Summary

In this article the author examines the flawed model that is currently in use in many ICT projects – a model based on giving the poor opportunities by teaching them new skills. The alternative is a model that seeks to utilize ICTs to engage the existing skills of the poor and create opportunity out of established capability. He presents this argument by examining the case of the San Bushmen and shows how this strategy translates the value of their traditional knowledge and skills into information that the rich world can appreciate.

Key Points

The author is arguing for a reorganization of the way that ICTs are used to empower and contribute to the development of the world's poor and marginalized. He believes that the targeted communities have economically viable resources that ICTs can bring into fruition and create opportunities for them. This contrasts the attempts in many ICT and development circles to replace existing but seemingly unviable skills with high-tech aptitudes.

The case study outlines how this approach works. The San Bushmen are nomadic hunters who have traditionally roamed the edges of the Kalahari Desert tracking and hunting game. But in the last 25 years much of their land has been fenced in and transformed into national wildlife parks in an effort to preserve the dwindling numbers of endangered animal species. In the past the San people's knowledge of their land was their source of sustenance, but once excluded from hunting activities, their knowledge became useless and they fell into despair and poverty.

But now, an ICT interface project, called CyberTracker , has been designed that will make their intimate knowledge of the land useful and valuable to the modern world. It is a small handheld computer unit that is used by the trackers to record the movement of animals inside the game park. This information is invaluable to park wardens and is far less intrusive than the previous method which required the tranquilization and attachment of devices on to the animals themselves. The computers use a touch screen and the trackers type in simple symbols before briefly connecting to GPS satellites to record the date, time, and geographic location nearly 100 times a day. The data is later downloaded onto PCs at meetings between the Bushmen and wardens. This allows for a better understanding of animal movements, has reduced poaching by placing over 120 Bushmen in the field, and provides the San with viable economic activity that is in line with their traditional activities.

What is most important about this idea is that it does not attempt to capture the knowledge of the San Bushmen that has taken them 20 years to develop but rather utilizes the information generated by that knowledge. By focusing on what people know and by finding ways for technology to translate the knowledge that poor communities have into valuable information for rich communities, ICTs can contribute to direct poverty alleviation. But as the author argues, the paradigm of current programming needs to be “rewritten.” Poor communities have their own economies with a host of valuable knowledge that is trapped because it is in languages that the rich, scientific world does not understand - ICTs have the ability to bridge this language barrier. But, it is also important that the ownership of the knowledge remains with those who created it and that they receive a fair price for the resultant information. By respecting this indigenous knowledge and finding ways to translate its inherent value, all sides in the equation can gain from ICT facilitated exchanges.

Source: Earl Mardle "ICT and Poverty: The San Bushmen," The Development Gateway (June 03)

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