentre, I now use modern farming practices in my banana plantation. I use the right spacing between plants and crops, apply the right amounts of fertilizers, and mulch the soil to allow water retention and prevent soil erosion. At first, I didn’t try these methods because I thought they would not lead to better yields . . . but I am happy now . . . I don’t have to spend money to buy food for the family anymore’ (Mr. Katwele Kintu, the Local Council II Chairman, Mbizzinnya Parish, Buwama).
• ‘Before I attended computer lessons at the telecentre, I was using the free hand style to design my work. This was taking a lot of time and was not very neat. When the telecentre started, I enrolled for computer lessons in word-processing and Excel. With this knowledge, I can now make my designs on the computer. The computer knowledge has helped me improve on the quality of my work and has made my work faster and easier. This has also increased my clientele base . . . Besides the computer, I use the photocopier to photocopy documents . . . At times I make designs which are too big for the space on the material, and I reduce them using the photocopying machine . . . These days we also just call (our suppliers in Kampala using the telecentre phone) and give them specifications of the goods we need. The suppliers collect the money from our local taxi drivers to whom they give the goods. This has saved the business money and time that would have been
  incurred on transport’ (Ms Namayanja Joyce, a resident of Nakaseke who designs school badges, banners, and signposts).

The exit poll data showed that 55.6% of the respondents reported that learning to use a computer had made a difference in their lives. Two direct benefits were savings in time and money (60.8%) and the capacity to process their own work independently (35.3%). A respondent in Wandegeya found a job as a result of having learnt how to use computers at the cybercafé, and sixteen respondents were hopeful about getting good jobs after their training in computers. The question is not simply whether or not these expectations are realistic, but that they give hope and the possibility of a new occupation.

Content development

It is no secret that a large chunk of the content available on the World Wide Web is of North American and European origin. Some estimates put the figure at over 90%. African content, i.e., content generated by Africans or from the continent is said to constitute less than 2% of the World Wide Web. An early and important task and challenge for the telecentres was the provision and creation of content with local appeal and relevance. This is not an easy challenge. Unlike the cybercafés, the telecentres had made some attempts to create local content. Most of these were largely directed at repackaging available information converting it from one form into another, such as in the production of videos from secondary textual material. The manager of the Wandegeya Cyber-Mart affirmed that they had not put any investment into creating local content because in his words ‘we don’t think it would be profitable’. The three telecentres had created mainly print materials (e.g., handouts, handbills or posters) on a limited number of subjects in agriculture and health etc. Staff members at Nakaseke TC had made a few videos on agriculture, business, and health at the time of the investigation and a directory of useful websites and newspaper cuttings of important events in the country had also been developed and kept in files mainly for reference.

Attempts by the telecentres to repackage information to suit local requirements and environments were not extensive and examples of actual content creation though limited show that efforts in this direction can have dividends. In Nabweru, information on modern agricultural methods had been collected and repackaged into posters. This information had been gathered from many institutions and sources: research institutions in Kawanda (Agricultural Research Institute); farmers associations such as the Uganda National Farmers Association (UNFA) and the Kampala District Farmers Association (KADIFA); the Ministry of Health; the AIDS Information Centre; the National Chamber of Commerce; the British Council; Straight Talk (an NGO); and the Naguru Teenage Centre.

The major challenges identified in the content development endeavour were the absence of funds, lack of relevant skills and expertise, and meaningful cost recovery among poor peasant populations. Pilot content-creation activities are being conducted outside of the telecentres, but with the telecentres as collaborators and beneficiaries. One project currently being implemented by the National Agricultural Research Organization in collaboration with the three community TCs has produced six videos mainly on agriculture and over one dozen posters (see www.agricinfo.ug). Another such example is the CD-ROM titled ‘Rural Women in Africa: Ideas for Earning Money’, which has become a big hit nationally and internationally. The project created a multi-media CD-ROM, which targeted women because the pictures emerging of TC use showed that they were not using the telecentre facilities as much as was expected.

The strategy involved creating a product specifically targeted at women (poor and neo or illiterate women in particular). This product responded to one of a number of primary questions raised by the women themselves during meetings to discuss the project; “How can I make more money?” Following a sequence of collaborative meetings, discussions, data/information collection/gathering, writing, rewriting and editing, the International Women’s Tribune Centre, New York, researchers, and IT experts in Kampala created/produced an interactive audio-enabled CD-ROM. The CD-ROM entitled “Rural Women in Africa: Ideas for Earning Money” features real-life stories of women Ugandan who have successfully started and run small businesses. Using the stories as starting points, practical business information and other business ideas are presented in the CD-ROM. The CD-ROM is in English and Luganda a popular Ugandan language spoken in and around Kampala and the telecentres.

The CD-ROM is immensely popular in the communities around the telecentres initially with women where it has created a huge pull towards the MCT. ‘Women now line up at the telecentres to use the computers because of the CD-ROM’ and a seventy-year old widow is making national and international news as a computer teacher on account of her dexterity with the CD-ROM and the accompanying hard copy “computer book”, which she uses to teach others in the sub-county. The CD-ROM can be viewed at www.wougnet.org/news/cdupdate.html

Ownership, management, and sustainability

A major debate concerning telecentres and public access points in general is the issue of financial sustainability. Are they viable enough to run on their own steam? The market speaks! Closely related to the question of sustainability are those of ownership and management. Who owns the telecentre and how is it managed? These are believed to contribute in really tangible ways to financial sustainability.

At the time of the investigations, Buwama and Nabweru TCs like the other community TCs were running their operations almost exclusively on donor funds. Nakaseke had started meeting some of its operational costs, but still depended heavily on donor funding. The big question, and a source of collective anxiety for the local implementers and to some extent also for the donors, was: what would happen when the projects reach their final termination dates? Projects by their very nature are designed for finite periods, say two, three or four years, at the end of which they must come to an end or their cycle renewed. The telecentre projects reported in this chapter were designed for three years initially and they were on the third year of operations when these investigations were conducted and by that time issues of the future nature of funding (and sustainability) were on their minds and agenda.

The TCs were managed by staff members who were supervised by local management committees on one hand and the respective institutions that acted as project implementers on the other. The nature of management arrangements characterized by overlapping and sometimes unclear roles and responsibilities left much to be desired. At the telecentre level, the absence of services and price listings, timetables for service delivery or systematic organization of service delivery were suggestive of poor organizational efficiency. Among members of staff and the local management committees there was little formal training or technical skills. It was observed that more thought seemed to have been given to services and their delivery in the two TCs where men were the managers. But the fact that the one TC with a woman manager had drawn out discord between the management/steering committee and the manager makes a conclusion in respect of gender and management difficult.

Staffing

Staffing is directly related to sustainability because too large a work force can drain resources – and too few staff can be ineffective. There was, on average, a total of six staff members responsible for day-to-day operations at each of the telecentres and cybercafés. The Nakaseke telecentre and Wandegeya Cyber-Mart had the highest number of staff (eight each). There was a total of 20 staff members in the five facilities investigated 9 of whom were women. There was no significant difference in the gender distribution of staff. Only in Buwama TC was there a gender imbalance where only one staff member was a man (Table 24). Unlike the cybercafés, the telecentres depended quite heavily on volunteers who served mostly as ICT trainers or guides. The volunteers, who generally had secondary school certificates, were paid a small monthly allowance to meet some of their expenses (e.g., transport and lunch). The volunteers were usually trained at the TCs and used the opportunity of being in the TC to improve their personal skills and employability. Most of the salaried employees had diplomas or degrees in subject areas other than engineering or computer science and although some courses had been arranged for them e.g., in basic computer hardware and software most of them did not have significant technical qualifications, expertise or skills.

Each of the community telecentres had an information officer; whereas, neither of the cybercafés had such a staff position. Buwama had an additional position, a Senior Operations Officer. There were other staffing differences between the telecentres and the cybercafés. There were generally more female staff in the cybercafés, and the cybercafés had managing directors instead of managers (Table 23).

Table 23. Staffing patterns at telecentres and cybercafés (M = male, F = female)

Source: Survey 2001.

Community participation

Unlike the cybercafés, whose operations were supervised and directed by a managing director, the community telecentres were supervised by local management committees, which were also called steering committees. The committees in both Buwama and Nabweru were charged with similar responsibilities – advising and overseeing telecentre operations. They were made up of community members who represented different community interests or groups. The local steering committee in Buwama consisted of thirteen members, whereas, in Nabweru, the local management committee had eight members, two of whom were women. In Nabweru, committee members represented the parishes in the sub-county. However, representation in Buwama was less clear because the criteria for member selection were not clear, and not all parishes in the sub-county were represented.

Unlike in Buwama and Nabweru, Nakaseke had three different committees. There was a management committee, a local steering committee, and a core-user group committee. Each of the three committees had clearly defined roles and responsibilities that were spelled out in the terms of reference for the project. The local steering committee in Nakaseke comprised mostly local (Uganda based) representatives of the donor agencies involved in the project, such as UNESCO, IDRC, UTL, and the National Library Board. Although their role was expressly stated as ‘concerned with technical issues’, it was difficult to distinguish their role from that of the management committee. The management committee was charged with responsibility for policy matters and consisted of high-ranking representatives from the various stakeholder groups including UTL, UNESCO, and IDRC. The core-user group committee was made up of local community members who were users and potential users of the telecentre services (e.g., farmers, traders, doctors, and youth). Their major responsibilities were: to articulate the information and communication needs of the community; to voice community concerns and views about the telecentre and services provided; and to liaise with telecentre staff for the benefit of the community. There had been no change in the original composition of the committees since their inception, despite wishes to the contrary that had been expressed by many community members (especially in Buwama).

In terms of committee involvement in telecentre management, committee members in Buwama and Nabweru did not have the power to hire or fire staff. In Nakaseke, the local management committee could hire and fire technical staff, and the sub-county authorities could do the same with support staff, such as the cleaners and security guards because this was their contribution to the telecentre. As in Nakaseke, the sub-county authorities in Nabweru and Buwama were responsible for providing security at the telecentres. The Uganda National Council of Science and Technology (UNCST) the project implementation agency, hired all other staff members for Buwama and Nabweru. The role of the management and steering committees was restricted to recommending who could be hired or fired.

However, the committee chair or an assistant usually represented local management and steering committees when important decisions were made by UNCST about the TCs. In comparison, the managing directors of the cybercafés had absolute powers to hire and fire their employees.

The chairpersons (men) of the management or steering committees in Buwama and Nabweru were co-signatories to their respective telecentre bank accounts along with the telecentre managers. Other committee members were not involved with decisions about telecentre finances, they were simply informed from time to time about the financial performance of the telecentres and were not involved in making or approving telecentre budgets (see Table 24). UNCST, the project-implementing agency was solely responsible for the budgets of the two telecentres and for all financial assessments, including auditing of financial records.

Table 24. Nature of community involvement in management of community telecentres

Source: Survey 2001.

In Nakaseke, the local management committee was responsible for approving the telecentre budgets. Initially, the committee was responsible for most of the purchases. At the time of the study, however, the telecentre manager was responsible for making quarterly budget estimates, which were then approved by the committee. The committee was also responsible for financial audits. However, the local steering committee remained responsible for approving the routine day-to-day expenditures incurred from the telecentre revenues. The manager had the power to spend some of the money made by the telecentre as long as the expenditure was approved by the steering committee. The level of community participation as represented by the nature of involvement of the local and management committee members in telecentre affairs appeared to be higher in Nakaseke than in Nabweru and Buwama.

Community participation in Nakaseke was greater for a number of telecentre activities. Community members were involved in the recruitment of staff, the supervision of telecentre activities, the provision of financial and material resources, and the determination of prices for telecentre services (Table 25). In Buwama and Nabweru, community involvement was restricted to the supervision of telecentre activities and the provision of supplementary resources.

The local communities made significant contributions to all of the telecentres. All three telecentres were housed in public or community facilities, and the premises were provided free of charge. The Buwama telecentre was housed in a centre constructed for the community by World Vision. Nakaseke TC was occupying a community hall while Nabweru was housed in three rooms in the local council offices. In addition to providing premises and security, local authorities also provided furniture.

The opinion was pervasive in Nakaseke, as in the other telecentres, that the current management model would not ensure sustainability. It was pointed out that the relative success of the Nakaseke telecentre had depended a lot on the goodwill and commitment of local political leaders. These leaders had made tremendous contributions toward community mobilization, particularly during the initial stages of the project. There was local concern that if the political leadership was not maintained following the general elections, the telecentre might be adversely affected. One member of the local management committee in Nakaseke observed:

 . . . the most important factor in determining the success or failure of any business is the charisma and the level of entrepreneurship of its managers. I have seen many privately owned secretarial bureaus spring up only to close a few months later. This is all because of poor management and lack of entrepreneurial skills.

In Nabweru, the chair of the local management committee suggested that the management arrangement should continue because ‘it creates employment for community members,’ but he admitted that things were not working well and there was talk of contracting out the telecentre. However, he was unsure of the position of the committee because it had not met for at least 8 months.

The situation in Buwama, was even less clear as the local management committee had been embroiled in endless wrangles with the staff, with the result that the committee had distanced itself from the telecentre until ‘the mess is sorted out’. The Acacia Project Officer reflected:

 . . . If I were to start this project all over again, I would definitely prefer to have the telecentres run like typical business enterprises right from the beginning . . . Also, from the word go, I would involve the local administration (Local Councils) in the implementation of the project.

Telecentre ownership

All the committee members interviewed stated that the telecentres belonged to the communities and that the donors and the implementing agencies (UNCST, in the cases of Buwama and Nabweru) were only there to give a helping hand in the short term before the communities took full control of the projects. The projects have always been described and labelled as community projects. How could the communities be said to own the telecentres if they could not recruit staff or set prices? The local committee members believed that the communities would own the facilities at the end of the project and this was enough reason to label them as they did – i.e., as belonging to the community. However if ownership confers a degree of control, then it would be fair to say that the local Buwama and Nabweru communities did not own the telecentres, the UNCST owned them. The UNCST was an absentee owner or a trustee as was the National Commission for UNESCO for the Nakaseke TC.

Cash matters

A significant dimension of sustainability is profit. Discussions with management staff of all five facilities confirmed that they were recording income, although none of the facilities was generating enough money to cover all their needs.

There was a significant difference in expenditure patterns between the telecentres and the cybercafés. Table 26 presents responses to the question ‘what expenditures are you responsible for?’ In Nabweru and Buwama the telecentre staff did not spend money on any of the identified expenditure items. They had no authority to incur expenditure whatsoever.

Staff at all the telecentres disclosed that, according to telecentre policy, they were supposed to bank all proceeds from the sale of products and services. Donor funds were used by the implementing agencies, the UNCST and National Commission for UNESCO, to cover all expenditures, except in emergencies, such as when there were delays in accessing cash from the project implementing agencies. Project policy stipulated predetermined levels of expenditure for Nabweru and Buwama. For example, they were not supposed to spend more than UGS 80,000 on stationery or UGS 100,000 (1700=1USD) on the telephone each month. Staff in Buwama and Nabweru complained about this policy and pointed out that it made them appear ineffective and inefficient because they could not spend above certain limits, although this was often necessary. They argued for example that for telephone and photocopying services that were hugely popular the restrictions on spending had a negative affect on the provision of these services.

Table 25. Staff responsibility for expenditures (na = not applicable)

Source: Survey 2001.

Photocopying, telephone services, and computer training were the highest earners for those facilities that offered these services (Table 26). Profits and sometimes charges varied from one facility to the other. The Bugolobi Business Centre, for example, made 100% profit on photocopying, but Nabweru lost money on the same service. In Nabweru, the biggest customer for photocopying services was the local administration, which took a long time to settle the bills, and sometimes never did. Nakaseke was making sizeable profits on telephone services, but this was related to the fact that telephone services were subsidized in Nakaseke but not in Nabweru and Buwama. Only the Wandegeya Cyber-Mart reported profits for email and Internet services. Staff at the cybercafés lamented that email and Internet business used to be very profitable, but that profits were falling and they could now barely break even because the numbers of clients had declined due to stiff competition from the many new cybercafés in Kampala. Wandegeya Cyber-Mart was consequently considering slashing its Internet charges from UGS 100 to only UGS 50 per minute. The email and Internet service at Nabweru was losing money not because of competition, but because of low demand.

Despite claims that all telecentres were making profits and the assertions by staff that they would be interested in setting up similar businesses themselves if they had the capital, the figures on revenue flows are not convincing. For 12 of the 18 months for which data were available, the monthly income would not have adequately covered the monthly salary of the telecentre manager (UGS 425,000=USD 250). The overall trend showed a decline in telecentre incomes. It is intriguing that telecentre staff would declare interest in starting telecentre businesses unless they believed in their viability. If this was the case, why then were the telecentres not doing better? Assuming that there was no financial impropriety in operations, and there is little reason to believe there was, the answer might lie in the management model. The private cybercafés, which were not in any way subsidized and were located in areas characterized by stiff competition, were making a profit or at least managing to break even from one month to the next (see Table 26).

Table 26. Estimated monthly income and expenditures (in UGS) by service type (SNA = service not available, NS = not stated, 1USD=1700)

Source: Survey 2001

Conclusion

The testimonies of ordinary people indicate that telecentres have made a significant difference in the lives of Ugandans, especially but not exclusively for those living in the rural areas where the TCs are located. The nature and degree of impact has been slight for some, yet fundamental for others. The question is not if there has been change, but rather how much change of the desired type has occurred and whether this change will last. For the good and desirable change to last, the telecentres will have to receive continued support. Differences observed between the private cybercafés and the community TCs suggest some dimensions of the required changes that might make community telecentres more sustainable. Or is it perhaps as the evolutionary thesis suggests that it is only a matter of time?

These telecentre projects were exploratory, experimental, and had a short life-span. Although all of them were still being implemented at the time of the investigations, they were in their dying days as donor-funded projects awaiting imminent transformation to more permanent status and possibly changed ownership. Two of the TCs, Buwama and Nabweru, have since December 2002 been taken over by the local administration and their fate is to some extent uncertain. However, it is evident that the TCs have given men, women, and children a taste of some of the contemporary tools of information and communication common to the developed world. The projects have shown that the isolation of rural communities can be broken. But more remains to be learnt and done if the experiment with telecentres is to achieve the expectations for universal and affordable access to all community groups in rural Africa.

Document(s) 10 of 18