Policy Development

This summary is part of a research project carried out between March and October 2006 in support of the International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD), one of The Communication Initiative (The CI)'s partners.

According to this case study, despite the fact that Senegal had a highly developed telecommunication infrastructure as well as many players involved in the field of information and communication technologies (ICT), the Government of Senegal had no coherent framework for introducing ICT. This setting and context offered the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) the opportunity to influence policies through the implementation of its Acacia programme.

Launched in 1997, Acacia sought to encourage a national strategy for adopting and integrating ICT in support of development. The programme was aimed at determining the potential of ICT to empower economically poor African communities and help them to achieve their development objectives. In Senegal, the programme reflected the sectoral approach to development through its focus on key sectors including natural resource management, education, health, governance and employment and entrepreneurship.

The Senegal Acacia Strategy (SAS) was approved in March 1997 and sought to foster coordinated activity in policymaking, infrastructure, technologies, and applications and contents, in order to promote a true national strategy for using ICT for development. The SAS was based essentially on a series of experimental demonstration projects. Four projects were selected: the Permanent Secretariat Acacia/SN, ICT in Support of Gender Equity in Senegal, Experimentation with Youth Cyberspaces in Secondary Schools in Senegal, and the Role of ICT in Implementing the Decentralisation Policy in Senegal. According to the authors, these projects had an influence on policies relating to education, decentralisation, gender relations, and ICT.

The programme sought to influence policies by supporting the introduction of a regulatory body and an independent framework for coordinating ICT activities. According to the study, the projects have had a greater effect on national policies than on local policies, even though most of these projects have been implemented at the local level.

Due to its participatory approach, Acacia has been able to exert influence of various kinds, directly or indirectly, on public policies in Senegal:

• Acacia projects have influenced the development of a new approach to ICT policy in the country, one based on an integrated and organised vision. The establishment of the Telecommunications Regulation Agency (ART) is one example of this.
• In some cases, Acacia succeeded in bringing about changes in the way sectoral policies and programmes are introduced, including:
  - The project on youth cyberspaces in the secondary schools (“Expérimentation d’espaces cyber jeunes dans l’enseignement moyen et secondaire au Sénégal) sought, both in its approach and through its results, to help the education ministry authorities to prepare a programme for introducing ICT into the schools.
  - Through a broad awareness campaign under the project for using ICT in support of gender equality (Les TIC à l’appui du programme des femmes pour l’égalité de genre), the Government of Senegal has introduced legislation to modify the Family Code in order to achieve greater gender equity.
  - The Acacia project on the role of ICT in implementing decentralisation policy (Le rôle des TIC dans la mise en œuvre de la politique de décentralisation) has produced applications and contents of use to local governments and people involved in decentralisation, and should help to facilitate implementation of the decentralisation policy, by providing access to information on decentralisation policy and making these local governments more effective.
• In the health field, the Government of Senegal is currently supporting projects based essentially on experience with the Acacia project on telemedicine, in rural and remote areas of the country.
• Acacia has made a significant contribution to raising awareness about the importance of ICT for development. The effects of ICT on grassroots communities have changed the perception of international cooperation agencies such as the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), and have broadened their programming horizon for applying ICT in such fields as education, health, reproduction and the advancement of women.

• According to the Permanent Secretary (PS) of the SAS, the organisation of the SAS did not seem to be a government priority. The scattering of decision-making centres was problematic, and it was difficult to get the key ministers to participate.
• Most participants in the SAS were not directly involved in politics, nor were they from the traditional research community. Thus there was no clear linkage between the SAS and the political world or the research community. Paradoxically, then, research (in the strict sense) had little role in influencing policies.

• The SAS was influential in fields such as telemedicine, which the government now considers to be an important sector. As a result of the programme, the government recognised the opportunities that ICT offers in the field of public health and implemented a telemedicine project in a rural part of Senegal (Kedougou).
• Thanks to the Acacia programme, all players (decision-makers, researchers, donors and civil society organisations) are more familiar with ICT applications in their respective field of activities, and the possibilities that ICT offers for strengthening their intervention capacities.

The SAS could have left a greater mark on policies if it had distanced itself from the image of IDRC and transformed itself into a true national strategy that would attract other donors.

Despite the favourable policy indicators and the fairly coherent view of the role of ICT in development, Senegal does not yet have a coherent and integrated ICT policy. Implementation of sectoral policies appears to have stalled, although the education sector seems to be making progress in integrating ICT into the education system, and the Ten-year Education and Training Plan (PDEF) assigns an important place to these technologies.