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The Roles of Information, Communication, Technology, and Education in Achieving the Millennium Development Goals: Toward an African Knowledge Network A Research Report in Support of the Millennium Villages Project and the People of Sauri, Kenya
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Kozma, Robert |
| Copyright Year | 2006 |
| Abstract | Executive Summary for the People of Sauri " Information is Power. " This is the succinct yet resonant slogan of Joseph Sekiku's Family Alliance for Development and Cooperation (FADECO) Community Telecenter in Karagwe, a rural village in northwestern Tanzania. Information and power, as much as money, distinguish the developed from the developing world. The Western World has much of all of these; Africa has little of any of them. Yet in the face of this hardship and financial scarcity, the FADECO slogan recognizes that it is information and the knowledge to use it that will empower Africans to lift themselves out of poverty. As the head of a rural village in Senegal asserted, " Our most basic need is information, knowledge " (Mchombu, 2004; p. 31). When considering alternatives, an elder in a neighboring village proclaimed, " If you give me a choice between money and information, I will choose information " (Mchombu, 2004; p. 31‐32). These are among the stories that farmers in rural East Africa told me of how information contributed directly to their economic and social improvement: • A Ugandan farmer on the northern shore of Lake Victoria used to produce ten 100 kg sacks of maize per acre on his farm. When he learned how to use manure as fertilizer, he increased the productivity of his farm to twenty sacks per acre. • Another Ugandan maize farmer used to broadcast his seeds in the spring planting. When he learned to plant in straight lines and space his seeds, his productivity went from two bags per acre to ten bags or more. • In a rural market in northern Tanzania, a buyer offered a maize farmer TzSh 2,800 per 100 kg sack. Because he knew the going market price, the farmer refused the offer and was able to get TzSh 3,200 per sack. With the 14% difference he was able to purchase sheet metal for a roof on his house. • Another Tanzanian farmer was offered TzSch 2,500 per 20 kg basket of her chick peas. Because she knew the market price she was able to negotiate TzSh 4,000 per basket. With the 60% difference, she was able to pay her daughters' high school fees. Each of these villagers was a user of a community telecenter, one of seven I visited in East Africa. Computers were available in all these centers. But bicycles, books, cell phones, radios, … |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://robertkozma.com/images/kozma_millennium_villages_report.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Report |
