N° 8 - October 2002
Electronic Networking for Rural Asia/Pacific (ENRAP)
ENRAP, a pilot project, set out to support and encourage internet-use (including email and electronic newsletters) and develop an electronic knowledge network linking IFAD-supported projects in Asia and the Pacific. Improving access to local research and strengthening project ability to identify, document and share good practices require better communication, interaction and dialogue between projects and with IFAD: ENRAP is a tool to assist projects in achieving their development goals. What kind of information and knowledge do ENRAP project managers, implementers and client communities need? How might their needs be met by ENRAP’s second phase?
The evaluation assessed electronic communication activity, email use, web-browsing, documentation of good practices, content of the ENRAP website, and development of individual project websites. It provided recommendations for the second phase, including:
- Network of networks - rather than rely on a regional hub spanning out to the countries, ENRAP may be more useful if it became a decentralised network of networks driven by local needs and interests.
- Internet connectivity is costly and often difficult in remote areas: development of digital technology and support for traditional forms of communication should go hand in hand. Community telecentres could help build local capacity for ICT use and spread prohibitive connectivity and hardware costs.
- Rural communities currently lack the skills to identify relevant farming information from the internet. Until villagers can do it themselves, trained community workers with access to the internet could filter and feed information back to the people.
- Closer integration between ENRAP II and core IFAD-supported
project activities – such as monitoring and evaluation and knowledge
management functions – would establish ENRAP as a key component
of each project with the aim of making poverty alleviation more effective
through knowledge sharing.
Networking for knowledge
The ENRAP pilot phase was based on each IFAD-supported project being connected to each other via the ENRAP website. Ideally, ENRAP needs to become a network-of-networks within Asia and the Pacific: a regional network made of several national, sub-national, thematic and project-level networks. Linking these local networks beyond IFAD with like-minded projects and organisations working in similar communities would also be beneficial. National networks should be linked to each other and other organisations working on similar development problems. Inter- and intra-regional sharing enhances the skills and knowledge of project personnel and ensures programmes are implemented more effectively.
Softly softly approach
Becoming familiar with ICTs is a gradual learning process requiring behavioural change over time. Projects recognise the need to capture and share local knowledge and good practices – indeed some key project workers had begun to share newly-acquired skills with colleagues and partners. Yet the culture of acquiring and documenting knowledge, sharing information, and learning from the experience of others needs strengthening before ambitious electronic approaches are used. Documentation of good practices should focus on how things are done rather than on results so that project staff learn how projects can be successfully implemented. Projects used ENRAP in the first phase to broadcast their own achievements but not necessarily to learn from the experience of others. ENRAP needs to identify and consolidate existing grass-roots information and knowledge networks through training and support for appropriate, robust, low-cost ICTs.
Courting the web
Project Management Units, and to a lesser extent field units are beginning to use email for ad hoc purposes and special events even without adequate budgets for Internet Service Providers and telephone charges. For example, organisation of the ENRAP international workshop in Pune, India was completely facilitated by e-mail, although notices of regular meetings are not conveyed via email, even though participating organisations have the facility. Project staff need the financial resources to pay for service-provider and call costs as well as training in computer skills, in how to document knowledge in a way that is useful and accessible, and in why seeking information and knowledge from external sources is so useful. So too, the ENRAP site needs to be more dynamic and interactive: documentation of field experiences, online discussions, and moderated list servers would greatly improve this resource. Basic ICT access and institutional capacity-building should come before any ambitious plans for knowledge-sharing. Yet, it is crucial that new technologies do not replace traditional methods of communication such as face-to-face interactive events and meetings. Successful coupling of new digital media with tried and tested approaches to communication and knowledge-sharing should be a strategy for the project’s second phase.
The need for go-betweens?
In addition to prohibitive connectivity and hardware costs, people living
in poor rural communities have had very little if any exposure to the
world wide web or to email use. Poor people lack the necessary skills
to sift through vast amounts of information and identify what is relevant
to their everyday farming needs. Help with filtering information, testing
potential solutions for problems and adapting them to specific needs is
crucial. There is a need to build the capacity of grass-roots workers
or go-betweens to gather ideas and requests for information from rural
farmers and then surf the internet to find relevant information and interpret
it for the use of the farmers and rural communities. ENRAP could also
experiment with telecentres which provide communities with Internet connectivity
and other telecommunication services at public access points. Finally,
in promoting electronic communication among project staff, field workers
and client communities, IFAD should emphasise and support the use of local
languages.
| Project Data | |
| Project area | 15 projects in 8 countries: Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka |
| Implementing agency | International Development Research Centre (IDRC) |
| Total project grant | USD 750,000 |
| Grant effectiveness | May 1998 |
| Closing date | April 2001 |
| Main partners | Bellanet, IDRC, Nexus, Pan Asia Networking, TeleCommons Development Group |
| Evaluation field work | July 2001 |
Further information
Thematic Evaluation - Electronic Networking for Rural Asia/Pacific (ENRAP), December 2001. Office of Evaluation and Studies, International Fund for Agricultural Development, Via Paolo Di Dono, 44, 00142 Rome, Italy. Email M.Keating@ifad.org; telephone +39 06 5459 2048.
