Document(s) 12 of 18

Senegal is a Sahelian country situated at the extreme western tip of the African continent. It is bordered by Mauritania to the north, Mali to the east, and Guinea and Guinea Bissau to the south. Gambia, a sovereign country lies completely within Senegal to the south. With a population of 9.58 million in December 2000, Senegal has a population density of 35 people/km². Senegal’s population is growing at an annual rate of 2.9% and 85% of its population is younger than 20 years. Women comprise about 51% of the total population, 58% of the people live in rural areas, Muslims make up 94% of the population, and there are several ethnic groups (Wolof, Sereer, Toucouleur, Peul, Diola, Mandingo, Balante, and Bassari).

Economic growth is sustained by the secondary and tertiary sectors. The primary sector, dominated by agriculture, accounted for 17.8% of GDP in 1998. The principal products include groundnuts, fish products, and phosphate. The transport and telecommunication sectors contributed 62% to GDP in 1998.

The national literacy rate (82% for women and 63% for men) is very high among individuals over 15 years of age. The cumulative percentage of children in full-time education (pre-school and primary) is about 84.2%. There are 5,793 general and vocational education schools with a total student population of 1,393,730.

Telecommunications context

A semi-autonomous telecommunications regulatory body ART (Agence de Régulation des Télécommunications) was established late in 2001 despite provisions for it having been made in the Telecommunications Law of 1996. The telecommunications sector is dominated by SONATEL (Société Nationale des Télécommunications du Sénégal), a public service provider privatized in 1997 and partly owned by France Telecom. Created in 1985 after the split in the posts and telecommunication agency, TéléSénéga, SONATEL has a monopoly for fixed telephony, telex, telegraphy, access to international operators and switched packet data transmission up to 2006. SONATEL is the only national fixed operator and it also provides mobile services. SONATEL’s mobile operator (Alizé) that was joined by SENTEL in the provision of GSM services in 1999 has exclusivity until 2004 and had an estimated 273,000 subscribers in 2001. SENTEL had a subscriber base of over 100,000 in the same period.

The Senegal telecommunications system has these characteristics:

• All thirty divisions of the country are connected to the general network by a digital transmission link, which ensures that the transmission network is fully digital (ISDN). Twenty-two out of the thirty divisions are linked to the general network by an optical fibre transmission link;
• A digital GSM cellular network, implemented by SONATEL, covers the major towns and roads of the country and is interconnected with foreign networks (Spain, Great Britain, and Italy);
• 2,000 km of optical fibres encircle the country and are the property of SONATEL;
• SONATEL is the main source of international bandwidth (i.e., gateway) Senegal has a 64 bps link with the USA via MCI. SONATEL has a 45 Mbps link to France and a 3 Mbps link to Teleglobe in Canada, with a 4 Mbps link to The Gambia;
• SONATEL’s telecommunications infrastructure changed dramatically in 2002 with the launch of Atlantis-2 and SAT-3/WASC cables that land in Dakar and connect the country directly to most other coastal African countries, Latin America, Europe and Asia via multi gigabit optic fibre links, which will be expanded via terrestrial fibre to Mali and Mauritania.
• There are 15 Internet Service Providers (ISP) in the country, most of them are in Dakar and a few in Saint Louis; e.g., Metissacana, Arc Informatique, Point Net, University of Saint-Louis, Primature, ORSTOM, AfricaOnline, etc.
• The total number of telephone lines increased from 81,000 lines in 1998 to over 223, 474 in June. Close to 70% of the telephone lines are
  to be found in Dakar. In July, 2001, there were a total of 360,000 mobile subscribers in the country; and
• All rural communities have fixed-lines telephone access and many of them now have access to the mobile phones, especially those areas located along the main roads.

In September 2000, SONATEL reported that there were 8,200 telecentres active in Senegal. The last census conducted by SONATEL in 1999, identified 20 cybercafés and 80 telecentres connected to the Internet nation-wide. With improved bandwidth of up to 42 Mbps announced by SONATEL (Sud Quotidien, 26 December 2000), an increase in the use of the Internet is expected. Telecentres in Senegal vary greatly in size, from one room, one-telephone shops to large cybercafés holding a range of equipment. Although all are called telecentres, the majority of them would more rightly be described as telephone kiosks or phone shops following the typography proposed by Gomez et al. (1999:15).

The telecommunications sector has witnessed significant changes, which have begun to pay dividends. In the 1980s, average annual investments in the sector exceeded FCFA 18 billion. In 1996, the telecom sector directly contributed to an increase in the GDP of 2.6%. In addition, it acted as a driving force for other national economic activities. About 10,000 jobs were created by the sector between 1992 and 1998.

Despite the impressive statistics, telecommunication costs remain high and services are not accessible to all because of the level of infrastructure development in the rural areas and poverty, which makes it difficult for some sections of the population to pay for services. Connection tariffs vary between FCFA 9,600 and 15,000 for a telephone line and the cost of a local telephone call is a standard FCFA 60 (per unit of 2 minutes) USD 0.08 and a national call costs about the same for 1 minute. Senegal has a policy of lower telephone charges to the Internet and international calls.

Twenty telecentres were investigated in Senegal. Data was collected between November 2000 and February 2001 using five types of data collection instruments: observation; discussion and document analysis guides; interview schedules; and individual and organizational questionnaires. The sample consisted of 1,019 survey respondents, 220 users, 27 organizational leaders, 13 telecentre managers, 14 community leaders, 5 telecom officials, and 4 staff of local authorities. Focus group discussions were conducted with management committee members, youth, and women.

Context of telecentres

The 20 telecentres in the study are located in the central and northern regions of Senegal. The telecentres fall under three institutional arrangements: those administered by Enda and referred to as Enda-Ecopop telecentres, which are part of an ICT project started in 1998; those run by Trade Point Senegal (TPS) an UNCTAD project started in 1999 for which IDRC is a partner; and private telecentres.

ENDA-ECOPOP Telecentres

Enda-Ecopop implements activities in the disadvantaged urban and periurban areas and neighbourhoods of Dakar, where it provides technical and institutional support to the telecentres. Each telecentre is associated with a community resource centre (CRC) run by a management committee. The CRCs bring together a network of non-professional organizations in the neighbourhoods surrounding the centre. Four of the eight telecentres investigated are located in the central neighbourhoods of Félix Eboué, Médina, Sicap, and Colobane. These are islands of poverty amid the plenty so visible in other parts of the downtown area. The other telecentres are in the outskirts of Dakar in Pikine and Yeumbeul, and further away in Rufisque and Yarakh.

Enda-Ecopop is involved in the implementation of integrated activities in health, education, sanitation, micro-projects, and micro-financing in the communities in which their projects are located. The Acacia Initiative had a working partnership with Enda-Ecopop in Senegal for the telecentres project.

TPS Telecentres

Trade Point Senegal (TPS) provides technical and administrative support to a number of regional telecentre sites. The local municipality or chamber of commerce hosts each TPS telecentre. The hosts are represented on the management committees of the telecentres as local principal partners. The TPS telecentres are located in Guédiawaye, Mboro, Joal, and Saint Louis, all of which are heterogeneous sociocultural environments.

Guédiawaye is a suburban neighbourhood on the outskirts of Dakar characterized by a high population, high levels of poverty, poor infrastructure, a very high level of illiteracy, and a thriving informal sector. Mboro in Thiès has highly developed infrastructure because it is situated near the foremost mining industry in the country (Chemical Industries of Senegal). The telecentre in Joal is located in a new migrant fishing neighbourhood. The main economic and, to a certain extent, social activities are related to fishing. In Saint-Louis, one of Senegal’s older towns, the telecentre is located in the town’s Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Local Crafts, which is situated in the administrative part of the town. This confers a degree of formality on the telecentre, which in turn affects community dynamics around the telecentre.

Findings

Telecentre physical facilities

The telecentres were generally not located in premises originally built for this use. They are usually found in premises that belonged to local communities, associations, or chambers of commerce, such as in Mboro, Saint Louis, Yarakh, Pikine, and Yeumbeul, or in rented premises that had initially been designed for other types of use such as in Joal.

The telecentres look very cramped because most premises are narrow and not very comfortable. However, some managers had successfully arranged the interiors in such a way as to make space for waiting room areas with chairs and ensuring ventilation. Two telecentres, Saint Louis and Joal, had air-conditioning.

Most telecentres did not guarantee privacy. The telephones and computers were usually in the room that also served as the waiting room. Very few telecentres made reading materials (e.g., journals and magazines) available to waiting customers, and very few had their own toilets for the exclusive use of the telecentre and its users. The quality of the furniture and equipment varied from one telecentre to the next but was generally good. However, the computer hardware was less impressive in terms of quality and quantity. Users often spent a lot of time trying to obtain connections or perform simple tasks.

In general, the space occupied by the telecentres was inadequate and usually did not conform to SONATEL’s standard requirement of 12 m². The space limitations did not allow the telecentres to provide users and staff with ideal services and comfortable environments for reception areas or workspaces. Most of the telecentres did not engender privacy and about one quarter of the ones in the study sample occupied a single room.

Services offered

The telecentres offer a range of services: telephone, Internet access, email, web-page design, word processing, and training. In addition to these services offered by community telecentres, some private telecentres have developed other services and products not directly related to ICTs such as the sale of cosmetics, beverages and a number of other commodities. Specific products and services offered by the various telecentres included:

• Production of business vouchers, invoices, delivery notes, posters, letterheads with logos, and business, invitation, and greetings cards;
• Dispatch and receipt of messages;
• Search for partners (local and distant) and markets for local products;
• Creation of email addresses and accounts;
• Access to information about world trade fairs (e.g., dates, venues, and conditions of attendance)
• Provision of guidance and searches for opportunities for pupils and students wishing to pursue studies overseas (Foreign Students Assistance);
• Production of promotional materials (e.g., posters and product labels for processed and unprocessed products); and
• Training and tools for financial management, hygiene, dyeing, and the processing of local products.

Each type of telecentre offered specific services, sometimes depending on its location. For example, in the TPS sites, the telecentres translated information about business opportunities that was disseminated by the UNCTAD global network to which TPS is affiliated. No such specialized services were being provided in the Enda-Ecopop sites; whereas the private telecentres provided facsimile services, which the others did not usually provide.

In the Enda-Ecopop telecentres, as in most others, the telephone was most popular, but in both the private telecentres and the TPS telecentres, the Internet and, in particular, email was very popular. Some private telecentres had video libraries in addition to other commercial services. Although the private telecentres were clearly profit-oriented, the activities in the Enda-Ecopop sites were community related and provided support for savings and credit, community management of water and electricity, advice to neighbourhood organizations about maintaining electronic files of members, financial management, and the management of electronic databases.

Use

Telecentres in Senegal are a recent discovery. They were first set up in 1992 and the twelve Acacia telecentres in the survey sample date back to 1998. The uses to which telecentres are put are many and varied. At the time of the study in 2000–2001 only 5% of users had been using telecentres for more than 2 years and 65% of those interviewed had used them for less than 1 year.

Table 27. Length of telecentre use

Telephony was the most popular service at most of the telecentres. In the Enda-Ecopop and private telecentres, the telephone was the most heavily used service. Its extensive use has turned the telephone into a very ordinary yet powerful tool.

The Enda-Ecopop telecentres were also used as meeting places in the difficult and harsh socioeconomic environment of the city. They provided sites that helped maintain linkages between the urban community and communities of origin, which were scattered all over the country. The telephones were being used as collective community answering machines, almost free for community members who could not afford the cost. In Baraka, for example, the community had installed a line dedicated to incoming calls at its own expense. This service has been hugely beneficial to some groups. Female domestic workers from disadvantaged neighbourhoods were in the habit of clustering in street corners usually under the elements (the intense sun, heavy dust, and occasional rain showers) as they waited to be hired by affluent city residents. They were often exposed to real risks and found this service to be tremendously useful. The Enda-Ecopop project made the use of telephones for advertising a reality for this group. The women used the telecentres to advertise their skills and availability. This provided them safer means for their job searches. However, users felt that the telephone services in the Enda-Ecopop telecentres were inadequate, possibly because of their popularity and the pressure on their use.

Before the introduction of these projects the personal computer was almost unknown in most of the project sites and the majority of respondents discovered computers at the telecentres. Project computers were most frequently used for office tasks, to capture or store data by business people and small groups (e.g., artisans and other micro-enterprises), and for record keeping by community associations.

Internet use was low in many telecentres with the exception of the TPS ones. Even when used, the telecentre staff usually did all the surfing for customers. Only a handful of students used the Internet themselves to search for registration information for foreign universities. It was very rare to find lay people accessing the Internet by themselves. Specialized services related to trade were offered by the TPS for tradesmen who were looking for business opportunities. This service was not available in the Enda Community Resource Centres/telecentres. Tradespeople from towns such as Thiés and Saint-Louis and remote rural areas like Ross Béthio and Podor were using this service from TPS telecentres. The Serbatim TPS telecentre had developed an extensive and interesting partnership network through which it had found and nurtured many business opportunities.

Table 28. Sex of users

Source: Survey, November 2000.

Table 29. Age of users

Source: Survey, November 2000.

The telecentres allow users to perform a significant social function – maintaining social and business contacts in Senegal and around the world. Of the householders who were interviewed, 88% maintained contact with persons residing in Dakar, 79% maintained contact with persons in other parts of Senegal; and 24% maintained contact with individuals in other parts of Africa while 45% maintained contact with people in other parts of the world (Table 31). It is interesting to note that nearly twice the number of people maintain contacts with the rest of the world as with Africa.

User profiles

The majority of the telecentre users were men. They represented 80% of the users in the Enda-Ecopop telecentres and 70% in the others. However, only 51.3% of the men in the random survey sample claimed to use the telecentres. The largest group of users (90%) were between 19 and 55 years of age. The survey results show that all age groups used the telecentres, but youth and adults between the ages of 30 and 55 years were by far the most frequent users, possibly because they were the most economically and socially active.

The telecentres were also used by organizations. Interviews with organizational representatives revealed that the telecentres were used quite heavily. Six of the eleven organizations relied on the telecentres as their main source of information, the nature of which ranged from health, to sports, and trading.

Beneficiaries

Other than direct users, a large number of individuals qualify as beneficiaries of the services provided by the telecentres because of extensive and pervasive social occupational, family, religious, and political networks typical in Senegal. All the members of the local community were considered to be beneficiaries of the telecentres, but the main beneficiaries were members of the user’s household, parents, in-laws, friends with whom obtained information is shared, business and social acquaintances, association members for whom the user acted as a representative, and local communities and businesses, for whom the centre acts as advisor.

The in-depth case study found 29 users who had conveyed the information they had received from the telecentres to 62 other people: friends (13), spouses (10), colleagues (8), and cousins (6). The information was first shared with family members (30), then with their network of friends (13), and ultimately with work colleagues (9). The survey results show that all social groups derived secondary benefit from the telecentre services. This suggests that the telecentre can be a powerful tool for driving social change if information collected can be spread to twice the number of physical visitors to the telecentre.

Table 30. Contacts maintained through the telecentres with others in Dakar, Senegal, Africa, the rest of the world

Source: Survey November 2000.

Quality of service

The majority of users (78%) stated that the services offered by both the private and community telecentres were adequate, and more than 80% claimed to be satisfied with the information they obtained from the telecentres.

The major success factors associated with the community telecentres were identified as socioeconomic and cultural. The community resource centres (CRCs, Enda-Ecopop) served as economic, social, and cultural centres where people living in disadvantaged neighbourhoods or rural areas had access to ICTs because of the proximity of the centres and the affordability of tariffs. The CRC telecentre managers were also in the habit of providing advice and assistance to users. The majority of users indicated that they would love to see some improvements in the physical facilities and premises of the telecentres.

Although the use of telecentres has become very popular in Senegal, some groups have been marginalized. The groups with the greatest difficulties are the poor and disadvantaged (students, the unemployed, and women). It was reported that illiteracy did not appear to be a major constraint to access and use of the telecentres because of the assistance provided by telecentre managers and the language used to transact business that was the local one. More than 80% of the community members who were interviewed expressed satisfaction indicating that their information needs had been met by the community telecentres.

Common problems

Service delivery in the telecentres was affected by common technical and infrastructure problems. The most severe problems were computer failures, printer breakdowns, and corrupted software. Routine computer maintenance disrupted services and greatly displeased users. This was because for the majority of the telecentres in the study this involved physically moving the systems to Dakar for the required maintenance. The process took long. On the other hand, bringing technicians from Dakar also meant appreciable disruptions to use timetables since the way to justify this line of action would be a major breakdown. Second in degree of importance were electrical/electricity problems, principally power failures or interruptions. Telephone and connection problems were commonly manifest as busy dial tones and signal loss by which users were not terribly bothered, as they had got used to this irritation. The cost of use did not surface as a serious impediment, except among disadvantaged groups, such as the unemployed, students, and women.

Staff members in all the telecentres lacked the skills and expertise needed to solve identified problems by themselves. Technical problems encountered by the community resource centres were referred to the main resource centre, which was located in Dakar’s Blaise Senghor Cultural Centre and served as the hub for all the community resource centres and was the central repair node for the Enda-Ecopop project. The TPS technical department was responsible for solving problems in the TPS telecentres.

Relevance

The services provided at the telecentres were described as useful and relevant because they were serving the social and economic needs of the people and were requested by all the different groups in the community: farmers, artisans, business people, women’s groups, sports and cultural associations, and students. The information about business opportunities was said to have helped improve and develop business activities by adding value to products and services. The facilitation of access to distant markets and products had contributed to improvements in community organizations. The local production of illustrated brochures with the use of scanners, business invoices, members’ lists, dues, checklists, and minutes were all cited as examples of content-development activities.

The use of email in place of telegrams, which require lots of time to process and many hours to deliver, also improved businesses. The use of email by Senegalese migrant workers in other parts of the world and to effect money transfers was a case in point. It was unclear from the research report how this was accomplished but other sources suggest that through email messages, money would be made available to say a family member located in Dakar by an individual in Senegal. The refund is made to such an individual’s kin or contact located in an address overseas usually Europe or America. All the messaging and necessary confirmations and contacts are made possible by email.

Although the services provided by the telecentres were considered to be very relevant and appropriate for the needs of the population, the picture with content and applications was different. Efforts were being made by the telecentres to address issues in the local environment and the community telecentres were designed around themes that reflected the daily concerns of the local people for which content and applications were being sought with little success. In Saint-Louis and Joal the search for markets for fish was a daily concern for a large part of the population. In Mboro, people looked to sell their market-garden produce, and in Guédiawaye, sculptures and dyed articles had to find a market. The concern in Baraka was for education and alternative training, in Rail, residents were concerned with crafts, and in Yeumbeul, community health was a key concern. The telecentre in Rufisque was grappling with sanitation and housing issues, Yarakh, with childhood and youth problems, and in Colobane with women and local development problems. In Pikine, the telecentre was attempting to develop savings and credit strategies for women, and in Médina, support for associations and cultural activities were the main issues of concern for applications development.

Despite this expressed concern for thematic information needs, the development of content and applications had not progressed very well because of the dearth of requisite skills among telecentre staff and the absence of sophistication in the communities themselves. Although the requisite expertise was absent, the telecentre staff maintained constant dialogue with the local communities and some really elementary and generic products and services were designed and developed to respond to some of the community needs. The most advanced products designed were logos, letterheads, business cards, invitation cards, job certificates, posters for popular entertainment events, and these were made by simple use of word processing and graphics software packages. These products were usually designed after project staff had analyzed the needs and the environment using participatory approaches with local community members.

The level of content and the applications that had been created at the time of the study were not very sophisticated and it could be argued that they were not applications in the true sense of the word. Therefore the road to real (genuine) content development of relevant and useable applications is still long.

Ownership, management, and sustainability

The ownership frameworks in the Enda-Ecopop and TPS telecentres were not the same. Each of the telecentres had different partners, and the dynamics in the surrounding communities were unique and specific. The Enda-Ecopop telecentres were commonly seen as owned by the communities, whereas the TPS sites were described as belonging to individuals or associations. Unlike private telecentres, the TPS and Enda-Ecopop telecentres were conceptualized as having close community involvement through community organizations that were primary stakeholders who provided support to the projects. Local partners often provided the telecentres with much needed additional capital. This community support energized the telecentre activities, assisted their development, and contributed to their sustainability.

However, the various actors understood the notion of ownership differently. Residents perceived the community telecentres, which were started in partnership with Enda-Ecopop, as belonging to the community. The communities were deeply involved in their management and the telecentres were fairly well integrated into the environment and had been accepted by the people. The telecentres operated in partnership with TPS were considered as belonging to private companies that were merely providing services to the community. Respondents averred that for a telecentre to be sustainable the community had to be the rightful owner and that this could be achieved through community-based organizations. Most, if not all, of the telecentres investigated were being run as pilot projects with the intermediate institutions acting as parents. This situation is quite unlike the private telecentres.

Community participation in management

Both the TPS and Enda-Ecopop telecentres had management committees made up of representatives of local communities, local chambers of commerce, and business people. The number of members varied from one telecentre to the other. In Enda-Ecopop, there were as many men as women. There were also representatives from other significant interest groups, such as community-based organizations located in the surrounding neighbourhoods, in the Enda-Ecopop telecentres.

The communities expressed satisfaction with the management and based this judgement on the availability and skills of the telecentre staff. However, they noted that no information on the technical and financial management of the telecentre was made available to community members. Several other observations were made about telecentre management. The administrative, financial, and technical management of the TPS telecentres was centralized in the head office in Dakar, where all the important decisions relating to the running of the telecentres were taken. The manager was unable to authorize or incur any type of expense, not even for the procurement of computer supplies or stationery. In the event of technical problems, managers were usually unable to solve these problems even when they were minor faults such as computer or printer breakdowns. All problems had to be referred to the head office, and this usually entailed waiting for technicians to arrive from Dakar or for the faulty equipment to be physically moved to Dakar. No maintenance contracts had been signed with local technicians to provide services, and relying on Dakar resulted in service interruptions for several days at the telecentres. This, ‘distance management’ engaged in by the head office negatively affected the TPS telecentres.

The managers in the Enda-Ecopop telecentres reported having simple reporting tools. A management system jointly developed between the telecentre staff and the management committee was used. The managers were in charge of running expenses such as bills (e.g., telecom, electricity, rent, management, and savings), and the surplus was placed in a reserve account and used according to the discretion of the management committees. In the TPS telecentres, unlike the Enda-Ecopop telecentres, the management committees did not feel like owners because they were neither involved in the financial and technical management nor in the recruitment of staff and were not involved in awareness-raising activities on behalf of the telecentres.

The Guédiawaye telecentre was seen as a model of true ownership and good management practices that ensured genuine community involvement and reaped sustainability on account of its management and entrepreneurial model. This telecentre is owned by a group of 1,200 (mostly women) members and managed by an appointed management committee that reports regularly to the members. All staff members come from the community, and there is collective responsibility for running the telecentre and for ensuring its sustainability by creative marketing and other non-ICT products.

These findings suggest that the issues of telecentre ownership, management and sustainability ought to be de-linked or at the minimum problematised more sensitively. Three types of ownership patterns were evident – private individual/s, private group or company (e.g., Guédiawaye) and quasi community ownership better seen as a trusteeship. None of these ownership variations was found to be consistently associated with a particular management outcome, although private telecentres did tend to make more profits. The least developed model – that of trusteeship – was the most common form of ownership in the Enda-Ecopop telecentres and in some of the TPS ones. It requires to be better understood by both designers and implementers if success is to be achieved.

Finances

The financial picture discussed in this section is based on the financial summary of the Enda-Ecopop telecentres from August 2000 to January 2001 and financial statements from the TPS evaluation report. The financial situation of some private telecentres was used for comparison. Table 31 provides a profile of expenditures and costs in some of the telecentres.

Income

In the Enda-Ecopop telecentres, telephony was the main source of income and accounted for more than 80% of revenue. In comparison, other services such as word processing and training generated about 13% of total income. Income from telephony was practically nonexistent in the TPS telecentres, where most revenue came from Internet access (41.0%), web products (17.8%), and ‘other sources’ (20.0%).

Sundry non-ICT income represented a noticeable percentage for private telecentres whose ICT services generated small revenues comprising 7.6% of total income. Monthly revenues ranged from about FCFA 1.5 million in the Enda-Ecopop telecentres, to less than FCFA 5,000 in the TPS telecentres, to hundreds of thousands of FCFA in the private facilities (Exchange rate: USD1=FCFA 740). The total income of the Enda-Ecopop telecentres was more than double that of the TPS telecentres. There were also large variations in income generation between the different telecentres of the same project (Enda-Ecopop or TPS). Among the Enda-Ecopop telecentres, Yeumbeul earned on average over FCFA 500,000 (676.00 USD) each month; whereas, Yarakh earned about FCFA 20,000 (27 USD). The differences among the TPS telecentres were even greater, with amounts varying from a few thousand to over a hundred thousand FCFA. This finding is further evidence that ownership patterns alone do not confer sustainability.

Table 31. Monthly incomes and expenditures at three types of telecentres in Senegal

Source: Survey February 2001.
* Includes the sale of such items as soft drinks and other products.

Expenditure

Whereas the Enda-Ecopop telecentres spent about 92% of their generated incomes, the TPS sites spent nearly four times (390%) more than their revenues (Table 31 and Figure 8). The private telecentres spent on average less than either of the other two. Telephone expenditures were highest for all telecentres. It is curious that even in the TPS telecentres, a sizeable amount was spent on telephones, which did not fetch an equivalent amount in revenue, yet practically nothing was spent on web products, which generated most of the money.

Telephone (connectivity) costs constituted the second largest expenditure item (Table 31) after salaries. Expenditure on staff in the Enda-Ecopop and private telecentres accounted for 10% of total expenses, but 70% in the TPS telecentres. Other expenditures, including electricity, stationery, computer supplies, and, less frequently, housing, accounted for 10–12% of total expenditures. The community (Enda-Ecopop and TPS) telecentres often did not pay rent. A rank ordering shows that salaries come at the top in a scale of expenditure followed by telephone and computer supplies.

Sustainability

The findings suggest that telecentres have the potential for sustainability on account of their social and economic utility and their capacity to respond to the ICT needs of the population. Services provided by the telecentres were greatly appreciated by community members. Some of the telecentres especially the Enda-Ecopop ones that were located in disadvantaged neighbourhoods had become popular meeting places for community members and organizations. The telecentres had become a vital and integral part of the community’s social infrastructure. The report argues that telecentre sustainability depends on their successful integration into the community, their acceptance by the people, and the enthusiasm of the community to get involved in their management. It is therefore possible on the basis of this argument to distinguish institutional sustainability from conceptual validity on one hand and financial sustainability on the other. It does seem that conceptual validity and institutional validity are logically linked to the extent that an idea has found acceptance, value and concrete expression among the population. The concept is recreated and encapsulated in the institution of the telecentre. The existence and validity of the idea is therefore guaranteed but the nature and form of future mutations of the institutions and indeed the idea may not necessarily follow those of the initial conception. The point was repeatedly made that conceptual validity confers on the telecentre institutional sustainability.

Financial sustainability for community telecentres remains elusive. Given the amount of revenues generated by the telecentres, with which few could cover their total running expenses, this conclusion cannot be avoided. Despite steadily increasing incomes, 50–70% of income was being spent on salaries. This situation does not generate financial confidence, stability, or sustainability. The funds provided by IDRC and other donors have assured that the telecentres will survive for as long as the projects last. However, because all projects eventually end, it is important that telecentres develop strategies for self-sufficiency by generating income and raising funds from local partners such as chambers of commerce. The Acacia program is currently considering different models for the future of those telecentres in which it is involved. These futures exclude the continuation of full support, which makes the issue of sustainability a priority. Short-term resources in the form of working capital, combined with guarantees of resources in the medium and long term, are needed to ensure the sustainability of the telecentres.

The Guédiawaye community telecentre is one success. Owned and run by a community based-organization – the SERBATIM Economic Interest Group (EIG), the telecentre has shown that community TCs can generate enough revenue to cover their operating costs and make profit. The SERBATIM EIG has 1,200 members (957 women and 243 men) and was incorporated in 1997 to implement income-generating activities for the benefit of its members. At the time of the study, it was carrying out various activities, which ranged from dyeing, to the production of wooden sculptures and other works of art, to computer training. The group owned a hairdressing salon to provide training for youth, a savings and credit facility, a day-care nursery, and a private school. These profit-making activities, together with members’ dues, were generating sufficient financial resources to cover all expenses. The telecentre staff and members of the EIG, had worked for almost a year on a voluntary basis and began to receive monthly allowances only when the group became financially stable. The telecentre was running without any major external subsidies, except for the fact that like most other telecentres, the premises were free. Here, therefore, is an example of a

Figure 7. Telecentre income in FCFA

Figure 8. Telecentre expenditure in FCFA

community TC run on an entrepreneurial model designed to benefit members. Technically speaking the motive of the CBO is profit making and a variety of products were created to ensure that sufficient revenue was generated to satisfy members. Members were also willing to volunteer services until such a time, as the investment was ripe. Clearly there is a real need to study this model more closely.

Other community TCs whose core motives were perhaps less identifiable with profit and enrichment were not concerned by their lack of profitability, preferring instead to dwell on the fact of their proven institutional sustainability in the belief that they were providing services that were of great value to the community. Therefore, their continued existence could be justified on the basis that they are a public good.

Summary and conclusion

This study has shown that:

• Communities use telecentre services in their daily lives to satisfy their social and economic needs, such as to send and receive messages and seek information.
• Communities are satisfied both with the community telecentres and the services they offer.
• The social impact of the telecentres is significant.
• The introduction and development of the telephone, especially with the advent of the telecentres, has given birth to a new telephone culture. People are now conscious of the telephone as a means of both social and business communication, and this has reduced reliance on the transportation system as virtual mobility has become a reality.
• The new technologies provide access without social discrimination or marginalization.
• The telecentre is at one and the same time an ICT service provider, a forum for training, a centre for hosting neighbourhood micro-enterprises and individual entrepreneurs, and a shared secretariat.
• The telecentres have enhanced local job opportunities and the acquisition of new skills.
• Some telecentres have contributed to the strengthening of community organizations and the linkages between them. Telecentres now play a
  supportive and advisory role and act as intermediaries in the information and communication chain in the community.
• Some telecentres have influenced the financial behaviour of community members by establishing local savings and credit schemes.
• A central research task for the study was to determine which management model might be best from the perspective of sustainability. Difficult as it was to compare between the models because they had different products and strengths, it is clear that the relationship between ownership, management and sustainability is complex and in need of further study. The community-oriented model represented by the Enda-Ecopop telecentres facilitated access and social integration of underprivileged people. The quasi business model exemplified by the TPS telecentres improved individual and business opportunities for a select few. Being project-based, the management model was not significantly different from the Enda-Ecopop one. The difference was to be found in the objectives – to improve the business opportunities and performance of local businesses. So, although the TPS TCs were geared towards promoting business for their clients, they did not necessarily have to be good businesses themselves; they were after all fully funded “development projects”. It is tempting not to come to the conclusion that as “a development project”, what appears to have been perceived as an important and valued dimension of success is not financial sustainability but community participation.

Several conclusions can be drawn from this study:

• It is possible in contemporary society for disadvantaged individuals and community-based organizations to have access to valuable information in real time at affordable rates through the use of new ICTs.
• Telecentres offer social, economic, and cultural advantages, and the great enthusiasm for them is proof that they stand some chance of surviving and growing.
• The barriers to the use of ICTs, which are predicated on constraining factors such as illiteracy, gender, and age, can disappear with time and reasonable investments in models that encourage genuine community participation and capacity development. This investment ought to be the responsibility of a widening group of partners.

Document(s) 12 of 18