The Innovative Role of Telecenters in Rural Nepal

Information, Communication and Social Networks: The Innovative Role of Telecenters in Rural Nepal

Thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Western Sydney

Atma Ram Ghimire January 2012

Dedication

To,

My late mother Radha Devi Ghimire – For the life that I have

My father Ganga Prasad Ghimire – For his deep faith in education and inspiration

My wife Seeta – For her encouragement and support

My grandson Amish – 2 years old, future knowledge Sage

And

To all the people and organisations working to improve the lives of rural poor through the use of the Internet in Nepal

Acknowledgements

I am indebted to many people for their inspiration, support and guidance without which this research was not possible at this late stage of my career. I would like to acknowledge their valuable contribution in completing this research.

First of all, I would like to offer my heartfelt thanks to my supervisors Prof. Tim Turpin (Principal Supervisor) and Dr. Phillip Toner, who constantly encouraged me, engaged professionally with research process, guided, supported and made themselves ‘always available’. Thank you for promoting innovative concepts and critical thinking, bearing my awesome ideas and expressions and at times my perception of academic argument, especially Professor Tim for always putting things in positive perspective and Dr. Toner for his frank opinion and statements. I am especially grateful to Prof. Tim and Robyn offering peaceful and creative boatshed living at Scotland Island in completing my last stage of writing. I am thankful to University of Western Sydney for RTS, Tuition Scholarship (after a year), library and other resources, CINIS and Prof. Oscar Hauptman for inspirational and engaging environment and interaction.

I would like to thank many people in Nepal, who helped during field research, group discussion and conference organization. I am thankful to all program owner institutions, NITC, HLCIT, NWP, READ, all 25 Telecenter managers, management committee members and users who supported me by participating in interviews and supported in many other ways. I am especially thankful to Mr. Mahabir Pun for his time, interview and suggestions. The most cordial thanks go to Biplav Man Singh and FNCCI for organising the conference in Kathmandu with Telecenter stakeholders.

Finally, this research would not have started far less been completed without the encouragement and support from my wife Seeta and my family members Amar, Alka, Ashish, Anusha and Barsha. The special appreciations go to my sons Amar and Ashish for assisting me in the preparation of the final document. I should not forget to appreciate little Amish for letting me study instead of playing with him. I thank all other individuals, who have been part of this process directly or indirectly.

My sincere thank you to all of you!

Statement of Authentication

The work presented in this thesis is, to the best of my Knowledge and belief, original except as acknowledgement in the text. I hereby declare that I have not submitted this material, either in full or part, for a degree at this or any other institutions.

......

Signature

Atma Ram Ghimire

Table of Contents

List of Tables ...... viii List of Figures ...... ix List of Participation in Events ...... x List of Abbreviation ...... xi Appendices ...... xiii Chapter 1 Research Case and Background ...... 1 1.1 Background ...... 1

1.2 Why Nepal? ...... 3

1.3 The Technological Background: ...... 3

1.3.1 Defining ICT? ...... 6

1.3.2 ICT in Nepal ...... 6

1.4 What are Telecenters? ...... 7

1.5 The Core of the Research Problem ...... 9

1.6 Research Gaps ...... 13

1.7 Research Questions ...... 13

1.8 Research Design...... 14

1.9 The Analysis and Findings ...... 15

1.10 Organization of the Thesis ...... 17

Chapter 2 Conceptual and Empirical Issues ...... 22 2.1 Introduction...... 22

2.2 ICT: An Enabling Technology for Driving Innovation ...... 22

2.2.1 ICT Investment and Productivity in Developed Economies ...... 25

2.2.2 ICT Productivity and Social Return in Developing Economies ...... 26

2.3 The Digital Divide and ICT4D ...... 29

2.3.1 Disaggregating the Digital Divide ...... 33

2.4 The Internet as a Social Process ...... 39

2.4.1 The Emergence of the World Wide Web (WWW) ...... 42

2.4.2 Implications of the Internet for Developing Countries ...... 42

2.4.3 Diffusion and Use of the Internet in Developing Countries: The Telecenter

Mechanism ...... 45

2.4.4 Telecenters in Nepal ...... 50

2.6 Assessing the Impact of Telecenters and Their Social Consequences ...... 64

2.5.1 Social Capital ...... 65

2.5.2 Trust ...... 73

2.5.3 Openness Issues ...... 79

2.5.4 Absorptive Capacity ...... 81

2.6 National Innovation System (NIS) ...... 86

2.7 A Framework for Analysis ...... 87

2.8 Research Gaps and Pervasive Contradictions ...... 92

Chapter 3 Location: Context of the Study ...... 94 3.1 Background ...... 94

3.2 The Geographic Context ...... 94

3.3 The Political Context ...... 95

3.5 The Economic Context ...... 96

3.6 Education ...... 103

3.7 The Caste and Linguistic Context ...... 104 ii

3.8 Information and Communication Technology in Nepal ...... 109

3.8.1 Legal, Regulatory and Institutional Framework ...... 109

3.8.2 ICT and Partner Organizations ...... 110

3.9 Telecommunications ...... 111

3.10 Telecenters and Policy Regime in Nepal ...... 113

Chapter 4 Research Method ...... 121 4.1 Introduction...... 121

4.2 Research Approaches ...... 122

4.3 Research Framework and Methods ...... 123

4.3.1 An Analytical Framework ...... 124

4.3.2 Choice of a Method ...... 128

4.3.3 Type of Analyses ...... 129

4.3.4 Geographic Dimension ...... 131

4.4 Selection of Telecenters ...... 132

4.5 Selection of Stakeholders ...... 135

4.5.1 Selection of Program Owner Respondents ...... 135

4.5.2 Program Owners Background ...... 136

4.5.3 Selection of Program Committee Chairperson/ Members ...... 140

4.5.4 Selection of Telecenter Managers ...... 141

4.5.5 Selection of User Interviewees ...... 141

4.6 Interview Question Alignment ...... 145

4.7 Data Recording and Coding ...... 146

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4.8 Ethical Considerations ...... 146

4.9 Conclusion ...... 148

Chapter 5 Ex-ante Expectations and Ex-post Experiences ...... 121 5.1 A Preliminary Classification of Telecenter Performance ...... 150

5.2 Ex-ante and Ex-post Expectations and Experiences of the Telecenter Owners

...... 157

5.2. 1 Ex-ante Owner Expectations – General Perspectives...... 157

5.2.2 Financial Intentions and Expectations ...... 159

5.2.3 Ex-Post Experiences of Owners ...... 161

5.2. 4 Conclusion: Overlooking the Social Nature of Telecenters ...... 167

5.3 Ex-ante and Ex-post Expectations and Experiences of Other Stakeholders ...... 169

5.3.1 Experiences from the Average Performing Telecenters ...... 169

5.3.2 Ex-ante Expectations of Average Performing Telecenters...... 170

5.3.3 Managing and Using the Average Performing Telecenters the Ex-post

Perspective ...... 172

5.4 Experiences from the Better Performing Telecenters ...... 189

5.4.1 Ex-ante Expectations of Management Committee Members, Managers and

Users at Better Performing Telecenters ...... 191

5.4.2 Managing and Using the Better Performing Telecenters the Ex-post

perspective ...... 192

5.4.3 Conclusion: Drawing Benefits from the Social Process ...... 204

5.5 Experiences from the Limited Performing Telecenters...... 205

5.5.1 Ex-ante Expectations of Managers and Users at the Limited Performing

Telecenters ...... 206

5.5.2 Managing and Using the Limited Performing Telecenters the Ex-post

Perspective ...... 206

5.5.3 Conclusion: Factors Associated with the Limited Performing Telecenters 213

5.6 The Need to Integrate Technology, Information and Skills in the Telecenter Social

Process ...... 214

Chapter 6 Exploring the Social Dynamics ...... 216 6.1 Introduction...... 216

6.2 Revisiting the Research Objectives ...... 216

6.3 Communication and Information Flows Through Telecenters ...... 216

6.3.1 Stakeholders’ Ex-ante Expectations and Perceptions on Telecenter ...... Error!

Bookmark not defined.

6.3.2 Ex-post Outcomes ...... 218

6.3.3 Ex-post Unintended Outcomes ...... 226

6.3.4 Facilitating Factors ...... 234

6.3.5 Inhibiting Factors ...... 237

6.4 Conclusion: Positive Socio-Economic outcomes ...... 241

Chapter 7 Insights into the Social Dynamics Around the Use of Telecenters ...... 244 7.1 Introduction...... 244

7.2 Outcomes in a Conceptual Framework ...... 244

7.2.1 Social Capital and Contextual Social Dynamics ...... 246

7.2.2 Trust in Telecenters ...... 250

7.2.3 Telecenters and Openness for Development...... 253

Figure 7.2 Level of Openness...... Error! Bookmark not defined.

7.2.4 Absorptive Capacity and Performance ...... 257

7.3 National innovation System (NIS) ...... 261

7.3.1 The Nepalese NIS ...... 265

7.3.2 The Nepalese NIS and Telecenter ...... 267

7.3.3 Revisiting Expectations and outcomes of Telecenters: NIS Perspective ...... 272

7.3.4 Telecenters a Conduit of Information Networking in NIS ...... 273

7.3.5 Revisiting the Nepalese NIS ...... 275

7.4 Conclusion: Telecenters Critical Component of Nepalese NIS ...... 278

Chapter 8 Innovative Role of Telecenters ...... 280 8.1 Introduction...... 280

8.2 Overall Argument and Research Findings ...... 280

8.2.1 Revisiting Expectations ...... 287

8.2.2 Reflections on Outcomes ...... 287

8.2.3 Unintended Outcomes ...... 292

8.2.4 Explanations for Outcomes: Facilitating and Inhibiting Factors ...... 292

8.2.5 Overall Argument and Innovative role of Telecenters ...... 293

8.3 Implications of the Research Findings ...... 295

8.3.1 Practical Implications ...... 296

8.4 Theoretical Implications ...... 299

8.5 Methodological Contributions ...... 302

8.6 Limitations of the Study ...... 303

8.7 Further Research...... 304

Bibliography ...... 306

vii

List of Tables

Table 2.1 Potential Use of Conceptual Tool Social Capital for the Research

Table 2.2 Potential Use of Conceptual Tool Trust for the Research

Table 2.3 Potential Use of Conceptual Tool Openness for the Research

Table 2.4 Potential Use of Conceptual Tool Absorptive Capacity for the Research

Table 3.1 Macro Economic Indicators

Table 3.2 Income Distributions in Nepal, 1988 and 1996

Table 3.3 Urban Rural Poverty Population Distribution

Table 3.4 Telecom Statistics in Nepal

Table 3.5 Telecenters in Nepal

Table 4.1 Focus of Analysis

Table 4.2 Performance Classification

Table 4.3 Performance Analysis

Table 4.4 Selected Telecenters

Table 4.5 Semi-structured Interview Groups

Table 4.6 Interview Question Alignment

Table 4.7 Sources of Data

Table 5.1 Factors for Ranking Performance

Table 5.2 Ranking of performance of Telecenters

Table 5.3 Telecenter Groups in different region

Table 5.4 Telecenters by program owners

Table 5.5 List of Average performing Telecenters

Table 5.6 User Group Ranking in Average performing Telecenters

Table 5.7 List of better performing Telecenters

Table 5.8 List of Limited Performing Telecenters

Table 7.1 Managers Participation in the Management committee meeting

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List of Figures

Figure 3.1 Telecenter Model

Figure 4.1 Regions and Ecologies

Figure 4.2 Map of Selected Telecenters

Figure 6.1 Extended Family Network of a User

Figure 6.2 A Typical proactive Management Chair Network

Figure 7.1 Horizontal and Vertical Information Flow

Figure 7.2 Level of Openness

Figure 7.3 Level of Absorptive Capacity

Figure 7.4 National Innovation Systems of Nepal

Figure 7.5 Information Networking

Figure 7.6 Revised National Innovation System of Nepal

List of Participation in Events

Presented thesis at Research Colloquium organised by Business College, Deans’ office,

2009, Parramatta.

Presented co-authored (with Prof. Tim Turpin) conference paper on ‘ Internet and

Social Capital conceptualising openness for development in remote and rural areas in least developed economies’ at IDRC sponsored Conference in Ottawa, Canada, May

2010.

Presented thesis as a Doctoral presentation at ANZAM Conference Adelaide,

December 2010.

Presented a conference paper on ‘E-governance in Nepal’ to the Computer Association of Nepal organized conference in Kathmandu Nepal Feb 2011.

List of Abbreviation

ACE Access, Capacity and Environment ACP Association of Craft Producers ADB Asian Development Bank AEPC Alternative Energy Promotion Center AUD Australian Dollar CAN Computer Association of Nepal CBS Central Bureau of Statistics CDR Central Development Region CEO Chief Executive Officer CEI Composite Empowerment and Social inclusion Index DOT Digital Taskforce DUI Doing, Using, Interacting EDR Eastern Development Region ENRD E-networking, Research and Development FIT Forum for Information Technology FWDR Far Western Development Region FNCCI Federation of Nepalese Chamber of Commerce and Industries GDP Gross Domestic Product GPT General Purpose Technology HDI Human Development Index HLCIT High Level Commission for Information Technology ICT Information and Communication Technology ICT4D Information and Communication Technology for Development IDRC International Development Research Centre IT Information Technology ITPF Information Technology Professional Forum LDC Least Developing Country MDG Millennium Development Goals MFP Multi Factor Productivity MWDR Mid-Western Development Region MIS Management Information Systems MMOG Massively Multiplayer Online Games

MOIC Ministry of Information and Communication MOST Ministry of Science and Technology MOTCA Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation NARC Nepal Agricultural Research Council NAST Nepal Academy of Science and Technology NC Nepali Congress n.d. No Date NGO Non-Government Organisation NIS National Innovation System NLSS National Living Standard Survey NTA Nepal Telecommunication Authority NTC Nepal Telecommunication Corporation NITC National Information Technology Centre NWP Nepal Wireless Project OECD Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development OLPC One Laptop Per Child PTD Participatory Technology Development READ Rural Education Access and Development RUPP Rural Urban Partnerships Programme SNS Social Networking Sites STI Science, Technology and Innovation TFP Total Factor Productivity UML United Marxist- Leninist UNCTAD United Nations Conference on Trade and Development UNDP United Nations Development Program UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization UN-HABITAT United Nations Human Settlements Programme UPS Uninterruptible Power Systems USA United States of America US United States UTL United Telecom Limited VSAT Very Small Aperture Terminal WDR Western Development Region WSIS World Summit on Information Society

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Appendices

Appendix I ICT development Milestone

Appendix II Telecenter Literature

Appendix III Brief Political Background

Appendix IV History of ICT development in Nepal

Appendix V Map of Nepal

Appendix VI Description of Selected Telecenters

Appendix VII List of Personal Communication

Appendix VIII List of Workshop Participants

Appendix IX Semi-structured Interview questions

Appendix X Factor for Ranking Openness

Appendix XI Ranking of Openness

Appendix XII Factor for Ranking Absorptive Capacity

Appendix XIII Ranking of Absorptive Capacity

Appendix XIV Development Indicators

Appendix XV Difficulty in Accessing Education (Photograph)

Appendix XVI Some Telecenter Photographs

xiii

Abstract An enduring question about the global diffusion of technology from industrially developed economies is: what happens when ‘enabling technologies’ such as digital communication and the internet are introduced into remote rural areas in least developed economies? How and to what extent do the social dynamics in very different contexts influence the way the technology is delivered, accessed and used?

In 2002 Nepal introduced a telecenter program to provide community access to the internet in remote rural areas. The objective of the program was to establish an

‘information hub’ and provide information across six key development themes. This thesis investigates that program in order to gain a deeper understanding of the ways telecenters may or may not have met the expectations of the many individuals and organizations involved with designing, implementing, and using the program. In particular, it has sought to reveal the social processes that enable access to and use of the internet and associated communication technology for individual and / or collective community benefit.

The empirical component of the study is based on ex-ante and ex-post analyses, drawing on documentary and interview data from 144 interviews with telecenter providers, telecenter management committees, operational managers and users across 25 telecenters in four topographical regions. A follow-up group discussion and a national stakeholder workshop were held to review the preliminary findings and gain further insights.

One of the problems in the literature concerning telecenters in developing countries is the limited analysis of the social process underlying the introduction and management of internet technology and the ways information is accessed and used individually and collectively to change business and social practices. The thesis contributes to

xiv

overcoming that gap. It reveals that telecenters in Nepal present considerable variation in the ways they have contributed to learning and innovative practice. Although there is little evidence of a national information hub to deliver ‘useful content to rural communities’, as conceived by the government, the study found that the social dynamics around Telecenters created a cycle of information flow through extended family networks that promoted sharing, learning and collective action within and beyond communities.

The conceptual framework developed in the thesis draws on and contributes to the concepts of social capital, openness, trust, and absorptive capacity. The thesis found that the better performing telecenters offered users and their networks extended access to bridging social capital through links to new information networks. Bonding social capital was generated through collective ways of using the telecenters and the internet, thus sharing information and learning. The study found that access to bridging and bonding social capital, together, served to enhance absorptive capacity enabling effective use of information, knowledge and communication technology in a local context - often in innovative ways. Both absorptive capacity and openness facilitated social interaction and greater participation in exploiting external knowledge for productive purposes and interactive learning. The thesis concludes by arguing that because telecenters can provide access to social capital, offer a learning environment and information and knowledge for rural based enterprises they should be considered an important component of the Nepalese national innovation system.

Chapter 1

Research Case and Background

1.1 Background

In September 2002, a twin otter plane landed at Jomsom Airport in Mustang, Nepal, after two days of flight cancellations. An icy wind was blowing in the early morning when I got out of the plane with an information technology engineer. By the time we arrived in Jomsom, two of my engineers had already installed a Very Small Aperture

Terminal (VSAT) and tested an internet connection successfully with a laptop. Our 10 boxes of equipment was the only cargo in the plane. Only two locals were on the apron to welcome us. As we left the airport however, almost 200 people had gathered to have their first sight of a ‘computer’ - we were the people who had brought the first computers to the district.

A local Thakali person, who appeared to be in his mid-fifties and had been chosen as a chairperson of the management committee, asked some villagers to put the equipment boxes on the back of donkeys lined up to carry loads, to tighten the loads with ropes and directed that they be brought to the telecenter site in Jomsom, one of the total of five telecenters planned for the district; it was about 10 minutes walking distance from the airport. We followed him, so did the villagers and the donkeys. The telecenter had two rooms on the first floor of the house; a three metre by three metre room for an office and a five metre by five metre room for telecenter users. Just outside the room were verandas facing the street. The telecenter users’ room was not large enough to accommodate all the people who wanted to see these computers. And so the village head asked people to watch from the street facing the veranda of the telecenter site.

CHAPTER 1: Research Case and Background

They took out the computers as well as an Uninterruptible Power System (UPS) and connected them to the internet through the pre-installed VSAT. The engineers then set up a computer table with the entire machine on the veranda and played the national anthem of Nepal. The villagers cheered and clapped.

This was the first ever telecenter established by the National Information Technology

Centre (NITC), a government body, with the assistance of the United Nations

Development Program (UNDP) in 2002. The telecenter system was a difficult program to install in a remote rural area because the Maoist insurgency had damaged many telephone towers in the past. But the district of Mustang, especially from Tukuche to places higher up like Marpha, Puthang and Jomsom had neither the presence of the

Maoists nor the telephone towers. This was probably an important reason for choosing the five sites in Mustang district for the establishment of the first telecenters using

VSAT technology.

We then proceeded to the second telecenter in Marpha, one hour from the airport. We found a similar curiosity and eagerness to see and use the technology amongst the locals there. That year, five telecenters were established in the villages of Jomsom, Puthang,

Marpha, Kobang and Tukuche.

Eight years later, in October 2010, news from Nepal spread through the global media stating that a group of employees from Ncell, a subsidiary of the Swedish phone giant

TeliaSonera, had managed to get a 3G phone base station to connect to the internet from the highest point on the earth, Mount Everest, using a mobile phone and demonstrated that it could make video calls and surf the internet (Bhandari 2010;

Wilson and Corey 2011). The connectivity in that remote region and from the highest peak reflects the rapid technological progress in communication technology. However, this extremely remote connection does not imply national universal access to the

CHAPTER 1: Research Case and Background internet and/or mobile phone technology in Nepal. Even a year after that 2010 Mt.

Everest announcement there was still only thirteen per cent internet penetration in

Nepal and many remote rural areas (less remote than the top of Mount Everest) lagged even further behind. Most rural communities hear about these technologies, some lucky ones have collective access to information from the internet through telecenters, an ICT initiative to bring the rural population into the mainstream information and communication system. The purpose of the Nepalese Government Telecenter Program was to establish an information hub giving access to and use of new information and communication possibilities that would generate opportunities for rural development and improve the standard of living in rural areas.

This present study investigated the social implications of the Nepalese Telecenter

Program. The objective was to find out from the experiences of all stakeholders firstly whether it was meeting its program objectives, and secondly whether it was changing social and business practices in rural Nepal. An underlying task for the study was to understand how the social dynamics in place in rural areas intersected with the introduction of new communication technologies and information access through the internet.

1.2 Why Nepal?

Nepal offers a good example of a least developed country that is using ICT for development. The Nepalese ICT policy framework was articulated in 2000 and telecenters started to be established in remote rural areas from 2002. Telecenters were assumed to offer an effective information link between rural communities and the national economy (NPC 2008). As a part of the ICT policy framework, the government formulated a ‘Telecenter Strategy’ as the means to reach rural people and improve their access to information and knowledge. This strategy aimed to enable communities,

CHAPTER 1: Research Case and Background irrespective of caste, religion and occupation, access to telecenters. A pilot centre study report (Harris et al. 2003), identified six thematic areas of rural information needs: 1) agricultural information; 2) distance learning; 3) telemedicine; 4) productive economic activities; 5) environment protection; and 6) natural disaster mitigation. The Ministry of

Science and Technology was given the responsibility of establishing the telecenters to support those six thematic areas. The Ministry became the patron while the High Level

Commission for Information Technology (HLCIT) and National Information

Technology Centre (NITC) were the actual implementing agencies (Harris et al. 2003).

The current study in Nepal was considered important for the following reasons:

First, Nepal is unique by its location between two large economies that are dominating

ICT development. On the northern side, the huge ICT economy of China is at the leading edge in world ICT hardware manufacturing. On the southern side, India is a world leader in software services. The potential for drawing on the ICT experiences for skills and technology of these two neighbours was easily accessible (Roberts &

Diechmann 2011; Muchie & Baskaran 2007).

Secondly, most studies on ICT and its impact have been in developed economies. There is considerable literature about ICT in developing countries but much less on least developed countries (Lee et al 2005). There is a lack of extensive field-tested-knowledge about what works and what does not in remote and mountainous rural settings.

Moreover, studies that offer a deeper understanding of the enabling conditions for the success or failure of information diffusion, use and application (through the internet and other services at the telecenters in rural sectors) and qualitatively assessing the social process of delivery, access and use are scarce. Yet such information is necessary in order to better plan and learn from the considerable investment in telecenters. The study investigated information about telecenter strategies and programs for rural development

CHAPTER 1: Research Case and Background which are applicable and of interest to many other least developed countries and development agencies.

The third reason is that Nepal is in transition through the UN led peace process after decades of the Maoist insurgency. The recent election of a Constituent Assembly led by the Maoists lasted for a year but their resignation followed after a row with the chief of the army. Further frequent changes in government again see the Maoists leading the government. The Assembly could not complete the process of drafting a new constitution within their elected term so the timeframe for this process was extended by two years. The non-consensual polity of the three major parties in this transition period led to political instability which negatively impacted on development efforts. The timing of this study is therefore part of what makes it interesting. Nepal is an example of a least-developed country, it is in transition from insurgency to peace, where initiatives like the telecenter roll-out are part of building a ‘New Nepal’; it is led by a communist government. This study has therefore been conducted at a time when understanding developments in the innovation system are set against the backdrop of political uncertainty and can ask whether these sorts of potentially inhibiting factors influenced the social dynamics the telecenter roll-out.

The fourth reason is that the researcher has a special interest in the field being an active participant in the early days of the program to establish telecenters in rural Nepal. The researcher is a native speaker of the country, involved with the community in the first phase of the implementation process, and had access to many archival documents that would have been almost impossible for English speaking scholars to gain access to and analyze.

The Nepalese Telecenter Program that started in 2002 did not achieve the national roll out as planned due to the Maoist insurgency largely because of insecurity, instability and

CHAPTER 1: Research Case and Background financial issues (Burton 2003). Nevertheless, it generated considerable awareness in the community among interested users and generated a demand for the extension of the program. Enthusiastic managers and social workers found new employment opportunities. Farmers hoped to receive information on agricultural prices, the weather and cultivation practices. Business people aimed towards having more tourists communicating with them for hotel bookings and selling their services online. Students hoped to become trained in computer usage and to expand their knowledge with educational information (Harris et al. 2003). In general, rural communities expected that the Telecenters would provide basic access to communication technology, information related to their occupation that would increase efficiency and reduce their costs, give them access to government services and provide a place for social interaction and local business promotion (Chapagain 2006).

A different hierarchical caste system as well as varied topologies in different regions in

Nepal generated a need for creative and innovative ways to deliver the technology to different groups across Nepal. In general, the implementation of telecenters in rural areas was designed to promote social change and economic development, especially in reducing poverty through the foreshadowed “information hub”. Significantly, there is very little evidence of a “national hub of information content”, as conceived by government, to deliver ‘useful content to rural communities’.

1.3 The Technological Background:

1.3.1 Defining ICT

The present thesis is concerned with investigating the intersection between technology that enables global communication and the social processes that mediate social life in rural areas of Nepal. It is therefore necessary to outline the background to information

CHAPTER 1: Research Case and Background technology from the perspective of its own development and its introduction into

Nepal. Knowing the important milestones from the 1930s programmable computer to

2001s 3G network1 contributes to an understanding of the current status of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). According to OECD (2002, p. 81):

In 1998, OECD member countries agreed to define the ICT sector as a combination of manufacturing and services industries that capture, transmit and display data and information electronically This definition carries a measuring notion of the ICT sector in economic and technical terms. Development of ICT has underpinned the composition of computer technology, internet technology, communication technology such as wireless and mobile phones,

Apps, connectivity that enabled the global information network, the development of the social network and importantly, the changing trends in economic social and business systems.

The introduction of ICT, the internet, and its development in Nepal are discussed in more detail in Chapter three but the main milestones are briefly introduced below.

1.3.2 ICT in Nepal

Nepal’s journey into the world of Information and Communication Technology began

36 years ago, when an IBM 1410 computer was received as part of an aid package. It was used to undertake the population census in 1971 (APDIP 2003). The 1980s saw the emergence of the private sector, offering training and selling personal computers with limited application development, but importantly, bringing the internet to Nepal in

1995. The legal, regulatory and institutional framework was strengthened with the formation of the Ministry of Science and Technology in 1996 which oversaw ICT development in Nepal. This led to the establishment of a telecommunication regulatory

1 Refer ICT Milestone table, appendix I 7

CHAPTER 1: Research Case and Background body, the Nepal Telecommunications Authority (NTA) in 1998, the Telecom Act

(1997), the Communication Policy (1999), the IT policy (2000) which was revised in

2010, NITC as well as the High Level Commission for Information Technology

(HLCIT) in 2004.

Through 2005/2006, there were about 100 small-medium sized ICT software companies; these were mostly a concentration of private and foreign joint ventures.

There were 300 local firms selling internationally branded ICT equipment and locally assembled personal computers. There were also about 62 ICT related colleges under four universities, each with an intake of around 2000 ICT students per year in Nepal.

The total employed ICT workforce in Nepal was 15,955 (HLCIT, 2005). There were approximately 1000 training institutions offering general and professional computer courses and around 5000 cyber-cafes in the country mostly in Kathmandu and other urban centres such as Pokhara and Biratnagar.

The development of telecommunications in the country since 1995, through the involvement of the private sector, policy, legislation and reforms, increased teledensity and fibre optic networks (Whalley 2006) has brought substantial change. An internet service was started in Nepal in mid-1995 by a private company Mercantile. Today

Nepal’s internet service sector is vibrant and competitive with 45 licensed ISPs (NTA

2010). The voice telephony penetration was 18.86 per cent but the internet penetration rate was only two per cent in January 2009. However, recent data show significant improvement in telecommunication services with 53.50 per cent penetration rate on voice telephony (mobile: 47.38 per cent) and internet penetration rate of 13.49 per cent

(NTA 2011). It is important to note that unlike developed countries, the availability of voice telephony and land or mobile lines does not imply availability of the internet in

Nepal.

CHAPTER 1: Research Case and Background

1.4 What are Telecenters?

Telecenters are facilities open to the general public and mostly in rural areas, which provide computer/internet access as well as auxiliary services and support service staff.

The establishment of telecenters is an innovative approach to extending access to ICT enabled services (both private as well as government) in rural areas in developing economies. With a single room and Personal Computer (PC) connected to the internet, this model can be installed fairly quickly. The establishment of a telecenter provides tangible evidence of delivering information and communication technology and services to poor communities but as revealed later in the thesis, tells only part of the story. It is the social interactions within and generated beyond the telecenter with which this story is most concerned. It seeks to provide a better understanding of what occurs at the interface between telecenters and local communities.

The telecenter model matched the interest of donor communities to the aspiration for

ICT access in rural areas of developing countries and various pilot-type projects were initiated. As Heeks (2008) put it, ‘A host of colourfully named projects began rolling out, from InforCauca in Colombia to CLICs in Mali to Gyandoot in India’ (p. 27). In some countries, such as in Nepal, Laos, Mongolia they have been called rural information centres (Chapagain 2006), multimedia centres (Jalali 2006), “telecottages” or

“information shops”, (Harris 2001). They could be located at public service facilities such as post offices, schools, health posts, or any physical place that provides affordable access to the internet. Roman (2003) described telecenters as local information and communication resource centres established for bringing the benefits of new technologies to the rural poor. Rural telecenters have introduced global information and communication technologies to the rural poor through affordable access to ICT

(Chapagain 2006).

CHAPTER 1: Research Case and Background

As Harris has noted, for many, this is their first introduction to the global technology that is taken for granted in most parts of the world.

The introduction of a telecenter into a typical rural community in a developing country represents a substantial innovation for that community. For many rural dwellers, a community telecenter will be their first encounter with a computer. (Harris 2001, p. 74) Policy makers in Nepal became interested in telecenters after the government in its tenth plan (2002-2007) aimed to establish 1500 telecenters to serve rural areas. The

Nepalese government expected that these telecenters would at least provide access to information, basic exposure to technology and assistance in delivering some government services. From 2002, the government started establishing these telecenters and NITC was responsible for developing content on agricultural information, health, distance learning, productive economic activities, environment protection, natural disaster mitigation and for the delivery of content/services online to rural telecenters

(Harris et al. 2003).

The national roll out plan of 1500 telecenters originally envisaged was not realized due to the lack of financial resources and the Maoist insurgency in the country. In 2011, there were approximately 400 telecenters in Nepal (see Table 3.7), 273 established by the

Nepalese government and the remainder by non-government organizations (NGOs).

The success and sustainability of telecenters has been limited, mainly because of poor telecommunications access and high access costs (Shields 2009). Nevertheless, the ICT strategy of operating telecenters is believed to have delivered important lessons

(Chapagain 2006). The expectations of telecenter establishments were high among rural communities but there has not been a study on the impact of these telecenters on the social and economic practices in rural communities. Given the investment in the telecenter system and national strategies for development in rural areas, it is important

CHAPTER 1: Research Case and Background to understand how telecenters have contributed to social transformation and how social issues are addressed to improve living standards in rural communities in Nepal.

1.5 The Core of the Research Problem

Unlike the USA and Europe, Nepal moved directly into mobiles phones and avoided the costly land line investment. The application of these phones has changed many social practices (see Christensen 2009). In Nepal, the diffusion of internet and mobile services may have brought much social change to the ways communities interact, do business and perform their social obligations. Millennium development goals of United

Nations, especially the eradication of poverty and hunger, the establishment of equality between genders, and the provision of baseline healthcare and universal primary education laid the foundation for the strategy, Information and Communication

Technology for Development (ICT4D) (Heeks 2008). The diffusion of information and its adoption in developing countries has changed economies and societies though it produced different outcomes in different places (Indjikian and Seigel 2005). There have however, been far fewer analyses of the social dynamics that mediate between the implementation of these new technologies and prevailing socio-economic process.

The application of ICT for socio-economic improvement is a social process. Electronic technologies are differentially institutionalized and they are applied in particular social settings with diverse effects. Technologies may be common but the local experience of their application and the socio-organizational change constitutes innovation for a hosting organization. People in rural remote mountainous regions in Nepal have, until the introduction of access through telecenters, been generally excluded from national social, political and economic processes. Therefore, the application of ICT in the form of telecenters in these areas presents a social process that is very important from a development prospective. This is because ICT has the potential to promote social and

CHAPTER 1: Research Case and Background political inclusion for economic development (Warschauer 2003; Shirazi et al 2009 and

2010, Hanna 2011).

Rural communities and marginalized populations in Nepal are largely illiterate. In this context, their ability to access the web portals to navigate and find the desired information is not possible or practical. Therefore, the role of a telecenter manager and at least one social worker in every telecenter was needed to assist them in finding the information they wanted, analysing and synthesizing the information they found on the web and making it understandable. One of the tasks of the present study was to determine whether this social sharing in organisation design worked to produce the desired development results envisaged for the program.

The foundations of the Information and Communication Technology for Development

(ICT4D) concept was based on the promotion of broad-based growth, grassroots innovation and social learning targeted towards empowering poor communities and reducing poverty in developing countries (Hanna 2010). But many ICT projects in developing countries were prototypes and pilot projects, many funded through one off international funding grants, often failing to meet a planned large scale roll-out at the national level. While evaluation and analyses of these programs are important, it is the longer term commitment to a telecenter program with which this thesis is concerned. In the case of Nepal, only ten per cent of the target was achieved in 7 years. One of the problems in rolling out telecenters on a larger scale seems to have been the internal conflict during the Maoist insurgency between 1996 and 2005. However, it is important to analytically separate such impact from other possible facilitating, or otherwise, factors. There is also a possibility that policy and execution, approaches in designing and delivering information via telecenters was ineffective. If so, it is important to understand why.

CHAPTER 1: Research Case and Background

There are many questions to be asked about why telecenter technologies diffused quickly and widely to developing economies but not necessarily matched with complementary socio-economic development. Hicks (2008) argued that a rapid expansion of the internet in the 1990s and global initiatives 2 pushed international development organizations, (NGOs) and even governments of developing countries to act quickly and provide tangible delivery to poorer communities. The introduction of telecenters was consequently a potential and tangible initiative that could be measured in much the same way as schools or health centres encouraged the diffusion and use of telecenters. However, in practice, there have been different outcomes in different countries. For example, there have been successful cases such as the M-Pesa application in Kenya, e-choupals, Bhoomi and Wired Warrana Village project in India and other instances where more limited outcomes or even failures have been reported in ICT centres such as Laos, or the SARI project in India (Heeks 2010a; Mbiti and Weil 2011;

Thadabonia 2009; Kumar 2004; Kumar and Best 2006). In all cases, the technology is the same. But the social arrangements are often quite different. In order to better understand why such different outcomes have been observed there is a need to understand more about the social process, access to, use and application of telecenters in different contexts. There is a need to know what the common features of success are and what is specific about the social arrangements.

1.6 Research Gaps

This study seeks to address a number of gaps in the existing literature. This is the first comprehensive analysis of the social processes of telecenters across the different

2 The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 1996, the creation of a Digital Task force by G8 countries in 2000 and a World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva 2003 and in Tunis in 2005 13

CHAPTER 1: Research Case and Background geographic and socio-economic regions in Nepal. In light of the broad literature on the topic, four key issues arise that are yet poorly understood. These are:

1. The need to generate a deeper understanding of the social processes of

telecenter implementation, including how internet technologies are diffused and

used in rural communities in a least developed country;

2. The need to document the expectations of telecenter users and program

implementers and outcomes of such telecenter program including the variations

in differing geographic conditions with differing economic bases, cultures and

ethnicities and the role of socio-political factors in using internet diffusion from

a theoretical perspective, there is a need to develop an analytical framework;

3. Understanding the role and effects of analytical concepts such as social capital,

trust for developing the underlying structural characteristics that can explain why

some telecenters perform better than others; and

4. Understanding the role of telecenters as a collective social process in accessing,

learning and diffusing information for innovative processes. Further, if

telecenters are associated with learning and the application of new knowledge

for innovative activities, these telecenter structures could have important

implications for the Nepalese innovation system.

1.7 Research Questions

The present study seeks to understand of the social processes through which telecenters impact on the social and economic life in rural Nepal. Such an understanding of how telecenters diffuse information and how rural communities can best maximize the use of information technology and communication will be vital to understanding their role in the national innovation system. There is no clear answer yet as to why telecenters can technically work but fail to have much impact on business practices for economic

CHAPTER 1: Research Case and Background development. Knowledge about social dynamics is likely to explain differing telecenter experiences in different geographic regions and social contexts.

In order to achieve this outcome, the study proceeds by examining the expectations of four stakeholders group – owners, managers, management committees and users. This research design set the following key question:

1. What were the expectations of the government, implementing agencies, local

managing groups and users groups on telecenter implementation and to what

extent were expectations achieved?

2. What were the facilitating or inhibiting factors that led to varying outcomes?

3. Should telecenters be considered a contributing component of a Nepalese

National Innovation System (NIS)?

1.8 Research Design

A qualitative methodology was adopted for the present study. as it dealt with the detailed views of informants in their normal settings and revealed the complex nature of social dynamics. A qualitative approach was best suited to such social inquiry (Creswell.

2003). The research documents, telecenter users’ perceptions about the technology and knowledge and changes that they think the technology has induced 3 . Qualitative research methodology was also best suited to covering the wide range of societal challenges and ICT impact found in different telecenter locations.

The Research framework for the study was composed of three main aspects: a stakeholder analysis; community characteristics and the development of analytical concepts. The stakeholder analysis takes into account four stakeholder groups. First the

3 The source of this research problem is thus, to some extent, derived from personal and professional experience (Corbin and Strauss 2008) 15

CHAPTER 1: Research Case and Background program owners, they provide equipment, training, information and financial resources to establish telecenters. Second, the management committees, they oversee the policy and management of telecenters in their particular location. Third, the telecenters managers, they operate telecenters on a day to day basis and assist and interact with users. Finally, the users, they are mainly local community people who visit and use the telecenters.

A community characteristics approach was taken to understand local differences in community expectations, their absorptive capacity with new knowledge and their individual or a collective approach to the use of communication technology; their cultural and ethnic diversities and social networks. The third aspect, analytical concepts, is used to develop an analytical framework for investigating and exploring how the social processes in telecenter use contribute in one way or other to differing outcomes.

Twenty five telecenter locations representing five regions and with varying topographical characteristics were selected for the study. Additionally, program owner input, was used to generate a snowball sample for interview respondents. Users were selected randomly from each selected telecenter and quota sampling was used to include, as far as possible, a mixed gender perspective.

Four qualitative data collection methods were used. They were semi-structured interviews; group discussions; Telecenter observations; and documentary analysis of background materials about the implementation and management of telecenters and the system overall. A total of 144 interviews were completed. This included four from program owners; twenty five each from local management committees and telecenter managers; and ninety users. The data were collected through face to face interviews.

Field notes on telecenter observation were carefully taken and included during the analysis.

CHAPTER 1: Research Case and Background

Underlying the field research required trekking to villages in difficult conditions and at altitudes of over 3000 meters. A group discussion in Pokhara in the western region, and a stakeholder workshop at Kathmandu were conducted to review initial findings. Group discussion and workshop proceedings were partially recorded in audio but full notes were taken. The available data were recorded for analysis in Excel spreadsheets.

1.9 The Analysis and Findings

The thesis reveals that telecenters in Nepal present considerable variation in their performance when measured against the expectations and experiences of respondents.

The communities’ expectations and absorptive capacity were different in different locations. For analytical purposes, this thesis categorised telecenters into three groups:

(1) better performing; (2) average performing; and (3) limited performing telecenters.

The classification was based on: community access; the levels and breadth of community participation; income and profitability; technical performance; information demand and availability of services; effective uses and attitude. Significantly there was very little evidence, across all three groups that the government objectives of developing a national hub of information content, as conceived by government, to deliver ‘useful content to rural communities’. However, the study did find considerable evidence of more intangible benefit, particularly from the better performing group of telecenters.

The social dynamics in play at many centres helped to mitigate language deficiencies and created a cycle of information flow through extended family networks, promoting sharing learning and collective action within and beyond communities. It was evident that the nature of this social process varied across different telecenters. The argument is developed that while the internet potentially provides access to ‘bridging’ social capital it is more effective in the local context when it also promotes the accumulation of

‘bonding’ social capital. It is also argued that this complementarity in the form of social

CHAPTER 1: Research Case and Background capital is the key to building ‘absorptive capacity’ through collective learning and use of information and knowledge.

The sharing of information and knowledge between different social groups demands certain levels of trust and openness. Limited levels of openness and feedback mechanisms exposed some of the weaknesses in some telecenter operations. Horizontal information flows at the local level promoted a higher level of information sharing, while vertical two-way flows of information between providers, telecenters and users generated a greater level of trust in the sources and conferred a greater ‘value’ on the information. Absorptive capacity enabled transfer and use of information and knowledge in a local context and in their own innovative ways despite thinner levels of content flows and skills deficiencies. Extended openness and absorptive capacity facilitated social interaction promoting social inclusion and greater participation in exploiting external knowledge for productive purposes and interactive learning. At best, such complementarities generated demands for rearranging the information delivery mechanism and improving multiple types of information flows. The nature of this

‘evolutionary’ process was clearly evident among the better performing telecenters.

The thesis concludes by arguing that the telecenter, as an intermediary organization, between government and citizens, multi-national and national enterprises and village level SMEs and between programs and implementation, are playing a key linkage role in the broader NIS. Their existences in rural areas and use by different actors illustrated their potential contribution to learning and innovation and thus how they can play an important role in national innovation systems in least developed countries such as

Nepal. Future research could fruitfully examine the telecenter systems in other LDCs by applying the conceptual framework developed in the present study, using longitudinal data to further investigate the evolutionary process of telecenters.

CHAPTER 1: Research Case and Background

1.10 Organization of the Thesis

The thesis is organized in eight chapters. Chapter one has provided the background to the research, outlining the research problem and methodological approach. It describes the significance of the study briefly presenting the ICT context in Nepal. It presents the research questions with a brief research design, theoretical framework and limitations.

Chapter two discusses the relevant literature. Four main themes are evident in the literature. These were: ICT as an enabling technology for driving innovation; the evaluation of the role of ICT in developing countries in lessening the digital divide and

ICT4D implications for rural development; the internet as a social process and its diffusion and implications for developing countries; and evidence on the impact of the internet and its social consequences. A set of analytical concepts emerged from the literature and set out a task to understand how these concepts could be integrated into a single analytical framework. To understand the role of telecenters in the national innovation system, some writings on the national innovation were reviewed.

Chapter three explains the political, socio-economic and technological conditions of

Nepal. Nepal has been in a political turmoil and instability for the last 14 years. As such, the socio-political factors such as the Maoist insurgency are discussed for understanding local social context of telecenter implementation. The chapter also presents ICT in

Nepal and the initial phase of the Telecenter process.

Chapter four presents the research approach taken for the study. An analytical framework and the rationale for the use of a qualitative method is presented with the research design and data collection methods.

Chapter five presents the results of the study. The interview results from four groups across 25 case studies of telecenters were classified into three clusters: better

CHAPTER 1: Research Case and Background performing; average performing; and limited performing. The purpose of this was to explore differences in ex-ante expectations and ex-post outcomes. The seven criteria to determine the grouping of these telecenters was based on: community access; the levels and breadth of community participation; income and profitability; technical performance; information demand; and availability of services; effectiveness and attitude.

Chapter six extended this analysis with an investigation into how different stakeholder groups managed, accessed and used the telecenters. The analysis revealed that communications through the internet enabled telecenters to provide access to ‘bridging’ social capital through extended social networks. Social interactions at telecenters generated ‘bonding’ social capital that consolidated extended family relationships and in many cases contributed to collective learning experiences in local communities.

Chapter seven uses the analytical concepts of social capital, trust, absorptive capacity and openness to interpret the results of the research and goes on to discuss the information and knowledge in the telecenter system in terms of horizontal and vertical information flows and feedback. This chapter also analyses the national innovation system (NIS) and the role of telecenters in an emerging Nepalese NIS.

Chapter eight presents a summary of the main findings and research implications and sets out the telecenter framework. This shows that because telecenters can provide access to social capital, a learning environment and support for rural based enterprises, they should be considered as an important component of the Nepalese national innovation system. This chapter also draws attention to the limitations of the study and its sole focus on Nepal where it recognises the research results and policy implications may not be relevant to all developing countries. The practical implications for future telecenter programs are based on the foregoing qualitative analysis of factors.

CHAPTER 1: Research Case and Background

Chapter 2

Conceptual and Empirical Issues

2.1 Introduction

ICT is an umbrella concept which encompasses the combined capacities of computers, the internet, communication tools, such as 4G mobile phones and networks such as social network sites. They enable applications such as telemedicine, distance learning and services such as e -banking and e-government. Thus

ICT is not just a technology but also a system of enabling technologies that has the ability to create better socio-economic outcomes (Heeks 2008; Turpin and Ghimire

2010). It is this ability of ICT that has transformed business sector activities, business processes, supply and demand chains, changed organizational structures, and generated social change through the way people use and apply information and new forms of communications (Brynjolfsson 1993; Baliamoune-Lutz 2003; Falk

2005; Avgerou 2003 and 2008). ICT has produced behavioural changes that have an impact on economic matters; these include consumption and spending patterns and the social change that comes through increased access to education and health

(OECD 2009; Grimes 2000).

One of the reasons that developing countries adopt ICT is the perceived strong association between ICT and economic development, its implications for improving effective governance connecting citizens and delivering services by governments

(Bhatanagar 2001). More important perhaps has been its ability to provide access to information and knowledge for poorer residents of rural areas (Avgerou 2003;

Katchanovski and Porte 2009; Gomez 2010).

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues

Thus ICT has been viewed as an essential tool to ensure the prosperity of a nation regardless of its level of development. As highlighted by Dutta and Mia (2007),

Information and telecommunication Technologies (ICT) seems to have turned into the steam engine of our time, the ‘general purpose technology’ able to transform production processes across sectors and industries and boost productivity (Dutta and Mia 2007, p. 7) The steam engine transformed Britain in the 18th century- because it was already a highly developed nation compared to the rest of Europe and the world. Steam engines when introduced to India or Nepal in the 19th century did not similarly transform the economies or societies (Crafts 2004). Similarly, ICT may not bring about socio- economic transformation in remote rural societies because of the limited absorptive capacity in these places (Escribani et al. 2009). As explained in chapter one, achieving connection to a global network from Mount Everest is a significant achievement but it does not imply that rural areas have equitable access and that ICT has an equal impact on the transformation of society in all contexts.

This study is focused on one aspect of ICT: telecenters with internet access in rural areas of Nepal. The limitations of the Telecenter Program in Nepal are reviewed in chapter three. The present study investigates the outcomes of the Telecenter Program with the objective of understanding the relevant social dynamics through the implementation and use of that ICT enabled system. This chapter will review the literature and current state of knowledge about the system in Nepal and elsewhere.

The increasing global role of ICT as a crucial enabling infrastructure for economic development and social transformation needs to be analysed in terms of its affects on a broad range of socio-economic activities, norms and structures and investments appraisals. This is required in order to establish an investigative framework for analysing the social dynamics involved in the process of the delivery, and use of telecenters in

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues

Nepal; the literature is discussed in five sections in this chapter. Firstly, ICT is discussed as an enabling technology for driving innovation. Second, there is an evaluation of the role of ICT in lessening the digital divide in developing countries; the ICT4D implications for rural development are also reviewed. The third section discusses the internet as a social process and its implications for developing countries. This is followed by a review of internet diffusion through telecenters in developing countries and ICT and the internet in Nepal. A fourth section reviews the evidence for the impact of the internet and its social consequences. Finally, because of their enabling capacity, the role of telecenters in the national innovation system is reviewed.

In the conclusion of this chapter it is argued that,

1. There is a rich research literature on ICT and economic growth it is however,

mostly directed toward developed economies using a quantitative analysis. The

abundant literature on telecenter implementation in developing countries mainly

focuses on the nature of the technology that was used, and its impacts. But there

is a dearth of literature for generating a deeper understanding of the social

process through which ICT technologies are diffused and used in rural

communities. There is even less research that explains outcomes in terms of

social processes, particularly in least developed countries.

2. There is limited research on the impacts of the internet in different geographic

and topographic conditions within different economic structures, cultures and

political regimes.

3. Telecenter implementation, access and use are social processes. Yet evaluation

of the social dynamics through the process of design, delivery, access and use is

limited. With lower development indicators for income and education in remote

villages, understanding the role collective access to information, sharing and

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues

learning is important for understanding how telecenters contribute to social

change. The use of concepts such as ‘bonding’ and ‘bridging’ social capital, trust,

openness and absorptive capacity offer analytical tools for better understanding

the social dynamics.

4. The literature suggests that telecenters can potentially contribute to the delivery

and application of new knowledge, learning and innovation in rural areas;

consequently, implying telecenters should be considered an enabling component

in a national innovation system.

The chapter concludes with analytical framework for conducting the empirical part of this study and introduces the potentiality that the Telecenter Program in Nepal should be considered in the conceptual analysis of the broader Nepalese national innovation system.

2.2 ICT: An Enabling Technology for Driving Innovation

ICT is an enabling technology with the combined role of general purpose technology

(GPT) and an ‘innovation and productivity possibility frontier of an economy’

(Atkinson et al. 2011). It can lead to innovation across many sectors and fields of economic activity and spearhead economic growth. Recent advances in ICT have increased the knowledge intensity within the production process driving economic development and growth (Clarke 2011; Warschauer 2003). The convergence of globalization and knowledge intensity in economic activities in the 1990s produced what is described as a ‘New Economy’ with ‘knowledge’ as the major factor in production giving a comparative advantage in dealing with the challenges that pertain to the society and the global economic process (Clarke 2003; Kuppusamy et al. 2008). Some have defined these developments as an information revolution (Castells 2000). Earlier revolutions (agricultural and industrial) had significant social and economic impact

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues taking several decades for diffusion but an ICT revolution represents radical innovation facilitating acceleration of economic processes and product innovations coming much faster with rapid cost reduction(Turpin and Cooper 2005; Wilson 2004; Hanna 2010).

Characterizing the information technology revolution Castells (2000) stated:

The current technological revolution is not the centrality of knowledge and information but the application of such knowledge and information to knowledge generation and information processing/communication devices, in a cumulative feedback loop between innovation and the uses of Innovation (Castells 2000, p. 31). This revolution is not only changing economies but also creating new forms of social capital and new sets of values in developing countries with the availability of the internet, mobile phones, wireless communications, open-source software, low-cost access devices, social networks and changes in policy and institutions (Moody and

Paxton 2009; Hanna 2010). It is the introduction of the internet at rural telecenters with which this thesis is concerned.

2.2.1 ICT Investment and Productivity in Developed Economies

Developed countries have effectively used ICT to improve production processes and to offer government services to their citizens. Many researchers have found a positive correlation between ICT investment and economic performance, suggesting that complementary investment in ICT related labour and organizational factors contribute to improvements in productivity growth (Indjikian and Siegel 2005; Seo et al. 2009).

However, there are examples of stagnant productivity despite an enormous investment in ICT capital. This has led to the so-called ‘Productivity Paradox’ (Brynjolfsson 1993).

Not all countries that have invested heavily in ICT demonstrate strong growth in productivity. Instead, increased ICT spending has in some cases, led to smaller than expected productivity growth (Reilly and Gomez 2001; Rincon and Vecchi 2004; Pilat

2004). Solow’s (1957) research on the contribution of technology on economic progress

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues created great interest among researchers. In 1987, he famously phrased: ‘We see computers everywhere except in productivity Statistics’ (Quoted by Brynjolfsson, 1993, p. 67). Since his research, attention has been focussed on an ambiguous relationship between ICT diffusion and a set of macroeconomic and policy variables in developed and developing countries (Baliamoune-Lutz 2003; Stiroh 2001; Lee et al 2005; Gholami et al 2006).

Expectations of the technology and its apparent performance depict the measurement difficulty, and Brynjolfsson and Hitt (1993) found no lesser productivity from ICT investment with the larger data sets.

ICT capital goods have been important contributors to economic growth (Schreyer

2000). However, not all countries have done well with ICT. The inconsistencies (Stiroh

2002; Engelbrecht and Xayavong, 2006; Kuppusamy et al. 2008) in the ways that ICT may have led development, have raised research questions for developed economies and the ICT productivity paradox. Ark et al (2003) studying the case of 51 industries in US and Europe showed that a higher and faster productivity growth rate in the United

States was due to a larger employment share in the ICT production sector and faster productivity growth in service industries that make intensive use of ICT.

Empirical analysis of economic growth and productivity distinguishes three effects of

ICT. First, an investment in ICT contributes to raising productivity. Second, the technological progress in the production of ICT goods and services contributes to the multifactor productivity (MFP); and third the greater use of ICT in the economy helps firms to increase their overall efficiency and contributes to the network effects (Pilat

2004). Pilat’s study further argued that ICT generates spillovers and free benefits that exceed the direct returns on ICT capital. A study on ICT intensity and productivity in

New Zealand showed that labour productivity growth of more ICT intensive industries has improved over time relative to that of other less ICT intensive industries, even

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues though overall labour productivity growth was weak. Researchers argue that weak labour productivity growth is not necessarily the critical evidence against the beneficial productivity impacts of ICT (Engelbrecht and Xayavong, 2006). Information technology was responsible for two-thirds of total growth in productivity between 1995 and 2002 and all of the growth in labour productivity. Those improvements translate into faster GDP growth and higher living standards (The Economist 2009). There have been some difficulties in measuring the impact of ICT on productivity in places other than the USA. These may be due to insufficient investment in ICT or complementary investments in organization. It might also be due to the shorter timeframe or inappropriate use of neo-classical models to capture the evidence of the new economy

(Clarke 2003).

ICT investment in general and the increased use of the internet in particular, it has been argued, has had a major impact over the last fifteen years on global economic development. Several studies (Baliamoune-Lutz 2003; Pilat 2004; Ark et al 2003;

Indjikian and Siegel 2005; Seo et al 2009; Schreyer 2000) have concluded that ICT has increasingly contributed to output, capital, labour productivity, and economic growth.

There have been number of studies (Pilat 2004; Park and Shin 2004; Jorgenson and Vu

2005; O’Mahony and Vechhi 2005), that show the application of ICT has accelerated output and labour productivity. The source of growth was the capital accumulation that demonstrated significant digital elasticity for developed and developing countries

(Castells 2010; o’Mahony and Vechhi 2005). Thus ICT capital is generally seen as an enabler of new business activity innovation. The complementary investments in human capital and organization improvement are likely to provide an appropriate context for making ICT investment profitable. More recently, Venturini (2009), in analysing firm and industry level data, concluded that for a knowledge-based economy, ICT capital is a

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues significant contributor for long term economic growth, thus contradicting the results of an investigation based on growth accounts and short term effects of ICT.

The research reviewed above has provided a rationale for governments to invest in ICT capital and this has driven governments in developing countries to link rural investments to technologies for national development. However, few studies have taken into account the knowledge capital and the extent of its use, the complexity of the social and development dynamics in different contexts and the strategic planning for rural investments.

2.2.2 ICT Productivity and Social Return in Developing

Economies

Most developing countries lag far behind in the delivery of an appropriate ICT- friendly and conducive environment to increase productivity and social returns from ICT investments (Dutta et al. 2011, Atkinson et al. 2011). Research into the impact of ICT on productivity in developing countries is growing; however, there remain many inconsistencies in the findings. Hawash and Lang (2010) found that ICT investments improve productivity, which enhances growth as well as important factors for growth in total factor productivity (TFP). Therefore, it would be interesting to be able to determine whether investment in telecenters in rural areas of developing countries have led to technology adoption and increased absorptive capacity.

The implementation of ICT technology and its effective applications in business operations have contributed greatly to productivity growth, innovation, and economic transformation, which ultimately improve standards of living in developed economies

(Broadberry and Irwin 2006). Understandings from research into developing economies, concerning the contribution of ICT to development remain unclear (Baliamoune-

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues

Lutz2003). Her examination of the relationship between the uptake of ICT and various socio-economic factors in 47 developing nations asserted positive relations in terms of income, open international trade and political rights, but negative relations in terms of

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and adult literacy. She concluded that ICT can generate income and growth but poor social development and rigid trade policies slow the diffusion or lower development impacts (Baliamoune-Lutz 2003). Contrary to these findings, Pick and Azari (2008) found FDI to have a positive relation with ICT diffusion and for achieving economic and social development along with primary education, investment in science education and research and governments’ prioritization of ICT.

This development has been marked by high output growth, low unemployment and low inflation. For example, the internet, by reducing costs and improving market efficiency, has changed market structures, affected the mark-up margins of firms thereby influencing the relationship between costs, and output prices. The diffusion of the internet, as a cost saving technology, has been introduced in a model with network effects and dynamic market structures (Meijers 2006).

This examination of the dynamic interdependent relationship between ICT investment and economic growth found a positive correlation between these two variables and an equal influence of non-ICT investment on the growth gap. Active ICT investments supported by solid economic infrastructure and open trade regimes have been shown to reduce the growth gap in lower productivity countries using knowledge spillovers from advanced countries (Seo et al. 2009; Meijers 2006). Lee et al (2005) used a growth accounting approach to investigate the impact of ICT investments on economic growth.

This study collected time series data for four variables GDP (y), Capital (k), labour (L) and ICT investments for the period from 1980 to 2000 from 20 developed and developing countries. Results showed that ICT contributes to economic growth in developed countries. However, this was not shown to be the case in developing 30

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues countries and this was due to lower levels of ICT investment, and importantly, the lack of complementary investments in education, telecommunication and human resources.

In order to resolve debates of this nature there is a need for detailed qualitative studies such as Heeks and Kanashiro (2009), Hanna (2010), Kumar (2004) to reveal the ways that specific ICTs are diffused, accessed and made use of in rural areas and urban settings.

Joint efforts engaging government, business and individuals for a common ICT development vision, and a strategy and usage of ICT by governments, business and individuals is limited (Dutta and Mia 2007). In developing countries, ICTs are often concentrated in urban and some rural but its spread, application and usage into remote areas has been quite limited (Heeks 2002; Warschauer 2002; Anderson 2007; and Hanna

2010). Consequently, social change and economic transformation has, in many cases, not been possible due to the lack of a national information infrastructure and other factors like, availability of digital technologies, commercial leadership, institutional integrity and political coalitions (Wilson 2004). Hicks has argued that the contribution of

ICT to development should be measured taking readiness and availability as inputs, usage and behavioural changes associated with technology use as impacts, and wider cost and benefits of ICT as outputs (Heeks 2010b). The growth of ICT and its accessibility has not been matched by an equally rapid expansion in knowledge concerning how ICT impacts on development and poverty (UNCTAD 2010). In short, an economic analysis in developing countries needs to include a wide range of social activity variables in order to take account of the vastly different social contexts in developing countries. Importantly, research draws attention to the need to investigate social processes as underpinnings to other data.

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues

Nepal lacks both sufficient investment in ICT and complementary sectors. This might be due to a lack of knowledge about best practices in the use of ICT and a deficiency in the ICT related skills in the workforce. Bohlin et al (2004) referred to underinvestment, usage and application, and skill-deficiencies as three prevailing problems in developing countries. He underlined ICT-related skill deficiencies in the workforce to explain how this limited the benefits of organization changes. His revelation that the social returns on ICT investment exceed private returns in developing countries, strongly suggests that there is likely to be under-investment by the private sector in ICT and therefore there is an important role for the state in encouraging ICT investment (Indjikian and Siegel.

2005; Bohlin et al 2004). In addition, social returns from ICT increase by reducing the cost of co-invention done by later users when early adopters share experiences; the number of ICT adopters increases and complementarities such as convergence of technology and application improve (Atkinson et al. 2011). However, the concept of social return is difficult to quantify, other than by using broad human development indicators (UNDP 2011). While it is possible to measure the tangible benefits of ICT, such as direct increase in income or education, it is more difficult to map the intangibles such as collective access and use of ICT, changes in the ratio of employment, innovative practices, sharing the information or extending local networks. The difficulty with these indicators is firstly that it is very difficult to attribute any change in such indicators to any particular factor including the use of the internet, and secondly it is even more difficult to identify such development in sub-regions within national boundaries. One of the propositions emerging from this literature and key to this thesis, is that it is not so much the nature of ICT technologies themselves that are introduced and diffused, but rather, how they intersect with other socio-economic activities, such as large scale production units, small and medium enterprises or in particular, small village based activities along various value chains.

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues

In summary, most of the reviewed literature in ICT investment and productivity in developed and developing countries used quantitative research methodologies to investigate and measure productivity and growth. These studies indicate that there is a positive relationship between labour productivity and ICT usage as demonstrated by developed economies. Most of the studies reviewed above did not analyse the potential social benefits of ICT for rural communities but concentrated on the lack of complementary investments in developing economies. Others revealed a very strong correlation, using national data, between ICT and economic development indicators

(Hosman et al. 2008; Baliamoune-Lutz 2003). These contradictions have led this study to explore the proposition that it is not so much the extent of national ICT investment but rather the nature of that investment and the process of its diffusion into rural access in developing countries. The ways that multinational corporations or financial institutions use ICT, such as internet, will clearly not be the same as the manner in which they might be used by Yak breeders, family-based farming units, or indeed

Sherpas and trekking agencies in the Himalayas of Nepal for example.

2.3 The Digital Divide and ICT4D

The global ‘digital divide’ refers to the difference between information rich and information poor, north and south and continents and countries. It is a divide that is creating social problems and the OECD (2001) defined the digital divide as,

the gap between individuals, households, businesses and geographic areas at

different socio-economic levels with regard both to their opportunities to

access ICT and to their use of the Internet for a wide variety of activities (p. 4).

Traditionally, the gap between developed and developing countries was measured in physical capital but now in the new knowledge economy it is measured in intellectual capital (Romer 1993; Clarke 2003). ICT may bridge capital gaps or exacerbate other

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues gaps noted above, and Clarke (2003) argues that technology inequality exceeds income inequality. The digital divide concept is generally measured only in terms of technology usage, expenditure and ICT infrastructure (internet, mobile phones). Community development and other multiple dimensions may be addressed to improve poor social development and the diffusion of ICT in developing countries, ensuring these communities are not trapped on the poor side of the digital divide (Baliamoune-Lutz

2003 and Pick and Azari 2008). For the purpose of the social inclusion of poor and marginalized communities and for equitable access to ICT, ‘collective use’ of ICT in public access centres began emerging in developing countries, especially in underserved communities (Warschauer 2003; Castells 2007; Gomez 2010).

Warschauer (2003b) explains the use and impact of different resources including physical, digital, human and social, to break down the digital divide. He argues that the digital divide will widen with lack of resources regardless of the abilities of developing countries to improve the internet access and connectivity.

‘The digital divide is likely to worsen with the problem of equitable and socially inclusive resource mobilization and contribution of Internet and ICT to global differences. The resource constraint in developing country often widens the divide with other important initiatives competing for resources (Warschauer 2003b p. ).

From this perspective, the digital divide is not simply a problem of technological diffusion but also a problem of access to financial, social and human resources that enable the productive use of ICT. It requires social as much as economic analysis.

The concept of ICT for Development (ICT4D) emerged in the 1990s because of the perceived untapped potential of ICT to provide inclusive access, and deliver simple but powerful technology that can by-pass outdated communication systems (Toyama and

Dias 2008). The Millennium Development Goals of United Nations, especially the eradication of poverty and hunger, the establishment of equality between genders, the

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues provision of baseline healthcare and universal primary education laid the foundation for

ICT4D. It was debated whether access to information and the internet was a fundamental human right (Talukdar and Gauri 2011; Svantesson 2011). ICT4D encourages social scholars to observe how people in developing countries interact with technology, in achieving social gains by designing social systems that work alongside technology to reduce poverty and empower poor, in promoting broad based growth, use of grassroots innovations and in relation to social learning (Hanna 2010). In the early 1990s, ICT4D studies initially discussed the potential of ICT and then moved toward designing resources to understand the contribution of infrastructure and accessibility and currently seek to understand actual development in rural areas where there are contributions to economic growth, sustainable livelihood and social development (Castells 2007; Heeks 2010b).

There have been important studies (Avgerou 2008; Thompson 2008; Walsham and

Sahay 2006) on the development of Information Systems (IS) in developing countries.

In general, these studies have concluded that developing countries have adopted technology with some localization, bringing socio-economic change by reducing gaps in the digital divide and expanding sectors such as education and health care. The ICT innovation discourse in developing countries identifies technology and knowledge transfer and adaptation to local social conditions, social programs and social behaviour to view issues. Examples of these issues are health care, education, and land administration, transformative techno-organizational interventions associated with global politics and economics as a separate social process, albeit enabled by the same forms of ICT (Aanestad 2011; Avgerou 2008). Telecenters are carriers of these discourses and potential enablers for leveraging socio-economic change.

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Many ICT projects in developing countries have not met the expectations of rural people and those of the agencies responsible for their implementation. Asymmetries of information in terms of inclusion of stakeholders, poor design processes and misaligned incentive mechanisms have contributed to the failure of some ICT4D projects, framing

ICT4D as a design problem (Tongia and Subrahmanian 2006). They argue that the nature of ICT4D in practice is often ill-defined and development issues are ill-structured and propose a model of product and service identification. These insights firmly underscore the need for developing an analysis of social process through which rural based communities gain access to and potentially share and learn from the information conveyed through ICT.

2.3.1 Disaggregating the Digital Divide

The discussion above presented ICT as an enabling technology; however, it has added another dimension to development problems. The productivity paradox is one dimension of development, primarily focussed on natural levels of production. The introduction of ICT does not necessarily deliver social benefits to the poor.

Questioning investment in ICT4D projects, Wade (2002) observes

The big worry about the ICT for development movement is that it reflects a rationality of action that is obstructing rational decisions about development investments (Wade 2002, p.462).

Many ICT projects in developing countries were prototypes and pilot projects, which did not develop into large scale roll-outs at a national level in developing countries. ICT, is increasingly becoming an important tool in the development agenda with policy makers in developing countries often adopting ICT4D projects without assessing the quite different social needs in diverse rural and remote areas. There is also growing concern regarding the hype about ICT without attention to actual impacts.

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Wade (2002) argues, “ICTs are being oversold as the key both to higher efficiency of corporate and public organizations and to stronger responsiveness of government to citizen customers” (Wade 2002, p. 443). After eight years of ICT4D expansion in developing countries, Heeks noted similar concerns: ‘high media hype public relation efforts but short on facts and figures about actual impacts’ (Heeks 2010a, p. 24; see also

Mazzarella 2010). There have been various prominent global initiatives to reduce the digital divide such as the UN Initiatives G8 Digital Opportunity Taskforce (DOT Force)

2000, the World Bank Infodev and the World Summit on information Society (WSIS) organized in Geneva 2003 and in Tunis 2005. The implementation of shared principles and policy frameworks outlined by these global initiatives were expected to reduce the digital divide significantly and convert it into ‘digital dividends’ (Opesade 2011).

However, Kim (2011), while examining the diffusion of the internet between 1994 and

2007, pessimistically observed, “The digital divide is not likely to be closed in the near future” (Kim 2011, p. 602). Poverty restricts resources and access consequently to the technology. This ensures lower absorptive capacity at individual and community levels and limits the application of useful information and knowledge. In 2005, the Economist proclaimed that “the debate over the digital divide is founded on a myth; A computer is not useful, if you have no food or electricity and cannot read’ (Ginsburg 2008, p 293).

Such anomalies acknowledge that when the discussion of ICT is the desire for development, the pressing issue is the local capacity to use and absorb benefits and to learn about how to manage the resulting potential social change.

An uneven distribution of ICT has led to differentiated levels of social development between urban and rural communities. Stern et al (2009) discuss three levels of digital inequality: levels of access to the internet and diffusion of technology, level of proficiency in web usage, and differences on the use of technology to facilitate daily

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues activities regardless of the community type (urban or rural). Other authors (Akca et al

2007, Bimber 2000) have disaggregated the digital divide into several constituent parts: the access divide; the technological divide; the proficiency divide; and the opportunity divide. The access divide describes the gap between haves and have-nots. The technological divide includes the gap in community connectivity through dial up, wireless or broadband connections, powerful computers, etc. The proficiency divide refers to the gap in literacy level, education, and training skills. The opportunity divide concerns the gap in content availability, efficiency in daily activities, and usage of information for professional purposes and entertainment. But the analysis does not offer methods for correcting these deficiencies. Differences in social structures, individual characteristics, regional contexts and other community characteristics such as race, ethnicity, also have effects on various facets of these digital inequalities (Stern et al.

2009). The nature of information content made clear that ICT can also contribute to a

‘divide’. The content relevant to the user’s interest and need to have it in their own language, poses restrictions for the use of technology by rural communities. ICT content becomes most effective, when it accommodates local needs and social conditions and users are involved in the development process (Warschauer 2002).

Improvement in content creation and sharing can potentially add to social inequality.

However, such improvement in creating digital media by individuals often depends on socio-economic status and social background (Hargittai and Walejko 2008). There is a need for people in villages to create their own content as the availability of useful online content sets the positive implications for social inequality. Therefore, the construction and development of village websites is important in producing and disseminating local content and thus reducing the digital divide between rural and urban areas (Akca et al.

2007). Village websites offer learning materials free of copyright restrictions. It is not the availability of content but a system that encourages access to available resources 38

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues

(Hatakka 2009). Such arguments turn attention to the social dynamics in both developing and using digital content. Zhou et al (2011) examined the digital divide in

Nepal through the factors that influenced patterns of computer and internet use in rural areas and concluded that education was a key factor for computer and internet use, and knowledge of English was an enabling variable. Thus, increased education with technology, English language proficiency or local language content will lessen the digital divide. Other factors geography (remoteness and road access), rural –urban composition, caste dominance (upper-caste elites holding most resources and political power), culture (biased gender) and a decade long conflict have contributed to widen digital divide in Nepal. To lesson this, the role of ICT has to be considered as observed by Warschauser (2003b)

What is most important about ICT is not so much the availability of a computing device or the internet line, but rather the people’s ability to make use of that device and line to engage in meaningful social practices (p 38).

This presents a bigger challenge for rural development and the need for a policy approach that is inclusive. It implies the need for resource mobilization to reduce this digital inequality not just by connecting people with appropriate levels of skills, but embedding the technology within local social structure, which in turn facilitates the use of information and knowledge and consequently generates economic and social values.

2.3.2 The Geographic Divide

There is also a geographical perspective to the digital divide (Gilbert et al. 2008). There are a number of studies (Furuholt and Kristiansen 2007; Gilbert et al. 2008, Cullen

2001) that have raised issues about the impact of geographic isolation on accessing information and knowledge through the internet. In this case, it is not just the limited income of rural people or the cost of the internet but the lack of communication

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues infrastructure and geographical barriers. Cullen (2001) emphasized geographical isolation as a barrier to the use of the internet

Even affluent rural communities suffer from geographic isolation, low bandwidth and unreliable connections... more remote areas remain outside normal mobile telephone service, and development of mobile services in remote areas is regarded as prohibitively expensive (Cullen 2001, p. 313)

However, there is very little research to explain geography as a significant factor restricting access and use of the internet. The internet access at Mount Everest introduced in chapter one demonstrates that geography does not necessarily restrict access. Other social factors come into play. Howells (2002) suggests that geographical influence shapes the knowledge interaction as localised patterns of interaction; tacit knowledge and geographical context all play a greater role in the use and spread of codified knowledge. Consequently, ICT implementation processes in rural areas require a knowledge transfer mechanism, where tacit knowledge and learning-by-doing become extremely important. Other studies have also concluded that geographic proximity is important for the transfer of more complex technological knowledge, e-shopping and the spatial distribution of the internet (Todtling et al. 2010; Farag et al. 2006; Billon et al.

2008).

Even with identical sets of technologies, it is not only the differential use of ICT but place-based characteristics that lead to different social outcomes. Wilson and Corey

(2011), for example, have noted how ICT carries different social meaning and changes in the way it functions in different places.

ICT, when used in different places- cities, regions, countries - take on different attributes related to a place. In this case place represents not only geography coordinates on the planet but all that places capture in terms of environment, society culture, government and development. ICT can therefore be represented as a set of technologies that, when introduced into different places, resulted in changes in form and function (Wilson and Corey 2011, P. 3).

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues

As such the user, purpose of use and surrounding technological or social network is not necessarily consistent or static but continually being redefined. For example, a user in a remote rural village accesses the public internet centre for the information in weather forecasting could also deliver such information to a whole village, which could facilitate accordingly the planning and adjustment of a range of productive engagement activities.

Thus, the technology delivers weather forecasting, intermediated through a social process and leads to innovativeness across a range of productive practices.

The tourism sector, which contributes 6.7% of GDP in Nepal, is an example of how distance from centre and access to infrastructure due to geography matters for performance. Many tourist and trekking activities are in the east around Mount Everest region and in the west around the Annapurna Mountain range. Tourism there still depends on analogue and physical transactions due to the lack of a reliable and efficient electronic marketing system. Information needs to be disseminated to promote vacation destinations, tourism products and services through online interaction with customers, and transactions. Most international tourists come from developed countries with e- consumption behaviour; navigating the internet to choose a destination, trip planning, travel information, booking and transactions processing (Minghetti and Buhalis 2010).

As such, low-digital-access destinations in Nepal require more time for planning, booking products through travel agents, providing offline transactions all of which result in higher costs and lead to a digital divide in tourism.

An ICT infrastructure in geographically remote locations, offers a social capability to use information productively for the tourism sector. However, the information infrastructure providing internet availability alone does not necessarily reduce digital inequality because the digital divide is less about computers and connectivity and more

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues about relevant content, social applications and the capability of community to generate economic and social values from ICT (Hanna 2010).

The following section draws the discussion above toward a closer examination of the ways the internet has been used as a tool for development in developing countries. In this context, the technology is both a foundation and function of the social process into which it is introduced.

2.4 The Internet as a Social Process

2.4.1 The Emergence of the World Wide Web (WWW)

The internet is becoming an integral part of everyday life availing different modes of communication, varieties of information through a knowledge hub. DiMaggio et al.

(2001) defined the internet as an “electronic network of networks that links people and information through computers and other digital devices allowing person-to-person communication and information retrieval (p. 307). The History of the internet dates from 1969, when the US defence department established ARPA aiming for a secure connection of computers linking different centres of military research at UCLA and

Stanford Research Institute. The connections were extended to the University of

California and Utah and the network was hence named Arpanet. A year later there were ten connecting nodes (Keefer and Baigat 2001). Initially, the specialized community of universities and government defence departments and contractors were the users of net.

This limited and specialized net community at the time was the intention and the general public had no access to information - there was no system that allowed for any computer to communicate to any other computer (Hall. 2011). Arpanet developed the

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues internet protocol, but between 1980 and 1990, it had steady growth, until the World

Wide Web was developed.4

Since then the general public, started integrating it into their everyday life. The development and diffusion of the technology increasingly extended the internet globally with declining equipment and connectivity cost. There is barely a single sector or aspect of life, which is not impacted in some way by the internet. The general activities on the internet suggest behavioural changes taking place in the social aspects of individuals’ lives. In general, it has established concerns about power and inequality in access as discussed in section 2 of this chapter. It has impact on the community and social capital; it has changed business and political practices and economic institutions (DiMaggio et al. 2001). The other important contribution of internet usage has been civic engagement

(Castells 2007). Many adults these days use email for communication, use search engines to find the information they need, make online transactions such as buying products or online banking, read news, get education and health information and make travel reservations (Ratan et al. 2010).

The diffusion of the internet and its adoption in developing countries has provided information and knowledge with potential transformative and innovative effects in

4 Hall (2011) recollects the history at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), Switzerland in 1989

Berners-Lee (March 1989) put forward a seminal internal paper “Information management: a proposal” which was initially received with the cautious (internal) remark “Vague but exciting”! But it received approval to proceed and so was developed the notion of the uniform resource locator (URL), assigning a quite unique address to each “page” in the notional scheme (which later became the World Wide Web). The eventual outcome was most satisfying; a document could be “translated” and read by virtually any computer, anywhere – and in an amazingly short time! And on 6 August 1991 in Geneva, Switzerland the very first “web site” went online and the online revolution had truly started! (Hall, 2011, p. 191-192).

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues societies 5 . But it has produced different outcomes in different countries and social contexts (Kuriyan and Toyma 2007; Haythornthwaite and Kendall 2010; Sey and

Fellows 2009; Avgerou 2010). Technology adoption has not brought universal benefit.

Some were able to embed the internet in an innovative way within social structures, and some were able to bring organizational change with some affecting government policy.

Friedman (2005) has argued that the speed of change in the internet has created problems for adaptation in developing countries. Ashok Jain and Wilson point out that

‘grassroots technologies’ and the ‘Subaltern stream’ of technology policy demonstrate the need for strategic restructuring and institutional change for the diffusion and adaption of technologies by remote and impoverished communities (Jain 2003; Wilson

2004). The diffusion and use of the internet in China has been affected by the role of change agencies, planned efforts of government and differences in the information needs across various sectors. Yang, for example, concluded that limited socio-economic changes and rural development of the internet diffusion ignores how the small achievements in agricultural productivity, the improvement in local education and the local process of embracing this technology in their society, disseminates the adoption and application of the internet (Yang, 2009).6

The higher cost of internet connectivity and expensive ICT peripherals, limit the diffusion into some regions. James (2010) argues that the internet is not too expensive and complex just because it is designed and developed in different conditions in

5 A major innovation enabled by the internet has been email (Kim 2011). 6 The principal determinants of the internet diffusion, adoption and application in developing countries has been economic wealth, income and investments as argued by Baliamoune-Lutz 2003; Liu and San 2006; Bailey 2009; Best and Kumar 2008; Billon et al. 2008, Kim and Galliers 2004 but importantly recent growth and convergence of mobile technology, its application and internet has more potential for internet diffusion to 1.53 billion ‘Middle of Pyramid’ (MOP), mobile subscribers but not internet users((Wilson and Corey 2011, Ginige and Ginige 2011).

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues developed countries. He emphasized the use of low-cost asynchronous Internet connectivity models ( ‘Wizzy Digital courier’ in South Africa, ‘Drishtee’ and ‘Computers on wheels’ in India and ‘Daknet’, used in Cambodia, India, Paraguay and Rwanda) and technical sharing and low-cost computers (Simputer, OLPC - one-laptop-per-child, and

N-computing low-cost devices). This research has however, ignored problems related to intermediation and time delays in low-cost connectivity model 7 . Many internet connectivity researches in developing countries have only economic aspects, ignoring social aspects that restrict or support the diffusion of the internet in developing countries. Liu and San (2006) highlighted the significance of social factors such as political stability, human capital and the role of popular traditional media in speeding up the diffusion and social learning but did not include the important social process of interactions and information flows to achieve social learning and diffusion. In addition, with resource constraints in developing countries, access to the internet at the individual household level, is a distant possibility, thus the model of collective use of the internet is perhaps the answer to enable its diffusion in rural areas of the least developed countries.

2.4.2 Implications of the Internet for Developing Countries

The emergence of the internet, as explained earlier in this chapter provides both implications of socially inclusive development and further social inequalities for developing countries. With investments in ICT and the expansion of the internet in developing countries, earlier studies mainly looked for improvements in productivity and economic growth (see section 2.2.1). Indjikian and Siegel (2005) argued that

7 On Low-cost computing devices, Simputer, a product envisioned for $100 by non-computer company, became a dream design for masses created more by media hype, cost $200 but was discontinued in 2007. This discontinuation was due to lack of application and other support services together with competition from low-end desktop with applications, training, maintenance and other local supports (Patra et al. 2007). Similarly, OLPC became an ‘ideological mission, without economic rationale, assuming children as change-agents and networks as a mechanism’ (Annay and Winters 2007) based on particular model inapplicable to poor rural communities. 45

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues investments in ICT and the internet for developing countries generates a higher social return with opportunities to improve export competitiveness through participation in global e-market places and enhances economic growth. Studies of this nature focus mainly on the economic consequences of the internet application and use rather than the social consequences of use of the internet and the limitations in developing countries, such as policy and the regulatory and opportunity costs of such investment in predominantly rural societies.

The advent of the internet and increasing demands for regionalization has pressured the governments of developing countries to use the internet for rural development.

Chapman and Slaymaker (2002) focused on the strategic application of emerging ICT particularly on new solutions provided by the internet to rural development and the problems of the rural poor. However, it is not just the internet itself but its integration with other factors that weave a new form of rural/urban interdependence, sharing the economic growth, increasing human capital, and access to minimum amenities for a quality of life that are necessary to change the development dynamics in rural areas

(Olfert and Partridge 2010). Each developing country has its own specific problem and as such there is a need to formulate appropriate strategies to use ICT for rural development.

There is a growing global literature (Tiwari and Sharmistha 2008; Bowonder and Boddu

2005; Duncombe 2006) on the use of the internet in rural areas of developing countries.

These studies have viewed the internet as an enabler of development, capable of improving rural human capital. They observe that the internet increases rural participation in market opportunities through rural connectivity, capacity building at the community level, lessening of urban-rural digital divide and mitigating rural poverty.

Tiwari and Sharmistha (2008) have shown how ICT application and internet growth is

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues impacting on the lives of the rural poor in India with two ICT development projects

‘Gyandoot’ and ‘Drishtee’. Their study found that ‘Gyandoot’ provided a physical land holding certificate enabling services and engaged the socially and economically backward communities. It also introduced unique public-private partnerships encouraging entrepreneurship in the local economy, though market imperfections meant the majority of services were far from realization. ‘Drishtee’ ICT and the internet services appeared to target higher education and income level users. This latter project also encouraged rural entrepreneurship. Important evidence from their study indicated that there is potential for the internet to accelerate inclusive rural development and to bridge the digital divide provided the internet is used with appropriate formats of service delivery and stimulation of demand-side factors in the rural sector. There is also a divergent viewpoint on the process for internet deployment and expectations on development

(Heeks 2002, Helfenstein 2008). Others (Warschauer and Matuchniak 2010, Stern and

Adams 2010) have drawn attention to factors such as who uses it, for example is it for household use, business use or government use with differing, even contradictory outcomes concerning the objectives and expectations. Still others have drawn attention to the expectation that the internet offer transparency, increased agricultural production, and the minimizing of the processing cost of government services and offer improvements in health and education (Thadaboina 2009; Chen et al. 2009).

These examples show how the internet is being used in rural areas in developing countries, but many of them drew attention to limited access, lack of physical access and assets, limited speed and content, skills and income. Very few dealt with specific productive purposes such as e-Choupal for Soya in India. The social implications of the internet, how it is or is not embedded in local social structures and its capacity to generate innovative pathways for rural development is dealt with in a more limited way in the literature. 47

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues

Another limitation in the literature concerns the potential negative or disruptive social consequences of the internet as it is diffused into developing countries. There are differing views on the impact of internet use on the user’s social engagement, loneliness and depression. Kraut, et al, (1998) in their study, argued that higher use of the internet results in users’ having less communication with family members reduces participation in social activity and leaves them lonely and depressed. Shaw and Gant (2002) contradicted these findings of Kraut and colleagues arguing that internet use increased social interaction and it improved social support and self-esteem. In fact, Kraut et al later in 2002, suggest that the internet had fewer negative consequences than they proclaimed in their earlier study and stated some small positive effects on social involvement (Tyler 2002). Moreover, DiMaggio et al. found that the internet users attended more social events, read more newspapers and books, attended more theatre shows and cinemas watched and played more sports than non-users (DiMaggio et al.

2001) thus the internet played a facilitative role in generating more social ties and higher social involvement (Stern and Dillman 2006).

The other discourse on the negative consequences of the internet looks at the destruction of industries and increasing unemployment. Taleb and Spitznagel (2009) attributed extreme variations and complexities in economic and business values such as unemployment and commodity prices to the internet, deeming it a main cause of such consequences. In developing countries, the introduction of technology and the internet has had an impact on print media, book publishers and employment in financial sectors.

The OECD (2009) report on the measurement of information society drew attention to the following:

ICT has greatly contributed to the process of creative destruction, through the birth of new firms – and industries – and the death of others, with visible impacts on industrial organizational structures and obvious implications for employment (OECD 2009, P.14).

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues

Other negative consequences of the internet usage noted in the literature include online gambling, pornography and in particular child pornography. Curtis (2008) argues that

‘gift economy’- offerings of free play and free trial periods and images- by online gambling and pornographic sites has given rise to the use of these sites by households connected to the internet with government regulations having limited effect.

Castells (2007) sums up some of the negative activities being carried out to counter new power forms generated by the internet.

A new round of power making in the communication space is taking place, as power holders have understood the need to enter the battle in the horizontal communication networks. This means surveilling the Internet as in the U.S., using manual control of email messages when robots cannot do the job, as in the latest developments in China, treating Internet users as pirates and cheaters, as in much of the legislation of the European Union, buying social networking web sites to tame their communities, owning the network infrastructure to differentiate access rights, and endless other means of policing and framing the newest form of communication space (Castells 2007, p. 259). Discussing the social costs and benefits of the internet Spears et al (2002) drew attention to the elimination of ‘’boundaries’ in the values aspects of everyday life but also to the introduction of new boundaries.

These communication technologies can be seen as setting up sometimes unwanted barriers with everyday life and also as eliminating unwanted boundaries from everyday life (Spears et al. 2002, p.92).

This contradicted the assumption that isolation and anonymity in the internet do not make processes ‘less social’ and further argued that the internet enhances the influence of group norms on individual’s behaviour to be even more social (Spears et al. 2002,

Tyler 2002). It is this transformative social element underlying internet usage in which this thesis is particularly interested.

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues

Hudson (2006) has examined strategies and techniques for making available affordable access to the internet in order to share the information. Her study argued that telecommunications had set a new standard for rural people by providing information on education and health for example. The internet, in her view removed distance as a barrier to information access. Although communication costs have been significantly reduced, accessibility remains a significant barrier. Individual families cannot afford connection fees and even if they could, the cost of the computer is beyond their reach.

One strategy for enabling affordable internet access has been the introduction of community based telecenters. This collective usage introduces a deeper social element into internet usage and is discussed more fully in the following section.

2.4.3 Diffusion and Use of the Internet in Developing Countries:

The Telecenter Mechanism

Diffusion of the internet in rural areas of Nepal is affected by availability, affordability and skills constraints. The notion of collective access to shared resources led to the evolution and implementation of telecenters. A telecenter is a public place, often located at school, health post, post office or other community building, with computers connected to the internet and a skilled person to assist the user. The wave of telecenters began in Nordic countries in 1980’s first in Sweden then followed by Denmark and

Norway (Falch, 1998). Telecenters have since been introduced around the globe into the rural communities of developing countries. Telecenters are, as Harris put it, “potential means of bringing information and innovation to rural settings’ (Harris 2001, p.74).

Recently, there has been much research based on case studies describing the impact of telecenters. For example, Bailey (2009) examined telecenters analysing content for sustainability looking and participation and local core capabilities and Goransson (2005)

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues discussed the problems of telecenter implementation in Laos. Given that poverty concentrates in rural areas, the most popular model of using ICT for development has been through the introduction of rural telecenters (Heeks 2008). Importantly, there have been number of studies in the information research literature (Walsham and Sahay

2006; Avgerou 2008) th regard to developing countries and a summary and assessment of telecenter research by Kurian and Toyama (2007, 2008). This review of research on rural Kiosks was conducted in India, Ghana and Kenya. The review identified a difficulty in sustainability (due to problems of economic, social, education barriers), information infrastructure, a mismatch between business needs and social development goals and a difference in expectations between telecenter program owners and rural inhabitants (Kurian and Toyama 2007).

Telecenters have been established for different purposes in different countries. Some telecenters were established to provide e-governance services, especially serving the ultra-poor in the rural areas in India (Rajalekshmi 2008). They were established in Laos to deliver internet access for the improvement of rural living conditions (Goransson

2005). In the Philippines they were introduced to develop and test communication and information systems to support rural communities. In Malaysia, they were introduced as a community resource for the internet and ICT, to achieve sustainable human development in remote areas and to create opportunities to reduce poverty by connecting rural communities in Mongolia (Harris 2001). In Colombia, they were introduced to create local information systems that offer vital business support for rural agro-enterprises; and for the diffusion of innovations (Roman 2004). Some of these developing countries established these specifically as collective community internet centres while some other countries had a general objective of providing access to the internet. There were in fact many other ICT and internet access telecenters, kiosks and initiatives in India, such as ‘Bhoomi’ for land registration certificate, ‘Drishtee’ for digital 51

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues photography, rural entrepreneurship and computer training and ‘Akshya’ which offered free training to a marginalized group and access to e-government services (Tiwari and

Sharmistha 2008; Rajalekshmi 2008).

Other examples in India include e-Choupal, for agricultural products, especially Soya,

OSCAR project, an agricultural extension program, ‘Gyanadoot’ for government to citizen service and Wired Warana Village in Maharastra for business to business (B2B) price (Kumar 2004; Thadabonia 2009). There are similar examples in other countries -

B2B price in Philippines; disadvantaged urban youth in Brazil and club models targeting students, youth centres and universities in Egypt (Hanna 2010). There remains debate about whether a simple generic internet access model is cost effective and provides a medium of interaction – internet and basic communication services. Moreover, it has been argued that telecenters are about empowering people with knowledge and services, and as such, simply providing access to the internet without relevant content and services may not provide the desired empowerment (Hanna 2010, p.241). According to a Chinese study, the social and economic factors which facilitated access to and use of information centres in rural China, could not be sustained because they adopted a top down approach. It was perceived that it helped local farmers in gaining access to information and knowledge but failed to apply conveyed knowledge to realize improvements in agriculture and village level production practices (Soriano 2007).

A case study of the DWESA project in South Africa argued that financial sustainability is not a sufficient condition for the success of a telecenter. Other different types of sustainability issues like social and cultural sustainability, technological sustainability, and institutional sustainability are important for telecenters in rural areas. Pade et al’s (2009) study concluded that ICT telecenters are useful for rural development where they aimed to promote e-commerce in tourism. According to Surana et al, (2008) an ICT project

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues must exhibit three important principles to be sustainable; optimization of an existing system, financial self-sufficiency, and operational self-sufficiency. In a number of other studies (Kumar 2004; Bailur 2007; Best and Kumar 2008; Kuriyan and Toyama 2007;

Grace et al 2004), the sustainability issues of telecenters were raised in various forms.

Financial sustainability meant greater revenue than cost from operations. Social sustainability aimed for continued support from local community prioritizing information needs and the use of telecenters to better their lives. Political sustainability was required to ensure appropriate policy, regulatory and institutional support for the program. Technological sustainability was required for continued and speedy connectivity, adequate equipment, and technology suitable to the needs of the community, all of which must be cost effective and match local skills-sets. Finally, other sustainability issues included education, human resource, and content and information network.

The failure of Sustainable Access in Rural India (SARI) project, which consisted of 100 centres in 50 villages in Tamil Nadu, India and 36 private telecenters, was attributed principally to inadequate institutional support but also by failure to develop new and relevant content for services and financial issues (Best and Kumar 2008). Bailur (2007) used a stakeholder analysis in the Gyandoot project in India to conclude that inappropriate stakeholder prioritization made telecenters unsustainable. She stated that telecenters became unsustainable when the primary stakeholder, that is the local community, was excluded and donor agencies and/or government officials were regarded as primary stakeholders. She further emphasized specified roles and responsibilities in telecenter projects of all key potential stakeholders. Whyte (2000) described components of telecenter stakeholders as the local community, telecenter owners, management, users, national ICT agency, regional agency, and international agency. These studies all highlight the importance of ongoing social interactions 53

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues between all stakeholders - from the owners through to the users and their social networks.

The evaluation of ICT and internet projects outcomes, paves the way for improving our understanding of how a social system in which the internet is embedded and allows for its introduction in different ways, engages the community for collective benefit.

Rothenberg-Alami and Pal (2005) dealt with rural telecenter evaluation methodologies with evaluation tables containing questions, key indicators, approach and summary.

Their research contained appendices with various existing telecenter models, measurement indices and a questionnaire, which are useful to researchers on telecenters.

Roman (2003) used diffusion theory to provide a conceptual theory for research and practice. ‘Perceived attributes of innovation’, ‘communication aspect of diffusion process’ and ‘consequences of innovation adoption’, are three important aspects of diffusion he focused on to conclude that the first requisite of telecenter research is to understand the multilayered nature of telecenters. Because it is a multidisciplinary inquiry, impact evaluation needs to have both summative and formative implications at all levels namely national and international. The framework designed for the present study deals with these multiple layers.

There is less research on monitoring and evaluation of these telecenters specifically on measurable socio-economic outcomes using qualitative methods. Hicks (2008) called for ‘objective impact evaluation’ and Pather and Uys (2010) suggested a research design for the evaluation of socio economic outcomes of community based telecenters. Harris

(2003) suggested further research on telecenter characteristics to identify desirable development outcomes and Hudson (2006) asked for ICT investment design for LDCS to be used by donor communities. However, development indicators often used to measure economic development through analysing data using quantitative methods,

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues cannot measure all social changes and developments that take place in the community through their use of telecenters.

There are some examples of research into potential socio-economic impacts with socially inclusive models. Some deal with the partial success of introducing the internet into rural areas of developing countries. Harris (2001) attempted to examine telecenter innovations, seeking to identify a successful model for end user computing. That study tried to establish the process of adaption to the community based innovations represented by telecenters. The research used case studies of five projects in rural communities of Asia. The results suggest that community characteristics (community aspirations, learning, capacities, organization, unity, participation, relationships and personalities) are the most important factors for a telecenter’s success. The study was based on the data derived from short evaluation visits. It advocated for further qualitative research of community characteristics of telecenters.

Connecting rural poor communities to worldwide information infrastructure creates complex tasks such as useful content production, strengthening the collective power of the community and social enterprises and potentially, new relations with social connections (Heeks 2010b). For example, a networking site like Babajob, on which urban potential employers post low skilled jobs for rural workers in India generates new ventures for resolving specific issues. Similarly, the Bhoomi project issued land ownership certificate through the internet, these are required by farmers in order to obtain bank loan thus removing the potential need to bribe officials. Similarly, another business model, the e-choupal removed the middlemen between the farmer and grain producer, providing benefits to both in terms of improved efficiency, higher prices and lower transaction costs (Tongia and Subrahmanian, 2006).

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues

Multiple studies (Rao 2008; Bailey 2009; Pick and Gollakota 2010) on telecenters have argued that they have increased access to information through the internet by rural users. Rao (2008) discussed the adaptation of telecenters in rural India for social development focusing on seven telecenter initiatives including ‘Drishtee’, ‘e-Choupal’

‘Akshya’ and ‘Rural e-seva’, all of which had increased access to rural communities but all had differing performance experiences. Bailey (2009) assessed sixteen telecenters in

Jamaica finding issues that affected the social sustainability of telecenters. This study revealed five important themes: education; skills training; employment and entrepreneurship; social networks; and socio economic issues for telecenter stakeholders. The study further highlighted the pivotal role of telecenter staff and suggested not only ICT-based roles but also community related roles on specific social contexts for the sustainability of the telecenter, confirming telecenters did not match the earlier expectations (Bailey 2009). Pick and Gollakota (2010) stated that the widespread existence of telecenters in developing countries provided public access to information in rural areas but were underutilized for the delivery of potential benefits. This was due to a lack of awareness, limited community confidence, a limited wider social network and an inability to use the technology to maximum effect.

Jalali (2006) analysed the impact of telecenters in Iranian villages looking at the social and economic impacts, finding a positive social impact in terms of education and information, acceptability, culture and health factor. Economically, it contributed to increased employment and an increase in agricultural income. The study was mainly based on a quantitative analysis. It could not explain the complex social issues of community behavioural parameters and innovations associated with the diffusion of technology and its use. Rajalekshmi (2008) carried out an empirical study of a telecenter project in India. The main aim of this research was to find out how e-governance service delivery was affected by trust between citizens and intermediaries at various 56

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues levels8. The study found that the personal trust between the people and the intermediary was an important factor for making e-government services successful. In particular, it was the institutional trust in government that appeared to be important. A local intermediary led to increased trust in the services of the telecenters. However, she argues that e-government services would be more appropriate using technology within existing institutions like hospitals and agriculture offices. Later in 2008, Kuriyan et al. examined this same telecenter to see if the twinned role of social development and entrepreneurship with commercial profitability had been achieved. Their research results show contradictions, firstly between state and entrepreneurs on the issue of social development or commercial sustainability role of the telecenters and secondly the perceptions of rural users about a ‘public goods’ versus ‘private goods’ approach in using telecenter services. In fact, the poorer component of the population was not the users of the telecenter but entrepreneurs who deliver services to the middle classes for their financial viability. Thus with the government taking an interventionist role in the meeting of social goals and the needs of entrepreneurs for meeting financial viability, the objective of achieving broader rural development through the internet appeared to be contradicted (Kuriyan et al. 2008).

People in rural remote mountainous regions in developing countries such as Nepal are excluded socially, politically and economically from participation. Therefore, the presence of telecenters in these areas alone will not necessarily create development results. A series of complementary factors such as relevant content, skills and motivation to access the content, social and business contacts, are required to create a development impact (Hanna 2010). The Warana Wired Village project in India

8 It was a qualitative explanatory single-case study of an ‘Akshaya’ Telecenter in Kerala, using multiple data collection methods such as documents, archival records, interviews, direct observations and participant observations. 57

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues demonstrated the successful use of the internet by 70 village telecenters, accelerating socio-economic development of rural community (Thadaboina 2009). Through participation and empowerment, the project provided access to health, education, financial services to rural community and importantly was able to bring efficiency, productivity and price gains in sugarcane production, which was the main economic activity of the community. Heeks and Kanashiro (2009) studying the Peruvian telecenters in mountain regions found that it enabled a new and positive resource to flow to teenage school students and young farmers. Users searched for information on the internet which improved agricultural practice and helped to maintain social networks. The study also revealed that telecenters offer access to some previously excluded resources but was not able to address systematic exclusions faced by mountain communities. Literacy, especially digital, has been a crucial complementary resource for the desired development outcome of telecenter use. Studies of this nature raise the question as to whether the information accessed by those young people is diffused more broadly among villagers, and if so, how.

In many cases, non-use or ineffective use of telecenters has been attributed to a lack of digital literacy (Heeks 2002; Heeks and Kanashira 2009; Huerta and Sandoval-Almzan

2007). Rural communities and marginalized populations do not have the basic navigation skills required to find the desired information, to analyse and synthesize the information retrieved or to assess the quality of the information. Level of education is the most significant predictor of the likelihood of rural users lacking web skills and making spelling or typographical mistakes that limit the information results (Huerta and

Sandoval-Almzan 2007; James 2005; Dewan and Riggins 2005; Hargittai 2006). There have been some studies such as Avgerou and Walsham (2001), Brown and Duguid,

(2002) Roman and Colle, ( 2002) Rothenberg-Aalami and Pal, ( 2005), Wilson, (2004) which discussed issues such as local social context, human development skills, 58

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues communication access, user developed content and diffusion aspects of telecenters in rural areas. However, these studies have not dealt with how the information accessed through the internet is applied to improve the daily routines of rural communities.

Appendix II lists these studies, illustrating methodology and results. These studies have used both qualitative and quantitative analyses. Overall these studies have contributed to the understanding of the diffusion of the internet and various dimensions of telecenter establishment.

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues

Most of the studies mentioned in Appendix II have found that community based telecenters face similar challenges, connectivity, cost, human resources, financial sustainability and lack of suitable content in local language. The successful implementation of technology, user satisfaction, organizational impact and service quality were measures of the effectiveness of ICT. Heeks (2002) observed that rural telecenters incorporated design assumptions and requirements from the global north, which mismatched the local realities in the village communities of developing countries.

A few successful practices in establishing knowledge networks and information centres

(Honey Bee Program in India and Sarvodaya Program in Sri Lanka) as well as World

Summit on Information Technology (WSIS) 2005 commitments have created

“Telecenter faith” for developing economies. A strong interest in the effects of these telecenters on economic and social indicators (Roman 2003), was noted. The literature did however, carry contradictory outcomes regarding the impact of telecenters in rural economies (Rajalekshmi 2008; Soriano 2007; Lee et al. 2007; Rothenberg-Aalami and

Pal 2005; and Reilly and Gomez 2001). In an attempt to resolve some of these contradictions and understand more about social process for demanding, providing, accessing and using new information and knowledge through telecenters this study turns to the specific case of the Telecenter Program implemented in Nepal.

2.4.4 Telecenters in Nepal

Telecenters were introduced to Nepal in 2002 in an effort to provide access to information in rural areas, as discussed in chapter one. The program had expectations- from owners and users and also intermediary groups such as managers and management committees. The first task of the present research is to determine whether the expectations were met, and if there were unintended consequences. The second task of

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues this research is to discover if some were more successful than others in meeting these expectations and why. The research attempts to explain the implications of the differing social process of using telecenter services.

There were a few specific examples in the literature that dealt with Nepal’s ICT and telecenters. Ghimire (2003, 2005) dealt the ICT development in Nepal and efforts being made on e-governance with policy formulation partly in place. Lee and Lee

(2007) aimed to identify the necessary elements for developing an ICT investment design framework which focused on the trilateral linkage between ICT, innovation and growth for poverty reduction and rural development. This case study in rural Nepal tried to assess ICT needs and the innovation capabilities of rural communities. The study found that despite the potential of telecenters to make communities innovative, complementary service packages were needed for the diverse and enormous needs of the rural people. Though the study tried to design an investment framework, it ignored the knowledge attributes and appropriate behavioural changes required for successful deployment of information delivered through the internet. Harris et al (2003) dealt with social mobilization for poverty alleviation in rural Nepal under the South Asia Poverty

Alleviation Program and the first pilot ICT project for rural development.

“Infomobilisation” is the extended version of social mobilization encompassing the internet. Infomobilisation began to emerge from Syangja, the site of a pilot ICT project in Nepal. As the study was early in the telecenter establishment phase it dealt only with potentials and not outcomes. A telecenter development review of Nepal recommended appropriate policy interventions to promote internet enabled services in rural areas by promoting public/private partnership modalities (Chapagain 2006). With qualitative methods of interactions and interviews and a group discussion, this study was completed in only one month and only within the capital city Kathmandu. As such the results may not reflect the true picture for policy intervention. Although the study 61

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues accounted for telecenters as a means of ICT access and the internet enabled services in rural areas, it failed to analyse its overall role and impact, and this its ability to suggest policy intervention through a public/private partnership model. The problem with studies of this nature is that they assume the social dynamics with access and use will be the same or similar in all localities.

Telecenter project partners in Nepal claimed that their extension of ICT based services into rural areas contributed to the equitable distribution of services (Nepal Wireless, n.d.). However, their excessive focus on the technology, lack of information flow in vertical as well as in horizontal directions and lack of relevant content seems to have been a weakness (Turpin and Ghimire 2010). The flow of information is generally portrayed in vertical terms, with program success measured according to connectivity and content flow. Little attention appears to have been paid to potential horizontal flows that might occur at the local level or across the central information distributing and receiving agencies. Certainly no policy discussion appears to have occurred about the implications for the national innovation system, about the capacity of local production systems to absorb new knowledge acquired through the telecenters, or about institutions in the innovation system in order to learn about how to bridge different knowledge systems (Turpin and Ghimire 2010).

A recent study of libraries, Telecenters and cybercafés in twenty five countries, including

Nepal, outlined five key factors for the success of public access of ICT. These were:

Knowledge of local needs; alliances; collaboration (media and community services); sustainability; and training (Gomez 2010). Findings are not new as these problems have been widely noted by others. Telecenter policy and programs in recent years have addressed some of these factors in their planning strategies (Hosman 2011; Pade et al

2011). It is argued later in this thesis, that while these may be important factors using

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues and deriving from the internet, the ways that information is conveyed and used beyond the actual telecenter location depends on the level of trust associated with the information and the absorptive capacity within the community.

2.4.4.1 Socio-Political Factors on Diffusion and Usage

When telecenters were introduced, Nepal was in the midst of an internal conflict when the Maoists, a communist party of Nepal abandoned parliamentary politics and mounted an insurgency during 1996-2005. This conflict has contributed to underdevelopment and poverty in Nepal as, ‘a civil war is a major cause of underdevelopment and perpetuates poverty’ (Murshed and Tadjoeddin 2009, p.87). The cause of the insurgency is attributed to grievances concerning the disparity between aspirations and achievements of the rural poor. The insurgency, which displaced political parties and government from the rural countryside, ‘left the economy in a shambles’ (Shah 2008) with a rise in unemployment, poverty and rural-urban inequality

(Sharma 2006). Moreover, the conflict was the outcome of a failed development strategy, especially on the economic front, leading to socio-economic exclusion of the rural poor (Sharma 2006).

Shields (2011) stated the Maoists relied heavily on the technology for communication and claimed they were the first revolutionary movement to create their own websites9.

However, it is alleged that the Maoists have used ICT for spreading terror, undermining democratic freedom among citizens with a differing political allegiances. The communist party of Nepal (Maoist) will be in place for several years framing national

9 Maoists used websites, internet interviews, weblogs, emails and SMS for communication and interaction during the conflict. It is believed that the use of technology (mobile, SMS, satellite phone) played a great role in their guerrilla style attack as their rival police force did not have equivalent technology access. Informants often (a Maoist cadre disguised as a general civilian) would send SMS messages on the situation in code words or even call in code language before the attack. The existence of their website, created for their international visibility and their description of state terror, generated sympathetic support from around the globe (Routledge, 2010). 63

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues policies on development and as such it will be interesting to analyse the expansion of

ICT under the communist party rule. Several studies have found a positive correlation between political freedom and ICT expansion whereas banning SMS or internet filtering negatively impacts ICT expansion and use (Shirazi et al. 2010; Weimann 2006;

Baliamoune-Lutz 2003). The rural poor’s use and diffusion of the internet appears to be undermined by the political instability and will be further discussed in chapter three.

However, it is interesting to note that there is almost no literature on the use of the internet during the conflict.

2.4.4.2 The Performance of the Telecenters in Nepal

The government expectation of telecenters was that they would provide internet access to people in rural areas. The benefits to these people, it was expected, would be that they would use the technology and access information to increase their income and other qualitative social aspects of living of their lives such as education and health issues

(Harris et al. 2003). Nepal, like other countries needs literate people in rural areas, electricity in homes and businesses, and shared access for the community with information and applications to generate some economic or social value10. Chapter three presents the background and policy initiatives leading to the introduction of telecenters in Nepal.

Some global telecenter literature including some on Nepal’s rural ICT approach has dealt with social factors such as the role of education and training, race and gender, but very few, in any detail, describe the social process governing its implementation and its

10 The country was ranked among 39 ‘extreme risk’ countries in the digital divide report prepared by Maplecroft firm which produced digital inclusion index using 10 indicators (related to phone, pc and internet) across 186 countries and 157th among 187 in human development index (Himalayan times 2011, UNDP-HDI 2011).

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues broader ramifications in the communities of rural residents. The internet technology may have created new possibilities for rural development but impact of use and application of this technology depends on the notion of existing social relations

(Warschauer 2003). The assessment of social consequences of the internet through telecenters using some analytical key concepts such as trust and social capital are rare.

Gaining access to and use of information is a social process. To understand this social process better and explain the performance of the telecenter better, there are some conceptual tools which help to interpret the meaning of the results of the telecenter implementation. These are introduced in the next section.

2.5 Assessing the Impact of Telecenters and Their Social

Consequences

The present study is concerned with the social process of accessing and using the internet and other services through telecenters in rural communities and sharing and applying the knowledge and information accessed for daily routines. In order to understand these social processes the concepts of: social capital; trust; openness; and absorptive capacity are introduced in the following sections. It is argued in the sections that follow in this chapter that these analytical concepts, taken together provide a deeper and more systematic understanding of the social processes underpinning telecenter activities. A nuanced understanding of this nature can potentially explain why some telecenters might have delivered more benefits than others.

2.5.1 Social Capital

The concept of social capital has been used widely to refer to the benefits derived from social networks. A social network is about finding people with similar experiences and cultures and identifying people and networks that are dissimilar (Bourdieu, 1986;

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues

Freeman 1987; Coleman 1988;, Portes 1998; Woolcock 1998; Putnam 2000; Lundvall

2002). Social capital is the composition of social norms and networks that enable people to act collectively for a common purpose. Some have defined social capital at the individual level and some at the collective level. Bourdieu (1986) explained that the volume of social capital at the individual level depends on personal capacity to have his or her connections to members in the community. In 1998, Woolcock referred to the trust perspectives of networks defining social capital as 'the information, trust, and norms of reciprocity inhering in one's social networks' (p. 153). Putnam (2000) extended

Woolcock’s definition and emphasized collective social capital defining it ‘as the connections among individuals, social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them (Putnam 2000, p. 190). Coleman (1990) defined the social network by its functions:

It is not a single entity, but a variety of different entities having two characteristics in common: they all consist of some aspect of social structure, and they facilitate certain actions of individuals who are within the structure' (Coleman 1990, p. 302). In 1988, Coleman examined social capital to explain group behaviour, noting that microstructures in society generate macro structures, putting economic rationality into a social context (Williams and Durrance 2008). As such, rural community resources networks generate and make available social capital to others through their social interactions. The OECD (2001b) defined social capital as ‘networks together with shared norms, values and understandings that facilitate cooperation within or among groups’ (OECD 2001b, p.103). The growth in social capital facilitates the spread of knowledge and innovation, thereby reducing the cost of transactions of rural enterprises and promoting cooperative behaviour to generate good outcomes for a society (Batt

2008).

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues

Telecenters deploying the internet is a social process and is very much concerned with the spread of knowledge. Researchers have argued that the internet has a facilitating role in building social capital. Internet applications such as Social Networking Sites (SNS) can contribute to building social capital, but there is inadequate evidence to explain how the internet affects social capital (Ellison, et al. 2007; Yang, et al. 2009). Yang et al

(2009) sought to explain interwoven dual impacts/effects contributing to building social capital through mobile phones, the internet and community networks. However, some writers have drawn attention to the negative consequences of the network such as exclusion of other groups and communities, freedom restrictions suggesting the internet could be decreasing social capital by distancing people from family and friends through its multidimensional capabilities, such as entertainment and gaming (Portes 1998;

Woolcock and Narayan 2000; Mignone and Henley 2009).

Kavanaugh and Patterson (2001) have shown how community computer networks positively impact on social capital by increasing access to the information society. When a community is empowered with social resources, like community networks, socio- economic outcomes will be positive. ICT networks as a social resource may provide ideas, information, knowledge, interaction and shared understanding to the communities, and thus generate social capital. The immediate question is if individuals gain access to new ideas how do they become localised as a “norm”. Thus, if access to social capital builds new insights or ideas that are at first ‘a-normal’ how are they institutionalised into a group to promote social inclusion, community interaction and collective acceptance as “the norm”.

Bridging and Bonding Social Capital

From a development perspective there are two important aspects in acquiring and embedding new knowledge: first is the capacity for agencies communicating with

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues communities to learn from the information flow as well as to deliver information. The second is to interact with and share learning with others and agencies responsible for rural development. Such agencies are likely to include those responsible for agriculture, health, education, financial information and rural development. In both cases this is an issue of bridging social capital through expanded networks, and potentially the flow of economic capital.11 As Bourdieu, (1986: 8) said:

[S]ocial capital is the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition – or in other words, to membership in a group … The volume of the social capital … depends on the size of the network of connections he (sic) can effectively mobilize and of the volume of the capital (economic, cultural or symbolic). Bourdieu in 1986 probably underestimated the role of virtual networks in forming institutionalized relationships. The pervasive nature of the internet to perform this role leads us to extend his notion of social capital into this domain. Consequently, the value of networks created through the internet become just as important as the information conveyed.

Earlier it was noted that Hudson found potential for new development through telecommunication including the internet for accessing, sharing and using the information to set a new standard of living in areas such as education and health for rural people. She also suggested further research should be done into how ICT investment might return improved social outcomes among low-income people in rural areas (Hudson 2006). However, these issues are rarely discussed in the context of social

11 Bridging social capital has been defined as shared traditions, norms, and ways of operating through a layer of ‘thin trust’ that extends to networks of individuals and organizations otherwise removed by distance or traditions. This is in contrast to ‘bonding’ social capital that as localized and generally shared among the same or adjacent communities, Bonding social capital has the potential to increase the difference between groups, whereas bridging social capital has the tendency to integrate groups into a broader system (see Anheier and Kendall 2002).

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues capital. Yet, importantly, there is inherent potential for ICT to integrate rural traditions, knowledge and life styles into such a system providing the mechanisms for delivery and access are sufficiently open to accommodate quite different forms of social capital. In short, they need to be delivered in ways that offer ‘bridging’ social capital (Anheier and

Kendall. 2002).

In an attempt to conceptualize social capital, the more popular division of social capital has been ‘bonding’ and ‘bridging’ social capital. Bonding social capital is a form of local social unity, depicting strong ties that are shared among family members, close friends and people known to each other. Bridging social capital refers to external ties that are formed from other social networks or circles (Warschauer 2003). Bridging social capital has been defined as shared traditions, norms, and ways of operating through a layer of

‘thin trust’ that extends to networks of individuals and organizations otherwise removed by distance or traditions. This is in contrast to ‘bonding’ social capital that as localized and generally shared among the same or adjacent communities. Bonding social capital has the potential to widen the difference between groups, whereas bridging social capital has the tendency to integrate groups into a broader system (Anheier and Kendall 2002).

Other writers have distinguished different forms of social capital in other ways such as bonding is horizontal, among equals within a community whereas bridging is vertical between communities (Dolfsma and Dannreuther 2003; Narayan 2002; Narayan and

Pritchett 1999; quoted by Aldrige, n.d.). Some writers (Woolcock, 2001; Mignone and

Henley 2009; Thapa and Sein 2010) also used the term ‘linking social capital’ to describe the vertical dimension, the relations with formal institutions, decomposing the ‘bridging social capital’ – a relation with communities and relations with formal institutions.

However, membership access to internal local community network or external network information could be disruptive. Using new information requires a certain level of

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues absorptive capacity. To avoid the new information being disruptive, rural societies need intermediary people or institutions to guide them in the application of trustworthy new information, potentially contributing to the building of social capital. Rural telecenters can thus play a positive intermediary role, help manage new information and promote social interaction contributing to the creation of social capital.

Among the literature related to ICT and social capital, one conference paper was found which discussed social capital perspective of ICT in a mountain region of Nepal. Thapa and Sein (2010) examined NWP ICT Telecenters at Nangi and Tilkot villages in the western development region for their role in building social capital and found that the use of the internet enabled rural communities to extend their bonding, bridging and linking social capital. But their study does not take into account the dynamic nature of social activities at telecenters, face-to-face interactions, sharing of information and learning process beside internet assisted information flows. This study was also limited to two villages, a homogeneous community of a single district, a very limited time and also does not include all stakeholders’ perceptions of other social costs associated with use, thus limiting the generalization of the finding of NWP ICT initiative. Neither does it follow a life-cycle of a telecenter from first introduction through to well established usage. Nevertheless, it offers some useful insights into how the concept can be used.

Another study by Mignone and Henley (2009) investigated the impact of ICT on social capital in aboriginal communities in Canada. Their study concluded that it is not the content of the network but the ‘ownership’ – how to operate and develop ICT network-

‘related to the increased community social capital at the bonding, bridging and linking levels’ (p. 138). Stern and Adams (2010) used both quantitative and qualitative methods to determine whether the rural residents use the internet to build social capital, the results indicate that the community contributes to social capital through the use of the

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues internet however the frequency of the use and level of skills prevented substantial contribution.

Table 2.1 Potential Use of Conceptual Tool Social Capital for the Research

Authors General Use of Concept Potential for current Study Bourdieu Different Forms of capital such Level and magnitude of relationship (1986) as cultural, social, professional between individual users of and social networks and Telecenters to interact and share the connections in the development information and knowledge and also of economic outcomes analyse quantity and quality of those social resources Coleman Group behaviour and Micro and Community group discussion (1988) Macro Social Structure of the process for common cause and how Society Telecenter provided the context for interaction to claim resources bridging social capital within social structure Portes (1998) Dynamics of social capital and Social dynamics of Telecenter negative consequences Process and social capital inhering the structure of people's relationship Woolcock social capital and socio- Performance of Telecenters (1998) economic outcomes Putnam Trust dimension of social A social process of bridging social (2000) capital, civic engagement, capital with the use of the internet bonding and bridging social capital Falk and Micro, Meso and Macro The role of community interaction Kilpatrick perspective of social capital and to social and economic outcomes, (2000) interactions for a social change opportunities at Telecenters for interactions for community collective purpose and action

Kavanah and Community computer networks, Performance of Telecenters Patterson social resources and social (2001) capital Lundvall Innovation Systems root at Telecenters potential capability to ( 2002) production structure, connect village production unit, organizational learning, and STI offer learning environment and and DUI mode of Innovation facilitate DUI mode of innovation

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Mark Relationship of ICT to Social Use of the internet at Telecenter to Warschauer capital Development promote social inclusion, and (2003) improve human and social capacity Stern and Social Ties and Social Extended family and Telecenter Dillman Involvement network and intensity of social (2006) collective programs and events Williams and Community Technology and The relationship between Durance Social Capital community technology and social (2007) capital and its influence to the use of the internet at Telecenters Ellison et al Social Networks and Social Participation at social network and (2007) Capital its impact to the community

Yang et al Cause and effect relationship of Analysis of relationship on (2009) ICT and social capital Telecenter performance perspective Adam and Social Capital and human The role of Telecenter in Urqhart development issues heightening human and social 2009) capacity for the use and application of knowledge Moody and Social capital and Social The process enriching the Telecenter Paxton Network Linkages bridging social capital to social (2009) network and vice versa Stern and Voluntary Participation and Community approach at Telecenter Adams Social Network to maintain their local and extended (2010) social network and learning about local organizations and events Thapa and A local ICT Initiative of Community perspective of social Sein (2010) bonding bridging social capital capital and appraisal of literature research results

These studies have contributed to understanding the role of the internet in building social capital but fail to capture the nature and role of both bridging and bonding social capital in generating social change through internet usage. Telecenters, as local institutions, have potential for forming relationships and establishing norms in their social interactions, determining the quantity and quality bridging social capital, it is this perspective that the current research analyses in the social process of telecenters.

DiMaggio et al, (2001), suggest further research for understanding the qualitative

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues character of intensified sociability, social interaction and civic participation through the use of the internet.

2.5.2 Trust

Trust is an important concept for understanding the social processes surrounding

Telecenter use. Zuker (1986) discussed process-based, characteristics-based and institutional-based as three central types of trust, all of which are applicable in introducing a Telecenter in a community. The process-based is a mechanism of information sourcing and exchange such as through the internet, emails and social networks. The characteristics-based trust relates to local social context and local community features and institutional-based trust is tied in the intermediary role of the

Telecenter structure. Trust carried a main notion that the person acts in confidence with person or institution expecting support on his/her willingness to risk in that social context (Onyx and Bullen 2000). Fukuyama (1995) defined trust,

Trust is the expectation that arises within a community of regular, honest and cooperative behaviour, based on commonly shared norms, on the part of other members of that community. Those norms can be about deep “value” questions like the nature of God or justice, but they also encompass secular norms like professional standards and codes of behaviour (p. 26).

The trust concept has implications for the interactions within different social groups in a community and between communities crucial for transfer, use and application of information and knowledge. The internet allows connections between different groups forming global relationships and facilitating interactions and in the process trust is developed with repeated interactions. Smith (2010) draws attention to different aspects of trust: ‘social relationship; trustworthiness and trust; the domain of trust; expectation and values; motivation and competence; and self interest and normative motivations’ (Smith 2010, p.224). All these

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues aspects of trust are important but for this research, trust in as the relationships between different social groups, between different individuals in a community and between different village levels institutions are potentially important. Equally important is trustworthiness and trust which explains both sides of the societal relationship. For the Telecenter as a social organization, institutional trust is another core construct of trust that likely to be important for a sustained use of the system.

Fukuyama (1995) noted that societies with higher social capital have higher levels of trust.

Lower levels of trust were associated with lower level of social capital (Onyx and Bullen 2000).

Trust has been used as an important factor to assess social capital at community level

(Woolcock and Narayan 2000). In their conceptual analysis of social capital, Onyx and Bullen

(2000) stated ‘participation in networks, trust and social proactivity’ (p.37) were central conceptual elements of social capital and found that the higher level of social capital, in particular bonding social capital, in communities in rural areas in relation to the trust factor. If a rural telecenter user trust the government information ‘that too is a form of social capital’

(Warschauer, 2003b).

Fisman and Khanna (1999) examined the institutional determinants of trust referring to deterrence-based trust, knowledge-based trust and identification-based trust and generalized morality to measure the relationship between information flows and trust. Their findings confirmed a positive relationship between trust and effective information flows, especially in urban communities. Two way communication increased trust. A repeated communication discourages opportunistic behaviour and contributes to trust (Fisman and Khanna, 1999). So it is likely that regular communication through the internet will increase trust but isolated instances of communication will remain less so. Trust applies not only to people but also to information sources available in the internet and for the quality usage of content information of websites (Kelton et al. 2007). Kelton et al. further argued that for information sharing and

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues online business practices such as e-commerce trust is a necessary precondition. Researchers on social capital discussed earlier in section 2.5.1 have also identified trust as an important variable for information and knowledge sharing. However, Bakker et al. (2006) found from the study of

23 teams and 91 individuals in new development projects that trust is not an important force for knowledge sharing, rather they argued that for team membership that remains a key construct for increasing the density of knowledge sharing relationships. Ratan et al. (2010) also found a higher level of trust among teammates, in their study of a case of Massively

Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs). Regular social interaction depends on a certain level of trust but the ways trust is developed and maintained, they argued, is changing. Ratan et al.’s study found that certain social structures and communication processes contribute to trust development and internet enabled this process. Their case showed that higher levels of trust within close circles were evident from internet use.

Institutional trust is another dimension of trust relationship that is discussed in the literature

(Zuker 1986; Pavlou 2002; Rajalekshmi 2008; Smith 2011). This trust relationship is based on institutional mechanisms governed by the norms known to both truster and trustee. For example, the relationship may exist between a Telecenter as trustworthy the trustee and the community user as truster. Smith (2010) defines institutional trust ‘ is one where the truster places trust in the rules, roles and norms of an institution independent of the people occupying those roles’ (p. 226). The findings that a local intermediary increased trust in the services of the Telecenter (Rajalekshmi 2008) supports further analysis of the process as to how personal trust between people and an intermediary, and institutional trust in government could be enhanced in delivery of services in rural area overcoming contradictions that emerged in

‘Akshaya’ Telecenter implementation in rural south India. Smith (2011) tried to provide a deeper understanding of the complexities of the interaction between e-services and citizen’s trust in government and argued that trustworthiness cues are essential for building institutional trust and changes in people’s perception of government institutions through their interactions, 75

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues and outcomes of those interactions and their previous experiences, influence trust in that institution. Smith further argues that placing citizens at the centre of e-government, shifting the power towards citizen with delivering services that benefits the citizens helps in building institutional trust in government giving an example of e-Voting in Brazil. E-Voting in Brazil outlined new positive experiences in voting - a fast and un-crowded nature of voting and speed of vote counting- that were the trustworthiness cues for voters with their past positive experiences with election commission of Brazil (Smith 2010, 2011; Heeks 2010a).

Trust can have an extrinsic value in gaining economic goals such as reduction of transaction cost enabling interaction between people and institutions or intrinsic value as a dimension of broader notion of quality of life including motives of self respect and social recognition (Nooteboom 2002). The internet with the space and time can enhance both of these values of trust with new forms of sociability as Castells explains.

Users want to trust their spaces of sociability, and feel a personal connection to their sites. Furthermore, the “cool factor,” that is the cultural construction of the social space to the taste of its users, is of essence (Castells 2007, p. 254) In the case of Telecenters this can become even more complex with many different levels of trustee. For example, there can be a trust between Telecenter and its managers; there can be trust in the validity of information. For agencies accessed through the Telecenter and at the family or community level there may be different levels of trust in the person who accesses the internet for information. Trust in information and trust in institutions are key constituents for the information dissemination through Telecenters. The level of trust from rural residents on information on the internet was more if it was a government run website (Warkentin et al.

2002; Parajuli 2007; Tan et al. 2008). The role of trust in ICT projects is suggested as critical component in ICT mediated interactions and transactions by service providers- governments,

Telecenters, intermediaries or other institutions (Rajalekshmi 2008; Kurian and Ray 2009; and

Kuriyan et al. 2010). The Nepalese Telecenter model included the user perspective of trust of

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues information and trust in institutions in its design; this could be the important factor in the success or failure of the program. Ratan et al (2010) noted differing views of the internet on trust development, some arguing disappearance of offline relationships and some advocating a new realm of trust development overcoming limited social cues with repeated interactions.

Fundamentally the notion of the trust is the same whether online or off, it is the contextual difference in forming and maintaining trust online (Li et al. 2011) but Telecenters offer both online and offline relationships for trust development, which Castells has termed the ‘new forms of sociability’, both online and off.

Gomez and Gould (2010) expanded the concept of the trust to include four determining variables of trust: safety; perceptions of relevance; perceptions of reputation; and the cool factor, the fourth one was found to be important subjective perception to make public access of the internet attractive. The ‘cool factor’ was defined as synonymous with youth; they combined unrestricted internet access, friendly operators, and comfortable space for social interaction (Gomez and Gould 2010). This appears as an example of Castells’s ‘new form of sociability’. While Gomez and Gould’s example of the ‘cool factor’ is a youth focused form of sociability, it is likely that Telecenters in rural Nepal are likely to produce different forms of

‘new sociability’.

These studies have used the concept of trust in different aspect to explain its relationship in social and behavioural dimensions. Table 2.2 presents their general use of the concept and potentials for current research.

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Table 2.2 Potential Use of Trust Conceptual Tool for the Research

Authors General Use of Potential for current Study Concept Zucker (1986) Trust Institutional intermediary role of Telecenters production in maintaining trust Fukuyama (1995) Value of Trust Trust in Telecenters and contribution to to enhance social capital social capital Fishman and Khanna Trust and The intensity and ease in social interaction (1999) Information and determinants of trust for information flow relationship flows Onyx and Bullen Trust as a factor Institutional trust of Telecenter and (2000) to measure contribution to social capital Social capital Noteboom (2002) Extrinsic and Economic achievement of cost reduction Intrinsic Value and self-respect from the use of Telecenter of Trust services Rajalekshmi (2008) Institutional and Community trust for sharing information Personal Trust with managers, transaction performed at the Telecenter and their level of participation at Telecenter activities Kelton et al (2008) Trust in Users trust rating of content site available at information Telecenters Kim and Han (2009) Trust in the Performance of Telecenters - indicators for online user satisfaction and trust, users intrinsic environment motivation for trust and satisfaction, role of reputation and information quality at Telecenters Kurian and Ray Trust at Kiosks Performance of Telecenters- interaction (2009) between users and managers Ratan et al (2010) Role of Trust on Understanding of the process of internet internet enabled communication activities such as environment Skype, chat at the Telecenter play role in trust building Kuriyan et al (2010) Trust in Role of managers in building trust in the information community in formation delivered and conveyed and understanding on how perceptions of Trust influence shape Telecenter use Gomez and Gould Determining Implications of Trust variables at (2010) Variables of Telecenters Trust Smith (2010) Institutional Understanding the processing of building (or Trust destroying) Trust at Telecenters

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2.5.3 Openness Issues

As discussed earlier in this chapter another important factor in the effective use of telecenters is the concept of openness (Smith et al. 2008). The concept of ‘openness’ has been defined as an introduction, adoption, utilization and dissemination of ICT through collaborative universal access and participation which can spur the development sharing benefits through open processes (Smith et al. 2010; Turpin and

Ghimire 2010). Capacity building through openness can potentially remove barriers to information and knowledge for people in remote rural areas. This is possible when structural arrangements are made for information preparation and transmission; institutional arrangements are in place for open technology access (widely accessed and shared transmitted information); and use of new information (Turpin and Ghimire

2010; Heeks 2008). Openness can contribute to the implementation of new knowledge with rural knowledge, life styles and traditions. The emerging literature from the ICT4D is that openness is required through the information development phase and throughout distribution, access and use phases (Heeks 2002; Hanna 2010; Grace et al. 2004).

These perspectives are consistent with the idea of openness (Open ICT4D) as formulated by Smith et al. (2011), where openness is conceptualized as a way of

‘organizing social activities. In particular, the concept is concerned with the way ‘access’,

‘participation’ and ‘collaboration’ are organized. Critical questions for analysis and assessment that follow include, ‘who produces the goods; who owns the goods; and, who can access and use the goods? This brings into sharper focus the network of social relations that exist (and persist) at each end of the flow of knowledge through ICT rather than the technology that carries the message or the content of the message itself.

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Table 2.3 Potential Use of Openness Conceptual Tool for the Research

Authors General Use of Concept Potential for current Study Bourdieu's theory of scientific Performance of Telecenters, in capital and its implications for the accessing scientific information. In Herb (2010) acceptance of Open Access and participation and to reduce implications of open access on disparity level in the community digital divide Institution arrangement for Community accessibility, physical Heeks (2008) Access (use of Transmitted and usage information) Haider Open access to scientific Availability and variety of content (2007) information and their use Process of facilitating inclusive and Smith et al Open ICT4D open access to information, use (2008) and sharing information Smith and Access and Participation Process of social inclusion at Elder (2010) processes for development Telecenters Intensity of interaction between Turpin and Horizontal and Vertical and within central level Ghimire information flows organization and local different (2010) social groups Thus, the social organization and institutional arrangements in place among the senders themselves and among receivers themselves, as well as between the senders and receivers, are important determinants of Open ICT4D.

The principles of openness require equal access, participation and collaboration with a strong linkage to human development (IDRC n.d; Herb 2010; Smith et al. 2011). One of the measures to resolve the development paradox discussed earlier is in promoting openness as a feature of telecenter activities and processes. Open access does not only mean access to scientific information - western science often allows open access to research papers in peer reviewed journals (Haider 2007). It is also inclusive and collaborative social relationships between citizens and governments, between institutions and businesses and other actors in society through open social arrangements that enable ICT to become effective (Pick and Azari 2008; IDRC n.d; Turpin and

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues

Bulgaa 2004). However, DiMaggio, et al. (2001) argued for a need to balance the degree of openness to incentives required to motivate creative people while maximizing community access to the internet.

2.5.4 Absorptive Capacity

Absorptive capacity is defined as the capacity of users to access and share information and to communicate with national institutions and structures about their use and interpretation of ICT based information (Freeman 2002; Turpin and Ghimire 2010;

Hotho et al. 2011). Human capital refers to the skills, formal education and training, prior knowledge and ability to learn. A firm’s absorptive capacity is determined by its prior internal knowledge, institutional setting, collaboration with other knowledge sources and interactive learning (Vang and Asheim, 2006). From an ICT perspective,

Castells (1998) has argued that, for ICT to perform a development role, the information must be ‘assimilated’. The process is complex and many factors contribute to this

‘absorptive capacity’.

The ability to move into the Information Age depends on the capacity of the whole society to be educated, and to be able to assimilate and process complex information. This starts with the education system, from the bottom up, from the primary school to the university. And it relates, as well, to the overall process of cultural development, including the level of functional literacy, the content of the media, and the diffusion of information within the population as a whole (Castells, 1999, p.11). Zahra and George (2002) redefined absorptive capacity into four dimensions: acquisition; assimilation; transformation; and exploitation. Components and corresponding roles apply to each dimension to explain innovation performance. For example, assimilation carried ‘understanding’ as a component and the resulting roles were, interpretation, comprehension and learning instead of just ‘prior knowledge’ (see

Cohen and Levinthal 1990). They claim to incorporate a multidimensionality of absorptive capacity with Cohen and Levinthal (1990)’s definition of a firm’s ability to

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues value, assimilate and apply new knowledge, Mowery and Oxley (1995)’s skills to deal with the tacit component of transferred knowledge and Kim (1998)’s capacity to learn.

They outlined a model that differentiated between potential (acquisition and assimilation) and realized (transformation and exploitation) absorptive capacities, which influence the creation and maintenance of a firm’s competitive advantage (Zahra and

George 2002). Cepeda-Carrion et al (2010), in examining the relationship between absorptive capacity and a firm’s innovativeness, argued that the ‘unlearning context’ of individuals and organizations along with ICT capabilities, are crucial determinants for potential and realized absorptive capacities. Firms that carry more absorptive capacity have more potential to identify external knowledge flows. Investment in enhancing absorptive capacity leads to innovation performance, thus absorptive capacity becomes a source of competitive advantage (Escribano et al. 2009). Following the concept of absorptive capacity outlined above, this research defines it as the capacity of users, to access and share information, and to communicate with national institutions and structures about their use and interpretation of new information and knowledge. Turpin and Ghimire (2010) have argued that extended feed-back and enhanced absorptive capacity need to be analysed in order to identify the development potential of telecenters. An analysis of these concepts will aid our understanding of social actions in the use of ICT by rural people and our understanding of how this enhances social capital and development.

Rahul and Subrahmanian (2006) argue that most of the ICT projects did not integrate development needs into ICT design, ignoring the stakeholders’ role and feedback regarding its effectiveness in improving the rural community’s development requirements of those ICT projects. Successes of the telecenter experience in Nepal in achieving its objectives are likely to depend much on local and institutional absorptive

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues capacity. Moreover, the limited positive outcomes in many other countries may well be expanded by building absorptive capacity in both delivery and use of information.

Rural entrepreneurs or the telecenter managers who manage and operate telecenters need to be motivated to conduct social interaction with users, marketing the e-services of the telecenters and proactively assisting community users (Kuriyan and Tomaya

2007). Some may be more successful than others in this process. Equally important are their technical skills in generating local content and maintaining equipment. Pare and

Tremblay (2007) emphasized the need to implement human resource practices of empowerment, competence development and information sharing practice as well as the need for recognition and organizational rewards in order to retain employees in the organizations.

It is essential to understand how the processes of social interaction in the acquisition of new knowledge and the application of that new knowledge in the local social context (at the telecenter), translates into absorptive capacity. Hotho et al (2011) conducted a case study of a multinational firm having two subsidiaries in Germany and UK to examine headquarters initiated knowledge transfer and the local subsidiaries’ capacity to use the transferred knowledge. They found that there were differences in learning outcomes at the two subsidiaries and that these were linked to differences in social interaction. They concluded that differences in organizational level absorptive capacity were the function of motivation, prior knowledge, participation in learning activity and social interaction patterns. This study implicated social interaction is a prerequisite for subsidiary absorptive capacity and local organizational conditions impact absorptive capacity by allowing or restricting local interaction patterns.

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues

Table 2.4 Potential Use of Conceptual Tool Absorptive Capacity for the Research

Authors General Use of Concept Potential for Current Study Training activities at Telecenter to Catch Up Theory in Freeman (2002) upgrade technological knowledge Education and active learning Reconceptualiazation of Prior knowledge base of the Zahra and George Absorptive Capacity for community, intensity of effort , skill (2002) potential and realized level of users exploitation capability capacity to use and implement Rahul and Role of four stakeholders in design, Role of stakeholder in Subrahmanian management and development of information centre design (2006) Telecenters Prior knowledge of the community, Vang and Asheim Factors for Firms and Telecenter facilitation for (2006) absorptive capacity learning through interaction and sharing Telecenter manager skills and his Kurian and Entrepreneur Skills at interaction and activities for business Toyama (2007) Kiosks case of Telecenter Evaluation of management Pare and Human Resource committee initiatives for Telecenter Tremblay (2007) Development Practices staff and community capacity development activities Absorptive Capacity to Capacity of the community to apply Escribani et al exploit External knowledge the knowledge conveyed through (2009) flows networks at Telecenter Improvement in content delivery Turpin and Extended Feedback and use of conveyed content and Ghimire (2010) information Process of user behaviour - in social Social Interaction link to Hotho et al (2011) interaction- translating into Absorptive Capacity absorptive capacity

Table 2.4 illustrates the use of absorptive capacity by various writers and the potential use of the concepts they use for this research in considering the human capital dimension of the telecenter in rural areas.

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues

2.6 National Innovation System (NIS)

A national system of innovation refers to a set of research institutes, universities, public laboratories, innovative enterprises, venture capital firms and all those institutions and their interactions that support and contribute to the production, diffusion, adoption, transfer and use of new and economically useful knowledge, new products and processes (Freeman, 1987; Nelson, 1993, Niosi 2010). This thesis also explores the possibility that telecenters may be an important component in the broader Nepalese innovation System. This is because tourism and rural agriculture production represents a higher proportion of Nepal’s GDP. In addition, the remittance revenue derived from overseas workers is also a major contributor to the economy. Therefore, telecenters as intermediary agencies are facilitating the use of information and communication technologies, especially the internet, for tourism, agricultural and remittance services in rural Nepal. Highlighting the effective use of ICT on the promotion of DUI (doing, using and interacting) innovation Lundvall stated:

the wide use of information and communication technology speeds up the flow of information at a global scale, the DUI-mode sets limits for innovation as well as for the absorption and actual use of new technologies (Lundvall. 2011, p. 28). Telecenters are linked to village level small production units and as such they carry the potential to change the agriculture production practices, tourism business practices and some innovative changes in organizational behaviour of these production units with the use of information from new technologies. In addition, four conceptual factors discussed in section 2.5 suggest that ICT initiatives, which promote social inclusion, interaction and openness, expand the community based telecenters. This enables increased absorptive capacity within the community. Therefore, this section reviews NIS literature to seek an effective way of conceptualizing the telecenter as a component in a national innovation system.

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues

Freeman (1987), Lundvall (1992) and Nelson (1993) conceptualised an innovation system at the national level for describing economic growth. Freeman (1987) explained the innovation concept, not as an automatic product of R&D efforts but rather as an interactive learning process linking innovation with macroeconomic performance

(Muchie 2011; Lundvall et al. 2011). He defined the national innovation system as a network which possessed the activities and interactions of both public and private sector institutions in managing new technologies. These activities with regard to new technology may include different forms of action such as interacting, importing, modifying and diffusing. Lundvall (1992) focused, in particular, on the learning aspect of national economies, emphasizing the relationships of various actions on economically useful knowledge and later included science-based learning and experience-based learning in the broader definitions of NIS. Nelson and Rosenberg (1993) dealt with institutional interactions for the innovative performance of firms and Niosi’s (2002) concept of a national innovation system viewed the long term economic growth of a nation was dependent on the performance and behaviour of a set of institutions.

A national innovation system is the result of interactions between knowledge innovation processes and the interdependent relationships of knowledge institutions (Chen and

Guan 2011). Lundvall (2011) broadened the understanding of innovation processes, distinguishing innovations as outcomes of science-based or experience-based learning processes. Thus the national innovation system on the one hand consists of components, typically of knowledge intensive organizations, universities, and research institutions. It also includes firms, which promote experience-based learning and tacit knowledge, by doing, using, interacting (DUI) and linkages between these different components (Chaminade et al. 2010; Lundvall 2011).

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues

The integration of rural communities into the NIS and consequently globalisation has the potential to undermine long standing norms and traditions, so as Fukuyama has warned, the issue for many societies is whether they are net losers or gainers from the process.

..That is, whether globalization breaks down traditional cultural communities without leaving anything positive in its wake, or rather, is an external shock that breaks apart dysfunctional traditions and social groups and becomes the entering wedge for modernity (Fukuyama 2000, p. 16). Connecting rural societies to the NIS, can at best lead to positive changes in the nature of social capital, new norms and traditions and systems of production. At worst it can lead to a loss of social capital, leaving little in the way of ’new solidarities’ to bind communities together as part of a national innovation system . The extended networks, at least potentially, can serve to bridge social capital vertically between discrete groups in societies connected to the internet, through social enterprises such as telecenters and may bring innovative ways to empower communities through the delivery of socio- economic benefits. Heeks (2010a) illustrates an innovative way of ‘social outsourcing’ by community telecenters run as social enterprises by unemployed women in Kerala, India.

These created more than 2500 jobs by obtaining data entry, digitization, training and PC assembly and maintenance jobs. As such connecting rural networks to the national innovation system (NIS) can lead to positive changes in the nature of social capital, new norms and systems of production. Taking a broader perspective, the NIS does not simply relate to science systems and technologies but includes social institutions that have impact on learning process (Lundvall et al. 2009). They further categorized Science

Technology Innovation (STI) and Doing, Using, Interacting (DUI) model of innovation in the context of developing countries. The former relating to formal R&D based innovations and later relating to interactive learning based on social relationships. But developing countries generally lack a well-functioning NIS because there is a lack of

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues scientific and technological human capital and institutions together with weak linkages between rural social networks and the major urban institutions of the NIS (Chaminade et al. 2010; Turpin and Ghimire 2010; Niosi 2010).

The ICT innovation process presents two perspectives: technology transfer and diffusion and socially embedded progressive transformation processes. Internal organization and systems factors and external technical and market factors for transfer and diffusion examine the diffusion of knowledge transferred from advanced economies to developing economies (Avgerou 2008, Kim and Galliers 2004). The changing patterns of life in developing countries are not simply due to innovations in technologies but also to local adaptation and absorption of the innovative technologies and business practices in ways that suit their needs. ‘Disruptive innovation’ first used by

Clayton Christensen (1997) explains the growth of business by selling high quality and high priced items at very low prices to a broader market and larger communities with limited resources redesigning the products to suit local needs in emerging economies

(Qureshi 2010). Mobile phones are just such an innovative and successful product, especially in developing countries. The product design overcomes end-user limitations of literacy, education or infrastructure and financial credit limitation by the innovation of pre-paid card (Turpin and Martinez-Fernandez 2003; Tongia and Subrahmanian

2006).

Many of the empirical studies of innovation have taken accounting and economic perspectives with some providing assessment of social and behavioural issues such as social influence and commitment (Yawson 2009). Again, there is a high proportion of the NIS literature which has focused on systems in industrially developed economies with highly efficient institutions with scientific and technological knowledge, particularly those with government and corporate incentives for private research and development

(Niosi 2010). For developing countries, economic policies alone have not been 90

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues sufficient for development, and have needed innovative performance, which requires appropriate IT and innovation policies to act as facilitator and accelerator of the innovation process and system to achieve sustainable development at the national economy level (Metcalfe and Ramlogan 2008; Atkinson et al. 2011). When considering the role of ICT for development from an NIS perspective, it is important for policy because once defined, the system provides a framework through which governments seek to evaluate and influence the innovation process (Metcalfe, 1995). With inefficient and poorly funded institutions in developing countries (Niosi 2010) a key question is whether telecenters offer enabling opportunities for development, such as informal education and training in an environment conducive to learning and adapting for innovation (Dalitz et al. 2011). The other important examination that is required with regard to the enabling capacity of ICT, is to understand how it transforms information, knowledge and skills where there are initially weak flows of information between local communities, policy makers, and the agencies responsible for transferring. This also raises the possibility that telecenters could make an impact through ‘the bridging role’ for specific skills transfer and information flow in a networked system.

Many researchers (Wang 2009; Biggs et al. 2010; Anderson 2011; Adner and Kapoor

2010) have advocated the need to consider the concept of national innovation ecosystems integrating two streams - production of innovations and use of innovations.

The inclusive convergence of actors and activities of both streams facilitates understanding of the impact of innovation practices and the dynamic supply and demand of innovations present in an innovation ecosystem (Wang 2009). The innovative firms’ challenges are not only the internal challenges for production of innovations but also the external challenges in the surrounding ecosystem of upstream suppliers and downstream customers, as these challenges can determine the technology leadership positioning of the firm (Adnor and Kapoor 2010). Earlier, Adnor (2006) 91

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues stated that external changes in a firm’s environment determine the success of an innovation and these external changes embed the firm within an ecosystem of interdependent innovations. Telecenters may well be emerging as an important component in the surrounding ecosystems in rural Nepal. Thus, the new ICT ecosystem is an environment of interactive community network providers, network operators, platform and consumers to which players interact and influence their behaviour. It is the innovation ecosystem explaining their interdependent relationships and innovative activities (Fransman 2007, Papaioannou et al. 2007).

2.7 A Framework for Analysis

The framework for analysis used in this research draws on these conceptual ideas to investigate the implementation, management and uses of telecenters in Nepal. First, the research examines the implementation of the Telecenter Program in rural areas. Second, this thesis uses the ex-ante, ex-post analysis approach to determine what was expected, and what resulted. Third, the access and use of information and knowledge will be analysed in the context of the social process with telecenter stakeholders’ actions and outcomes to the community. To explain the third part, determinant factors from field data are used to categorize the performances of telecenters in different regions in achieving socio-economic objectives. Fourth, research results will be discussed to provide an understanding of the social process of integrating the internet into a rural community using the analytical perspectives of social capital, trust, openness and absorptive capacity. Finally, the research provides a summarizing explanation of telecenter implementation in rural areas of Nepal from an innovation perspective.

CHAPTER 2: Conceptual and Empirical Issues

2.8 Research Gaps and Pervasive Contradictions

The above mentioned research requirement has to be re-aligned to reassure the governments of LDCs that their allocation of scare resources for rural telecenters. They need to be assured that their articulating policies for access to information, diffusion, use and application in local social context, the consequences, positive and negative, of this social process are understood.

Nepal has been late adopter of ICT. Relationships between ICT and social capital interaction, openness and absorptive capacity (as enablers for adoption and effective use), might differ and this requires investigation. The studies on ICT and social capital in rural areas of developing countries are limited and Yang et al. (2009) has suggested further research is required. The application of ICT in rural areas of Nepal needs a thorough examination in seeking answers to the contradictions raised earlier in this chapter and the research gaps presented in chapter one.

Chapter 3

Location: Context of the Study

3.1 Background

Nepal, the location of this research, needs to be understood in terms of its history, culture, politics, economics and social conditions. It is important to take into account the above context of the country because infrastructure, political process and culture all influence the way technology is diffused and used. The literature reviewed in chapter two has called for place based observations, local social context; domestic economic factors to understand the social process of internet use, its diffusion and country level variations in the digital divide. The socio-political reality of the Maoist insurgency seems to be the main factor in last decade to impact development in Nepal, this includes the use and expansion of ICT. A section in this chapter discusses the causes and concerns raised by this issue.

Nepal has a population of 29.8 million, most are concentrated in major cities with smaller numbers scattered throughout remote mountainous villages. Culturally, the nation is diverse with chariot festivals carried through 12th century Malla King Dynasty, beautifully carved Hindu and Buddhist temples, diverse castes, ethnic groups and traditions. As Moran (1998) introduces Nepal

There are many Nepals, as many as there are valleys in this folded, corrugated land. Nepal is a blend of diverse landscapes, peoples, customs, cultures and languages, a mixing rather than a melting pot. It is impossible to reduce the country to a single image, diversity, altitudinal variation, array of Himalayan peaks, deep valleys and terraced ridges dozens of ethnic groups and hundreds of languages, Nepal is many countries combined into one (p. 10-11).

CHAPTER 3: Location – Context of the Study

Nepal’s development has been hindered by several structural factors including a low level of physical infrastructure, political instability, low income, limited literacy and lack of good governance. It is in this context that the Telecenter Program was introduced and this chapter presents an overview of the geographic, political and socio-economic context, against which this thesis is has been explored.

3.2 The Geographic Context

Nepal is a small landlocked country between the relative giant nations of India and

China. It is surrounded on the east, west and south by India and on the north by China.

Nepal has the beautiful Himalayan ranges, including the world’s highest mountain,

Everest, as well as seven of world’s ten highest mountains, lakes, and splendid trekking destinations. The mountainous region comprises approximately sixteen per cent of the country. Hills, the heart of Nepal, with steep slopes, comprise sixty five per cent and terai (plains), a flat and steamy strip along the south makes up nineteen per cent of the country. In addition to this, plain lands surrounded by hills are called valleys, which lie between hills and terai. These zone boundaries are administratively determined by the relationship of the land to sea level. The geographic topography has historically limited communication between communities in these areas. However, the development of digital technologies, mobile phone networks and the internet has opened up new possibilities for communication between previously isolated communities.

Administratively, Nepal is divided into five development regions, 14 zones and 75 districts. Further, an eastern development region consists of three zones and sixteen districts, a central development with three zones and nineteen districts, a western development with three zones and sixteen districts, a mid-western development region with three zones and fifteen districts and far-western development region with two

CHAPTER 3: Location – Context of the Study zones and nine districts. Every development region covers all four topographical zones namely mountains, hills, valleys and terai (plains).

Some analysts have argued that the geographic isolation has limited socio-economic development in Nepal (Aasland and Haug, 2011). Regional identity has been at the top of the political agenda - the formation of Madheshi parties, who are asking for an autonomous state for the terai (plains) people in the political structure, and other ethnic groups, also asking for their own state based on ethnic groups in the hills. These regional differences have a significant effect on perceived socio-economic change in

Nepal. Measuring the regional differences by district, Aasland and Haug argued that the socio-economic component of social change was explained by the remoteness of location (Aasland and Haug 2011). During the Maoist conflict, the geographical factors were considered to be a crucial factor in the intensity of insurgency. The western hills, which are a mountainous and forested terrain, such as Rolpa and Rukum district, were the starting point of the conflict. Do and Iyer (2010) found geographical factors such as elevation and forest to be robust predictors of conflict explaining twenty five per cent of the variation in intensity of violence across districts in Nepal. This thesis considered geographic variation to determine whether these differences have had any impact on the use, diffusion and application of internet information.

3.3 The Political Context

Historically, Nepal has never been colonized by a foreign power. The history remains a living process of ancient religious, cultural and social practices that are alive and practiced even today. Politically, Prithvi Naryan Shah, the ruler of Gorkha, unified in

CHAPTER 3: Location – Context of the Study

1768, several small states as Nepal under the Shah Dynasty. From that period, the Shah

Kings ruled the country until 2008.12

The 1990’s multiparty new democracy phase brought greater expectations, political freedom, social mobility and economic advancement (Deraniyagala 2006). It empowered the professional elite (middle class) to access political power but sidelined marginal social groups and left-wing parties from the political process. Periodic elections and an independent media were strong characteristics of the Nepalese democracy of 1990, but lacked civilian control of the military and effective mechanisms to control corruption.

However, the new democracy inherited the politics of exclusion, marginalization and a centralized power structure (Parajulee 2010). B. P. Koirala, a key leader of the Nepali

Congress inspiring the 1990’s democratic movement, did not live to see the realization of his vision, which stated,

Our capital is the people. We do not have machinery and we do not have financial capital, we have labour. So we have got to motivate our people for development purposes. And the motivation can be provided only by institutions that are democratic and responsible to the people, and reflective of the aspirations of the people. (Koirala, 1978, quoted by Devkota 200, p. 311).

The activities of BP’s heir and other political forces lacked sound and rational behaviour for the inclusive development of the rural poor illustrating the lack of statesmanship in any political leaders at the time (Baral 2006), this contributed to the Maoist insurgency during 1996-2008.

This conflict, in general, has contributed to underdevelopment and poverty in Nepal

(Murshed and Tadjoeddin 2009). The insurgency, which displaced political parties and government from the rural countryside, left the economy in a shambles (Shah 2008)

12 See Appendix III : Brief political background 97

CHAPTER 3: Location – Context of the Study with a rise in unemployment, poverty and rural-urban inequality (Sharma 2006) 13 .

Sharma further argued that the conflict was the outcome of a failed development strategy, especially on the economic front, leading to further socio-economic exclusion of the rural poor. The contraction of GDP growth rate and other economic factors led to decreasing per capita income, declining tourism and increased military spending at the cost of health and education (Routledge 2010).

These political events for took place in a period when new communication technology was bringing opportunities to open up communication between different interest groups throughout the country that had previously remained in isolation. This required separate new boundaries and communication strategies already in place, were being replaced, thus introducing potential opportunities as well as social demand for new forms of communication.

In summary, through all of these political changes and disruptions, national development strategies made little headway. The prospect of a national information and communication hub for Nepal consequently seemed small. Fragile political conditions,

13 Nepali Congress (NC) became a party of centre-right, prescribing liberal economy with rigid party structure and reluctance to share power internally (Sharma et al. 2008). NC and UML, the main stream parties, were involved in legislative deadlocks, party infighting, and pervasive corruption and thus inept to practice democratic values and deliver development (Crosette 2006). The political instability due to frequent changes in government, lack of transparency and accountability, the social and economic inequalities and growing number of dissatisfied poor rural youth aspiring for white-collar employment and inability to address grievances of rural poor failed to keep momentum of core virtues of democracy (Routledge 2010; Parajulee 2010; Cottle and Keys 2007). Maoist insurgency started in 1996 claimed that social and economic injustice against the poor, landlessness, and exclusion of the marginalized, particularly in rural and remote areas, is the reason for their ‘people’s war’ (Sharma 2006; Murshed and Gates 2005). The state believed the Maoist insurgency, an isolated form of rural unrest initially and did not commit to an all-out offensive against them. This strategy made them stronger and stronger and expanded from one rural area to all major rural areas of the nation. This process involved the use of force and violence for their political agenda and forced the government to suspend the election (Cottle and Keys 2007; Parajulee 2010).

CHAPTER 3: Location – Context of the Study made it impossible to chart a new course for these needs as the attention of all political leaders as well as those responsible for national development strategies was diverted.

3.5 The Economic Context

The economic context is important as chapter two revealed the economic wealth of the community as one of the determinants for access and utilization of new forms of the technology. Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world with a per capita GDP of

US$524 in 2010 (World Bank, 2011). Agriculture and overseas remittances, through unskilled labour force working in the Korea and the Middle-East, is the main source of income. Remittances grew from US$111 million in 2000 to US$2986 million in 2009

(World Bank, 2011). Other potential growth areas include hydropower and tourism.

Nepal has the second biggest hydropower potential 83,000 megawatts in the world

(Shrestha, 1981). However, poverty is widespread in Nepal with 25.16 per cent of the population living below the national poverty line (CBS 2011). Although this improved from a level of 41.67 per cent in 1995-96, it still falls well below Sri Lanka with only 15 per cent in 2007. The National Living Standard Survey III (CBS 2011) revealed that the poverty level in the urban hills is lower than that in Kathmandu. Households in Nepal led by agricultural wage workers are the poorest. Those headed by professional wage workers are the least poor, and those, headed by females have a slightly lower poverty rate. Nepal was labelled a ‘failing state’ (The Economist 2004, p. 10) due to its political instability and inability to manage the economy.

Nepal started the journey of planned development in 1956. With more than five decades of planned development, Nepal has achieved little progress in terms of infrastructure, education and awareness. Government documents admit that ‘the targets of economic growth rate set in the development plans could not be achieved and Nepal lagged behind in economic progress even compared with the least developed countries’ (NPC

CHAPTER 3: Location – Context of the Study

2008). Nepalese government policies failed to address structural problems of the economy like inequitable access to productive resources and means, distributional conflict and shortcomings in good governance. Expected improvements could not be realized in the economic and social conditions of ordinary people especially those residing in rural areas.

After multiparty democracy in 1990, there has been a policy shift to economic liberalization and market led approaches to development, adopting the deregulation of capital and labour markets, privatization of state-owned enterprises, liberalization of trade and currency convertibility (Routledge 2010). This liberal economic policy delivered a high growth rate of 5.1 during 1990-95 (Khadka, 1998). The Maoist insurgency, which started in 1996, had a negative impact on economic growth (Sharma

2006).

Agriculture is the dominant activity of the economy with almost 60 per cent of the people depending on agriculture for their livelihood. Industry employs only 10 per cent of the labour force. About 20 per cent of people are unemployed and 6.7 per cent are underemployed as per Nepal labour force survey 2008. The increased the rate of unemployment led to many youths leaving the country in search of employment in

Malaysia, Korea and gulf countries. Around 800 young Nepalis migrate to foreign countries every day in search of employment (THT 2010). These migrant workers are sending remittances to Nepal for their relatives, which make approximately 21 per cent of GDP (MOF, 2011). Therefore, potential tourism, hydro power development and ongoing remittance sector, need the enabling attributes of ICT for improvement in the conditions of the rural poor. Table 3.1 presents macro-economic indicators of Nepal.

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Table 3.1 Macro Economic Indicators

Description Unit Fiscal Year 2001/02 2005/06 2008/09 2009/10* Exchange Rate** USD = Rs. 76.88 72.32 76.88 74.19 Total Population Million 23.7 25.9 27.6 28.3 Per-capita GDP USD 255 350 467 562 Remittance Income Million USD 614.2 906.3 2727.6 3023.2 Agriculture % change 3.1 1.9 3 1.2 Industry % change 0.7 4.4 -0.3 3.9 Services % change -1.8 5.6 6.3 5.5 Gap between Gross Domestic Saving and % -10.8 -17.9 -22.2 -28.8 Gross Investment/GDP Revenue /GDP % 11 11.1 14.5 15.1 Total Government % 17.4 17 22.2 22.5 Expenditure /GDP Budget Deficit/GDP % 5 3.8 5 3.9 Revenues % change 3.2 3.1 33.3 24.6 Trade Deficit % change 0.7 25.1 33.3 41 Consumer Price Index % change 2.9 8 13.2 10.7 Income from Tourism % change -26.1 8.7 49.9 -0.3 Remittance Income % change 0.7 49 47 7

* Annual Preliminary Estimates (Based on 8 month data) % Change = Annual change in percentage, ** Annual Average of buying and selling rates, 11 months average of the current fiscal year. Source: Economic Survey, 2010

The data above illustrates the declining growth in agriculture, higher consumption and lower level of saving, increasing trade deficit and higher level of inflation. On the positive side there is a significant increase in remittance income and tourism income

(though percentage annual change in 2009/10 is negative, it had significant change in previous year). However, there exists a development problem with more than two per

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CHAPTER 3: Location – Context of the Study cent growth in the population and barely 3.5 per cent growth in the economy. The development programs continued to have little impact.

Table 3.2 Income Distribution in Nepal, 1988 and 1996

Ranking Nepal (% share of total income) 1988 1996 Bottom 40% 24 15 Middle 50% 55 50 Top 10% 21 35

Source: Nepal Rastra Bank (1989, 2003) quoted in Sharma 2006

As shown in the table above income inequality has increased over the years. The income of top 10 per cent group increased from 21 per cent to 35 per cent in mid 1990 and the income of bottom 40 per cent group shrank from 24 per cent to 15 percent. Even after the establishment of the multiparty system, Nepal failed to achieve economic equality and did not deliver equal focus on group aspect of inequality, often termed as horizontal inequalities, ‘a concept closely linked to both economic and ethnic polarization’ (Østby

2008). Economic inequality has considerably increased both in spatial and horizontal form (Sharma 2006; Wagle 2009).The horizontal inequalities in Nepal are asset inequality (landlessness), debt burden of the rural poor and lower cast people’s access to public employment and or services (Murshed and Gates 2005).

Tourism is a promising sector as it has been embraced as a source of post-industrial employment and foreign currency to promote development (Bhattarai et al. 2005). But, tourism was severely affected by the political and geographic context explained in this chapter earlier including onerous labour strikes and forced market closures (Upadhyay et al 2011).

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Almost 80 per cent of Nepalese people live in rural areas. In rural areas, poverty and backwardness is prevalent in certain communities and target groups such as Dalits, indigenous people, women, small farm holders and the landless population.

Table 3.3 Urban Rural Poverty Population Distribution

Region Population below the poverty line 1995/96 2003/04 2010/11 Urban 21.55 9.55 NA Rural 43.27 34.62 NA Nepal 41.76 30.85 25.16

Source: Economic Survey, 2008

In eight years urban poverty decreased by 12 per cent but rural poverty was reduced by only 8.65 percent. Geographically, mountainous regions comprise 7.5 per cent of all areas, Hills 47.1 and plains 45.4 percent. Seventy eight per cent of the poor depend on agriculture as a principal source of employment (Economic Survey 2008). Do and Iyer

(2010) found that the intensity of the Maoist conflict was higher in the places with greatest poverty, making recruitments cheaper and easier for insurgents to convince.

Consequently, poverty alleviation is a challenge for Nepal and ICT is looked on as one of the means for the inclusion of marginalized rural poor in mainstream economic growth processes. It is in this political and economic context that ICT was seen by the government as a tool for economic development.

In summary, Nepal’s efforts in economic development have not been successful, reflected in the very low economic growth rate. There are a number of factors contributing to this low level of growth. The major factors are a weak irrigation system for agriculture, a lack of an investment friendly environment with frequent closures

(bandh), strikes, labour problems, persistent energy shortages, political uncertainties,

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CHAPTER 3: Location – Context of the Study increasing consumption, low levels of saving and a lack of employment opportunities to engage the local labour force in the country. Nevertheless, Nepal has enormous potential for growth in tourism, hydropower, ICT, agro-processing, high-value herb processing industries by through the mobilizing of domestic and foreign investment including remittances. The Ministry of Finance, the government department responsible for the economy, has stated in a recent economic survey:

Efficiency of overall economic management has become questionable against the backdrop of the adverse impact on living standards caused by deteriorating purchasing power with double-digit inflation and adversely affected economic development processes due to low economic growth rate (Economic Survey, 2010) Only political stability with appropriate policy intervention can convert the failed development efforts from the past to encouraging development actions. Clearly a national information hub that facilitates the flow of knowledge relevant to development in these sectors provides a motivation to design and implement the Telecenter Program.

However, this also created a dilemma for the authorities because the central information hub, while providing information for development can also diffuse information for surrogates and manoeuvring political instability.

3.6 Education

The literature on ICT has revealed one of the crucial factors for the diffusion and use of

ICT is education. In terms of Human Development Index (HDI) ranking, Nepal was at

157th place of out of 187 countries in the 2011 with 0.458 values in comparison with

Australia’s 2nd position with 0.929 values and Sri Lanka’s 97th position with 0.691 values

(UNDP 2011). It is therefore necessary to briefly review the status of the education sector in Nepal. Nepal has a dualistic system of schools with both public and private schools. Education in private schools is expensive and typically affordable only by the elite. Most private schools have English as the language of instruction, and many also

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CHAPTER 3: Location – Context of the Study utilize computers in the curricula. The political change in 1990 brought improvement in the number of schools and student enrolment. In 1995, there were a total of 7,328 private and public schools. But by the end of 2009, the total number of private and public schools had reached 49,924 with 6.3 Million students (Economic Survey 2010).

Access to education is not only related to awareness and affordability questions but also to the remoteness. A recent newspaper story describes the difficulty for rural students.

With the onset of the monsoon, absenteeism begins to peak at Gyachchok Secondary School. Students of Dhansira and Pasgaun villages of Gyachchok VDC virtually opt out for the season for the obvious reason - prevention is better than cure. For the residents of these villages, sending their wards to school in the rainy season simply means putting their lives at risk. Students have to walk six hours and cross 13 rivers in space, including Pasgaun, Tamsyo, Tsyo, Kyo, Kojyo, and Tamle to reach school. The threat of being swept away is so real for these kids that dropping out is always a better option. "There's no bridge over any of the rivers," said Birkha Bahadur Gurung adding, "Tsyo and Kojyo rivers have killed many people. So, we are afraid to send our children to school.” (Kathmandu Post 2010) Do and Iyer (2010) argue that lower levels of literacy lowers income prospects, which makes joining rebel forces attractive and comes with a lower opportunity cost. As such access to education contributes in reducing the poverty and conflict. One student

Yunespour from war crippled Afghanistan, who received access to an education at The

University of Sydney, said

Education was an alternative for the peace process in Afghanistan, the key to alleviating poverty and allowing young people to ''find their own pathways''. The peace and stability and security in Afghanistan doesn't come through military involvement only, knowing how [my] life changed through education, it made me think education is the better way for these poor communities to develop and for these kids to have an opportunity in life (Yunespour, quoted by Arlington 2011).

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Again this highlights the dilemma for authorities in building a national information hub.

Once in place, it is difficult to control who uses it and for what purpose.14

Over the past decade the government sought to improve the ICT human resources capability of Nepal. Since 1996, both Tribhuvan University and Kathmandu University have been providing computer education in Nepal. ICT student intake at bachelor level in university colleges was 2000 in 2007. Due to the lack of growth in ICT industries in the country, most of the students leave the country and go to India and elsewhere overseas after completing bachelor degrees. There are approximately 1000 training institutions offering general and professional computer courses. Qualitative training institutions (franchise) from abroad are available only in Kathmandu. Almost all of these institutions are located in the urban areas of Nepal. ICT policies for education in

Nepal have not been comprehensive or practical. The IT policy of 2000 set a target of providing computer education to all by 2010 and the national plan for 2002 aimed to have computer literacy at all levels of education. Similarly, the secondary education plan for 2002 aimed to increase the use of ICT for education management and education delivery.

The National Curriculum Framework 2005 described the need for ICT for educational transformation. All these plans/policies emphasized the value of ICT education programs but without sufficient justification, an action plan and resources for delivery

(Shields 2011). The introduction of ICT at the school level is limited to private boarding

14 The difficulty in getting access to education in Nepalese rural areas is amplified by the photograph in appendix xiv. The lack of bridge has compelled school going children to use risky single rope bridge (called ‘Tuiin’ in local language) to access school across the river. The above quote and photograph both underline the importance of education. Telecenters in villages are aimed to provide educational services, and training as ICT has capacity to expand education access to all in cost effective way (Shield 2011).

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CHAPTER 3: Location – Context of the Study schools in Kathmandu and a few other urban centres. Some non-government organizations have recently started various education programs using ICT, from providing ICT training to teachers and computers to public schools, to running their own computer education and training programs in rural areas. ICT education in Nepal,

Shields (2011) argues, ‘in policy and practices are symbolic and ideological, sharing modernist notion of progress and development than any utilitarian value’ (p 94). The

Telecenter Program discussed later in this chapter emerged from this same view.

3.7 The Caste and Linguistic Context

The effect of caste and language in Nepal is yet to be ascertained. Golan and Stettner

(2008) revealed a significant correlation between religious composition and internet diffusion establishing a positive correlation with Christians and a negative correlation with Muslims. Though the study excluded India and Japan, which have higher per capita internet diffusion rates, where Hinduism and Buddhism followed respectively, it found that further research was needed on the subject.

The Nepalese caste system is highly complex and deeply embedded in the traditional system of social stratification in Nepal. It is an important characteristic used to form socio-economically meaningful groups. Caste and ethnicity are regarded as barriers to economic development and social inclusion. The broad framework of the Hindu caste system consisted of four Varnas (social class); Brahmins (Priests), Chhetris (Kings and warriors), Vaishyas (merchants), and Sudras (peasants and labourers). Brahmins and

Chhetries are in the higher categories of the Hindu caste hierarchy. The Newar people fall under Vaishyas, some following Hinduism and some Buddhism. Indigenous people with a surname such as Gurung, Tamang, Thakali, Magar, Sherpa, and Rai (now called

Janajatis) are low caste Hindus, some of them practice Buddhism. Untouchables refer to low caste Hindus such as tailors, cobblers and cleaners, and Muslims (now called Dalits).

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The formal caste system was abolished by law in 1963, and the 1990’s democratic constitution promised equality across caste and ethnicity. But discrimination based on ethnicity, gender and caste still exists, particularly in the rural areas (UNDP, 2008). The ranking of social groups in the Composite Empowerment and Social Inclusion Index

(CEI), an index to measure empowerment of different groups and social inclusion of marginalized groups and Dalits, analyses, material on the social and political status of different groups, still reflects traditional caste hierarchy. The CEI levels of the Brahmin,

Chhetri, and Newar group was 46, Janajatis was 36 and Dalits was 25 (Bennett 2005).

There has been a strong argument that traditional patterns of social relationship based on caste and ethnicity have eroded; some attribute this change to economic development and urbanization (CBS 2006), some to the Maoist conflict (World Bank

2004), and some to the impact of social and political mobilization by development agencies (UNDP 2004). There are differing views (Sengupta 2005; Do and Iyer 2010;

Gersony 2003) about the relationship between ethnic or caste identity and the Maoist conflict. Some argue that discrimination against the lower ethnic caste produced support for the Maoists while others dismiss the issue as a cause of conflict. A study on the role of caste, ethnicity and religion for the perceptions of social change found that people in

Nepal perceive socio-economic and socio-cultural change in positive terms (Aasland and Haug 2011). These authors argued that lack of social mobility among marginalized groups and Dalits is a crucial factor for the prevalence of discrimination and affirmed the relevance of caste and ethnicity as a continuous marker of inequality. For the present study, these analogies suggest such social problems may also be reflected in levels of access to telecenters as well as in determining the nature of information accessed.

There are 124 spoken languages in Nepal. Nepali is the official language. According to the 2001 census, it is spoken by 47.8 percent, of the population. Maithili is spoken by

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12.1 percent, Bhojpuri by 7.4 per cent and Tharu by 5.8 percent. Newari, Gurung,

Tamang and Magar languages are also spoken in different parts of Nepal. The English language speaking population is estimated at about 15 percent, mostly in government and business and by students and urban elites. Due to this diversity in spoken language, ethnic groups often have difficulty communicating with each other. Due to a limited

English speaking population, is it possible for the telecenter network to serve as national information hub?

It is in the context of this geographic, political, economic and linguistic diversity that

Nepal’s approach to ICT and subsequently this telecenter program emerged. The remainder of this chapter reviews the contemporary development of these policies and processes.

3.8 Information and Communication Technology in

Nepal

The development of the ICT sector in Nepal through the 1980’s was slow to take root in any development strategy. Appendix IV summarizes the major events in ICT development, since 1968 when first IBM 1401 computer was introduced for census purposes. The table illustrates the many policy actions and program developments between 1999 and 2004, the middle period of the Maoist insurgency described above in section 3.4. For policymakers there was the ongoing dilemma of being unable to determine which group might best be able to benefit from nationally accessible information systems.

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3.8.1 Legal, Regulatory and Institutional Framework

The government commissioned the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), to look after IT roles from 1996. The telecom regulatory body, Nepal Telecommunications

Authority (NTA), was established in 1998 after the Telecommunications Act of 1997. A new communication policy was released in 1999 followed by a liberalized telecommunications sector through the introduction of competition via open licensing and the privatization of Nepal Telecommunication Corporation (NTC) into Nepal

Telecom. The Telecommunications Act was amended in 2006 strengthening the regulatory environment and promoting private investment in the telecom sector including a stipulation that 15 per cent of licensee’s investments must go towards services in rural areas (Shields 2009). These actions required increased transparency in licensing and reduced import duties especially on equipment for deployment in rural areas. The budgetary provision by the government to build the first IT Park was made in 1999 and was followed by the first Information Technology (IT) policy in 2000. A

National Information Technology Centre (NITC) under the Ministry of Science and

Technology was established in 2002 to implement the IT Policy. The High Level

Commission for Information Technology (HLCIT) chaired by the Prime Minister was formed to oversee national IT Policy, provide strategic policy direction and ICT support to the government and business. Thus, the regulatory framework was constituted to engage multiple sectors in the development and delivery of IT services nationally including remote areas.

Nepal has followed the global trend towards privatization and liberalization as advocated by international organizations like the World Bank, the International

Monetary Fund and the Asian Development Bank. In 2006, a new policy decision was announced, opening up license-free spectrum bands and deregulating voice over

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CHAPTER 3: Location – Context of the Study internet protocol (VOIP) for domestic use. International VOIP operation (using internet) is in use even in rural areas. In order to promote electronic commerce, the government enacted an e-commerce law in 2004—the Electronic Transactions Act

(ETA) which provides a basic framework for attainment of secure and reliable e- commerce transactions (Blythe 2008)15.

3.8.2 ICT and Partner Organizations

There are also partners from the private sector and non-government sectors working for the development of ICT in Nepal. Computer firms were established in early part of the

1980’s. There are about 100 small size ICT software companies, private and foreign joint ventures, 300 locals firms selling international reputed ICT equipment and locally assembled personal computers. The ICT business sector employs about 16000 ICT workforces (HLCIT, 2005). Import of computer and computer parts in Nepal has increased significantly in recent years. The import of computers and parts increased from Rs. 214 (2.8 million USD calculated as 1 USD = 74 Rs.) million in 1991/92 to Rs.

1,414 (19.1 million USD calculated as 1 USD = 74 Rs.) million in 2002/03; an increase of 561 per cent with an average annual growth rate of 18.73 per cent (HLCIT 2005).

The NGO sector is active in driving ICT for development. The Computer Association of Nepal (CAN) is the umbrella organization of the private sector, established in 1992.

It has been hosting ICT exhibitions and conferences every year since 1994. It has also established district chapters in various parts of the country as well as abroad. CAN advocates for liberal policy and protects the interests of private investment in the field of ICT. The IT Professional Forum (ITPF) is another non-government organization,

15 Lack of clarity on institutional jurisdiction, on the ownership of ICT portfolio between MOEST and MOIC and regulatory environment, made these changes ineffective to expand information access in rural areas (Shields 2011; THT 2011b). 111

CHAPTER 3: Location – Context of the Study which is devoted to the development of ICT through research, publications and conducting awareness and policy discussion programs. Organizations like Forum for

Information Technology (FIT) Nepal and e-Networking Research and Development

(ENRD), Synergy Nepal have been influential in driving policy interest to bring the benefits of ICT to the rural and marginalized communities by establishing community centres (IDRC, 2000). The organization Room to Read founded by John Wood, a former top executive of Microsoft, continues to establish computer labs in rural areas.

Rural Education and Development (READ), a Kathmandu-based NGO, is supporting no-cost public access to computers and the internet and is committed to promoting computer literacy. Nepal Wireless founded by Mahabir Pun is actively providing access to the internet in remote hill districts in western Nepal and is now expanding to other parts of the country.

Many other development organizations like Care-Nepal, Action –Aid, Helvetas Nepal,

Oxfam, Panas South Asia, Save the Children Nepal, United Mission, VSO, Winrock

International, have integrated computers, internet access, community radio and community libraries into their rural program models to provide information access within the economic grasp of the rural poor.

3.9 Telecommunications

The development of telecommunications in the country from 1995 to the current period has brought substantial change through involvement of the private sector, policy, legislation and reforms, increased teledensity and fibre optic networks (Whalley 2006).

Being late starters in telecommunications, Nepal has the advantage of being able to select advanced and proven technologies like wireless and 3G suitable to her needs.

Internet services were limited when its accessibility was regulated by NTC, but were boosted when internet service providers (ISPs) were allowed to have their own

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CHAPTER 3: Location – Context of the Study international gateways (NTA, 2010). The construction of an 880 KM fibre optic cable along the east-west highway in terai was completed with the assistance from the government of India. Further, the Republic of China is assisting in laying out a 115 KM fibre optic network linking Kathmandu to the boarder of China through the Arniko

Highway. Nepal continues to maintain two fixed line and three mobile telephone companies16.

Table 3.4 Telecom Statistics in Nepal 2011

Description Unit Fixed Mobile Others Total Available Voice Telephony Million 0.84 12.61 0.79 14.24 Services

Penetration Rate (Tele-Density) % 3.16 47.38 2.96 53.50

Available Internet Services Million 3.59

Internet Penetration Rate % 13.49

Source: NTA 2011

The internet was introduced to Nepal in 1995 by the private company, Mercantile.

Nepal’s internet service sector has grown rapidly with 45 licensed ISPs, increasing the number of consumers including rural areas (NTA 2010). 17

16 With the combined teledensity of 8.47 percent Nepal is far behind other countries in the region. In South Asia, mobile subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, Maldives has the highest at 148, while Nepal has the lowest 19 while remaining countries have from 32 to 52 (ITU 2010). 17 The number of users may be underestimated due to the shared access systems cyber cafes in urban areas and telecenters in rural areas. Despite the expensive international connections (mostly satellite), limited domestic infrastructure and incumbent operator NTC’s monopoly charge for access to its network the growth of internet users is exponential. In January 2009 total telephone penetration was only 18.86, it was 27.15 in January 2010 and as of September 2011 shows teledencity penetration at 53.50 per cent. Internet penetration was only 2.49 in 2010 but now at 13.49 percent (NTA, 2011). The completed fiber optic connections to India, soon to be completed 113

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3.10 Telecenters and Policy Regime in Nepal

In 1988, the national planning commission received support from the International

Development Research Centre (IDRC) to prepare six strategy papers directed toward a national information strategy: universal access to information; information and communication technology infrastructure; human resource development; software production and applications; electronic commerce; and electronic governance. These papers were the basis for the formulation of IT policy in 2000, which was designed to promote universal access to information technology, education and training and IT applications in business and government (NPC, 2001). The strategy was designed to support rural development, through: provision of internet facilities gradually to all village development committees of the country; transfer of technology to rural areas; providing scholarship to poor students from remote areas to pursue higher studies in information technology; generating content prepared to enhance Nepali materials on the internet to develop rural areas; and to reduced telephone charges for internet connection to nearest internet node and its extension to rural areas (IT policy 2000).

The development of IT policy laid the foundation for the subsequent development of the ICT sector. Inter government ministries’ coordination was crucial as the policy required a multi-sector action plan engaging many agencies. But coordination was lacking. There were ICT ownership contradictions between MOIC, MOST and HLCIT.

There were contradicting policy provisions in IT policy and communication policy and

IT policy and fiscal policy. For example, IT policy provisioned tax holiday, reduced custom duties and other facilities but fiscal policy did not allow such provisions. In

fiber optic connections to China and private mobile operators offer of internet and data service through GPRS present a positive outlook on increased access at reduced cost.

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CHAPTER 3: Location – Context of the Study addition to this, lower capital investment from private sector, political and social volatility, and the lack of a legislative back up for policy provisions remained as barriers

(Bhattarai, M, personal communication, 2010 January 7; Burton 2003).

As discussed earlier in this thesis the contradicting or limited coordination and communication between central agencies is just as much a barrier for national information hub as is that of communication barrier in villages.

In order to make a networked information system the government in its tenth plan

(2002-2007) set a target of 1500 Telecenters to serve rural areas. The objective was to set up a system of community owned and managed Telecenters. The community owned

Telecenters were established through a combination of government, donor supported initiatives, and ICT based rural development programs initiated by non-government organizations. Government expected that these Telecenters would at least provide access to information, basic exposure to technology, and assistance in delivering selected government services (Harris et al. 2003). The information from the NITC on agricultural information, health, distance learning, productive economic activities, environment protection and natural disaster mitigation were to be developed and delivered online to rural Telecenters (HLCIT, 2004). The central government website www.hmgnepal.gov.np was created to provide all required application forms and information on government services. This website was later changed to www.nepalgov.gov.np . Telecenters were expected to bring about positive cultural changes for development (Chapagain, 2006). However an understanding of the social process as to new information would be accessed, discussed and used beyond the telecenter terminals did not seem to have been considered. Rather, the most of the focus was on the technology and financial management of the centres. In short, the focus was on anticipated tangible costs and benefits rather than intangible outcomes

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CHAPTER 3: Location – Context of the Study that might follow. Since 2002, the government started establishing Telecenters and initiated the development of content for these centres.

Table 3.7 lists the number of telecenters in Nepal established through 2002-2007.

Table 3.5 Telecenters in Nepal

Program Owner First Year of Sector Numbers Geographic establishment area HLCIT, Govt 2004 Community, 66 All General development regions NITC, Govt 2002 Community 110 All General and development Education regions Post dept. , Govt 2007 Internet 97 All Communication development regions NWP, NGO 2001 Community, 42 Western General, Mountain, Hill education, and Eastern Health Hill Villages and schools READ, NGO 2005 Library, 25 All Community development General regions RUPP, Donor 2003 Rural urban 7 Terai Project institutions municipalities and rural areas Synergy Nepal, Community 13 Hill and Terai NGO General, FIT Nepal, 2004 Community 6 Valley villages, NGO General municipalities NRIDS, NGO 2007 Community 4 Western Hill General Others 2006 Community, 30 All Education development regions

Source: Field Survey 2009-2011

The IT policy and Telecenter Program outlined in planning documents by NPC ensured some NGOs and private rural entrepreneurs were involved in the design and

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CHAPTER 3: Location – Context of the Study implementation. Shields (2011) attributes this NGOs attraction to telecenters as a way to get more funding from donors by showcasing innovative program models rather than aiming for substantive change in education and rural development as a consequence of access to information

In general, program owners would establish telecenters in their selected area and would hand over ownership to local community or local school or library. Postal department telecenters were recently introduced at village post offices and did not include the community ownership as others had.

One important public access venue for the internet in Nepal is cybercafés. These are numerous, estimated to more than 5000 (see, Nepali 2009), open to general public, often in convenient locations in urban areas. These cafes are being established in rural market areas, which have communication infrastructure and a higher density of population. These are private, often unregistered, family business units that lack community ownership and community development as their objective. The other problem with cybercafés is that the anonymity of users in these places is not necessarily guaranteed making them most vulnerable to cyber crimes (see Rauniyar, 2008) whereas telecenter users are supervised and assisted by telecenter staff where a logbook of users and time is maintained.

The government agencies, NITC and HLCIT devised a typical telecenter model which is presented below.

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Figure 3.1 A Government Telecenter Model

At the operational level, a telecenter manager is central to operations. She/he is responsible for the local content generation. This manager is supported by a management committee and two social mobilizers to assist him/her. Social mobilizers are hired specifically to create awareness and convince community people to use the telecenter for their benefits. HLCIT developed a telecenter manual, which contained details on each theme as well as other various modalities of telecenter establishment.

The financial sustainability was assured through government funding particularly for first year. All costs of the equipment and training, cost of the internet and staff salaries for first year is covered by government funding. The other operational costs and 50 per

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CHAPTER 3: Location – Context of the Study cent of the internet cost for the second year, the management committee must manage through the income of the Telecenter or from other resources. The model provides for two to five computers with the internet and a printer. A fax machine and a photocopier are provided to earn additional operational income over and above the internet fees.

By the mid 2000s, people in rural communities were demanding telecenters for their villages. But the national rollout plan of 1500 telecenters was never realized. This was mainly due to the lack of financial resources and the Maoist insurgency. For example, a case study of IT Policy after three years stated:

The government is overwhelmed by political discord, a royal massacre in 2001 and a worsening Maoist insurgency ….. With scare resources tied up in security efforts, implementation of IT policy has slipped from the government’s priority list …. And have frustrated efforts by the private sector to build IT capacity in the government (Burton 2003, P. 08). The Telecenter Program was designed by the government to be more responsive to rural communities, expecting good outcomes for poverty-focused development work. It included a national information hub focussing on the six content development themes: agriculture; distance learning, telemedicine, productive economic activities, environment protection and disaster mitigation. Meanwhile, the Maoist insurgency was also based in rural areas providing an alternative employment opportunity to youth. In some areas the

Telecenter Program became a victim of the Maoist militia as well as the Royal Army.

The Maoist had looted the ICT equipment of rural areas of Chitwan district, perhaps to use by them for communication at the time of conflict and Royal army disconnected the telephone and forced to close the Telecenter in rural area of Parbat district in western Nepal on the suspicion of Maoist militia using this technology for the communication (D Khadka, personal communication, January 6, 2010). On average there have been five years of implementation of telecenters in Nepal, though not at a national scale. Given the geographic, political, cultural and linguistic diversity, how realistic was the objective of national information hub? To what extent were the government’s expectations of the telecenter realized? Moreover, given such 119

CHAPTER 3: Location – Context of the Study diversity of interest, to what extent were some expectations met and others not? The remaining chapters in this thesis answer these questions. In the process, this thesis focuses in particular, on the social process that enables access to and use of information both within and beyond telecenter shelters. The next chapter will discuss the methodology used to achieve the outcomes.

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Chapter 4

Research Method

4.1 Introduction

Chapter three outlined the political, socio-economic conditions and the status of the

ICT sector in Nepal to provide the background in which the Telecenter Program was implemented. The geographic, political, cultural and economic development provided an ambiguous environment in which the Program was introduced. This ambiguity arose out of the range of interests of the different regional users, the funds and owners that established the centres and the uncoordinated efforts of organizations responsible for developing and managing digital content. Based on the foregoing literature review and ex-ante analysis of documents on the Telecenter Program in Nepal, the research approach adopted was chosen in order to answer the research questions outlined in chapter one:

1. What were the expectations of the government, implementing agencies, local

managing groups and users groups on telecenter implementation and to what

extent were the expectations achieved?

2. What were the facilitating or inhibiting factors that led to the varying outcomes?

3. Should telecenters be considered a contributing component of the Nepalese

National Innovation System (NIS)?

This chapter presents the key research approaches and data collection methods to answer these questions. Topics covered in the chapter include: a review of the analytical framework; levels of analysis and framework; selections from respondents, interview schedule design, data management and ethical considerations. The chapter concludes

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CHAPTER 4: Research Method with a summary of sources of data and the number of respondents among each stakeholder group.

4.2 Research Approaches

A wide range of analytical approaches has been used in previous research on telecenters, these were noted in chapter two. Roman (2003) used diffusion theory for Telecenter research, describing diffusions of innovations as a theoretical framework for explaining the impacts of telecenters. Others have used stakeholder theory to analyse telecenter projects taking into account varying expectations and outcomes (Bailur 2007). There have been a number of case study based analyses (Rajalekshmi 2008, Heeks and

Kanashiro 2009, Soriano 2007, Tiwaree and Sharmistha 2008, Rangaswamy 2008), which used mainly qualitative methods of observation, interviews and group discussion in their research. Other researchers have used quantitative and qualitative methods using a combination of survey questionnaire and semi-structured interviews (Stern and Adams

2010, Best and Kumar 2008, Lee and Lee 2007). Quantitative methods have been used to explore statistical associations, correlations between different variables and significance levels, while qualitative methods have been used to take into account organizational, societal and individual factors. However, information access and use is a social process, the majority of the studies have drawn primarily on qualitative data.

As presented in Appendix II Table x2.1, telecenter studies access a variety of countries and social contexts and adopted different frameworks: some used a poverty alleviation framework (Harris 2001; Goransson 2005); some used Access, Capacity and

Environment (ACE) framework (Gomez 2010); some have used a rural livelihood framework (Parkinson and Lauzon 2008, Soranio 2007) and a few have used a resource movement framework and performance based framework (Heeks and Kanashiro 2009; and Heeks 2009). Some were qualitative case studies and a few were ethnographic

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CHAPTER 4: Research Method studies (Agrawal et al. 2010, Kuriyan et al. 2008). Real Access Criteria (RAC) as a research framework to determine the impact of ICT in developing countries have been used, based on the view that the techniques originating in the developed world were not applicable in a rural context of a developing country. From the perspective of the range of factors, physical access and appropriateness of technology, local and macro-economic environment, relevant content, application and services have all variously been used as analytical variables (Bridges.org, n. d.). The intention of this perspective was to provide a roadmap to the digital divide to reveal the ways ICT initiatives can be best integrated into rural development initiatives. These criteria respond to specific questions about the impact of ICT on development. Maunder et al (2006) used the RAC framework to confirm the value of ICT training bridges to overcome knowledge and skills gaps among rural users exposed to an ICT system for the first time. Hardly, any of the earlier studies had complete stakeholder analysis engaging all stakeholders groups from government through to the rural users. Most researchers such as Harris (2001), Avgerou

(2008) and Walsham and Sahay (2005) have emphasized the need to take into consideration the full range of contextual social factors surrounding the design, implementation and activities at the telecenter. The research approach of this thesis is presented in the next section and makes consideration of the important implications of those contextual social factors.

4.3 Research Framework and Methods

This study takes a multi-stakeholder approach in order to account for different expectations and perspectives regarding outcomes. Secondly, the study seeks to investigate the telecenters at two levels: ex-ante; and ex-post. The ex-ante level is based on what was originally planned in the program design and what was expected from the perspectives of various stakeholders. The ex-post level is based on the different

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CHAPTER 4: Research Method outcomes as reported by different stakeholders. Thirdly, the study design sought to cover as far as possible, local community characteristics and social contexts revealed through observations at telecenters and interactions with different interest groups.

Finally, throughout the analysis, the thesis sought to reveal the ways the information and knowledge accessed through the telecenters was used and how it differed in social interactions within and beyond telecenters.

4.3.1 An Analytical Framework

The present thesis is essentially a theory building exercise. It seeks to explain the relationship between information and knowledge conveyed through telecenters and evolving socio-economic activities in rural Nepal. An important step in this process is to build on some basic propositions that have emerged from the literature. These are described below as varying stakeholder perspectives and varying community characteristics. It takes as its working proposition, that some of these factors would be particularly important in understanding social process that demands the use of the internet. The focus of the study is more specifically on people and behaviour and less on technology and organization, therefore, the current research framework is composed of the four important aspects stated in the section 4.3 in explaining why there were better outcomes, from the perspective of users, in some village locations than in others.

Stakeholder Analysis: There were multiple stakeholders in the telecenter implementation. Table 4.1 illustrates the stakeholder involvement and process. The planning phase included multiple government institutions from the National Planning

Commission to the infrastructure provider, Nepal Telecom. Among all these stakeholders the research included practice process (four) stakeholders, community users, management groups, managers and program owners, who were responsible for delivering the outcomes of the Telecenter Program.

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Table 4.1 Focus of Analysis

-- Stakeholder Involvement --- Commitment To ICT The Program Governmen Service Community t Providers Representatives NGOs Planning NPC, Nepal DDC, VDC, MOST, Telecom, Libraries HLCIT, Mercantile, NITC, NTA, World Link, Computer Nepal NWP Association Telecom Of Nepal Implementation HLCIT, NWP, School, READ,

NITC, Dept Wlink, Libraries, Local FIT,

 Of Postal Nepal Community Synergy Services Telecom, Groups Nepal DDC,

Time ---Time Managemen t ----- Committees  Practice Program Telecenter Telecenter Users Owners Managemen Managers HLCIT, t NITC Committees Ongoing Use Govt, Local ICT Farmers, NGOs, Enterprises, Students, Community Regional Business Groups As ISPs, Pvt Local Schools, People, Owners Telecom As Postal Offices, Women, Service Community Ethnic And Providers Groups, Marginalize Libraries d Social Telecenter Groups As Managers Users

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Table 4.2 Performance Classification

Type of Focus of Data Collection Stakeholders Analysis Program Owners Management Managers Users Committees Ex-ante Expectations Planning documents, Interaction Minutes Retrospective responses of Managers and Users Telecenter Manual, with Program Owner Local community and Retrospective interaction documents responses of members and written communications in files 126 and folders Ex-post Community Access and Use Location; Literacy and ICT skills; Cost for use; enabling access environments Level and Breadth of Number of users; diversity of users; frequency of telecenter visits; women’s participation in Community Participation management committee ; number of community meetings Information Demand and Availability; information sources; reliability; language of the content; information search request by Availability of services users, other services availability besides the internet Technical Performance No of computers; type and speed of the internet connection; alternative power arrangements; other electronic gadgets such as fax, photocopy, and maintenance capability Income and Profitability Number of Daily visitors; charges per users; charges for other services; external incomes (VDC, locals working abroad) Effectiveness Use of Information in productive practices; higher level of community participation; sharing information with family, friends and other members, increased skill levels; Networks and Partnership of telecenters; Sustainability Attitude Observation and comments during interviews

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The second important aspect was the level of analyses: ex-ante and ex-post. Table 4.2 illustrates ex-ante analysis of the expectation process and tools used to capture the perspectives of all four stakeholder groups. Ex-post analysis encompasses the multiple themes and experiences of stakeholders against determining factors on the performance of telecenters.

The third component is community characteristics. Some of these characteristics overlap with the second component described above. However, observation and interaction reveals the community characteristics, in particular subjective issues such as intentions, attitude and relationships. These characteristics also reveal how communities use the telecenter as a community resource and engage in achieving their expectations in the process. This analysis will illustrate the influence of the social factors in telecenter performance.

Table 4.3 Performance Analysis

Concepts Propositions and Questions to explore Better performing telecenters will generate access to networks. What is the level and process of social interaction? How is new knowledge Social Capital integrated in day to day practice? Better performing telecenters will reflect greater trust in the quality and nature of information and a greater level of sharing access, How Trust is trust negotiated and developed? Better performing telecenters will offer opportunities for feedback from users, sharing of information between users and sharing of feedback between information providers. To what extent is openness in accessing, using, sharing and interacting evident in different Openness performing categories of telecenters. For collective use of telecenters, users will need the capacity to make use of information and to generate innovative use of information. Have telecenters increased collective absorptive capacity in the community? What innovative ways have users used telecenters as a source of information, communication and technology to change Absorptive productive practices? If so how have these processes been integrated Capacity into local practice?

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Use of analytical concept: this is the fourth component of the framework. Access to social capital, elements of trust and collective activity, openness promoted through feedback, information flows, accessing and sharing and absorptive capacity to use new knowledge in an innovative way all potentially impact the performance of telecenters.

Table 4.3 presents propositions and queries to explore using analytical concepts in addressing the differing performance levels of the telecenters.

4.3.2 Choice of a Method

Because of the geography and socio-political diversity across the country the study adopted a selection of sample sites18. Each telecenter visit and observation can produce new insights about social relations and identity. The village minutes, prepared during first community gathering for the establishment of the telecenter, supplemented the interview data in each village site. The qualitative nature of the study enabled on-going reflection of the analysis following a first series of interviews and group discussions. As

Corbin and Strauss have put it:

Qualitative research allows researchers to get at the inner experience of participants, to determine how meanings are formed through and in culture, and to discover rather than test variables (Corbin and Strauss 2008).

A series of interviews was planned to record stakeholder’s perceptions about the changes they thought were being delivered by telecenters. The nature of this study thus sought to give voice to the people of rural societies through the planning, implementation and use of telecenters. The researcher was involved during the initial process of telecenter design and having garnered earlier insights, enabled the collection of stakeholders’ observation, recollections and experiences in the context of formal

18 The ongoing nature of fieldwork enables important personal experience with an area of knowledge (Tedlock 2005, Creswell 2003). 128

CHAPTER 4: Research Method background documents and earlier observations about the progress. Analysis thus adopted a multiple methods approach including semi-structured interviews with multiple stakeholders, group discussion and conference, documentary evidence and telecenter participant observation. Chamberlain et al (2011) assert that because multiple research methods engage both participants and researcher in the process, this extends the data and provides richer material for a larger, deeper analysis (see also Brannen

2005).

4.3.3 Type of Analyses

In order to cover the life of the Telecenter Program and read some conclusions about whether the telecenters had achieved their objectives, two levels of analysis were planned: Ex-ante; and Ex-post. The ex-ante analysis consolidated use of background documents supplemented with interview data and group discussion based on retrospective reflections or past events. The ex-post analysis drew mainly on a series of semi-structured interviews, group discussions, conferences and telecenter participant observations.

4.3.3.1 Ex-Ante Analysis

The researcher was able to gain access to documents that gave accounts of the planning and roll-out of the Telecenter Program. These included village meetings minutes of discussions prior to the telecenter establishment. This information was used to capture the ex-ante expectations of government and communities. The following types of information were collected and analysed:

 Documentary Background: Minutes of meetings between community members and

government officials in the field; Minutes of local stakeholder meetings; and

management committee meetings. The researcher could not trace meeting minutes

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in all telecenter locations. In these cases, retrospective field notes were offered by

some original members of the telecenter committees and managers.

 Policy documents: IT Policy (2000 and 2010); Communications policy (1999 and

2010); National periodic plans such as Tenth Plan (2002-2007), Three year Interim

plan (2008-2011); Electronic Transaction Act (2008); Telecommunication Act

(1997) ; and documents such as economic surveys, budget speeches.

 Operation manuals and directives (The Telecenter Manual), which outlines

guidelines for the establishment, operation and support of a telecenter prepared by

HLCIT in 2004

 Published articles, reports, news items, interviews and reports on other ICT projects

of the government funded by donor agencies.

 Interviews with participants of the first community meeting, only a few original

telecenter managers were still working. They provided comments on the

establishment procedure including the first committee meeting that took place in the

village.

The content analysis of these data was used to reveal:

 Expectations of telecenter stakeholder interests in planning and designing the

Telecenter Program;

 Insights into the implementation process and its implications; and

 Community expectations of different groups (i.e. farmers, students, business people

women, men and different age group)

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4.3.3.2 Ex-Post Analysis

The Ex-post data collection and analysis was based on a series of semi-structured interviews, group discussion and follow up by conducting a workshop to review findings. This approach followed other studies that have sought to capture a wide range of perspectives and expectations (Chamberlin et al 2011).

4.3.4 Geographic Dimension

Chapter three discussed the geography of Nepal. The study sought to determine the geographic dimension of internet use in particular, with given development differences between five development regions this thesis sought to determine what are the socio- economic impacts of the topographical variations on the use and application of telecenters. Each region has four different ecologies: mountains; hills; valleys; and plains with varied topographic conditions, economic base, ethnicity and culture. This effected telecenter selection as telecenters needed to be representative of each region and topography.

The basic approach presented in figure 4.1 was implemented, but all topographies and anticipated numbers of users wanted for interviews was ultimately not possible due to field restrictions - ongoing strikes, road closures and security concerns at field sites restricted numbers. The researcher was however, able to visit a total of 25 telecenters in all five regions, this did not however include all topographies. There was only one group discussion held in Pokhara in the western development region. The expected geographical coverage for five regions was achieved but in both the mid-western and far-western region, only a single telecenter was covered. At the user level a total of 90 users were interviewed with two males and two females in most of 25 telecenters in each development region. 25 telecenter managers and 25 management committee chairpersons/members were also interviewed. Consequently, telecenters selected for

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CHAPTER 4: Research Method the study covered a range of topographies. It was anticipated that some factors / outcomes might be unique to certain geographic regions. However, the objective of the study is to reveal underlying sophisticated characteristics of the telecenter experience.

Figure 4.1 Regions and Ecologies

4.4 Selection of Telecenters

The telecenter selection procedure was a difficult process. The research aimed to study geographical variation in all development regions. Meetings with program owners were held to find about their program, number of telecenters established and geographic coverage. They were also asked about which ones they considered to be running well and which ones had some problems. The access difficulty and security situation was assessed based on advice from program owners and other related institutions. In first

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CHAPTER 4: Research Method stage 20 telecenters were selected. The selection process was subjective, guided by the geographic dimension stated in 4.3.2, meeting and recommendation by the program owners and also using snowball sampling through officials from professional ICT associations such as Computer Association of Nepal (CAN), Information Technology

Forum (ITPF) especially to find telecenters that were not operating well.

The study aimed to collect data from a selection of telecenters covering all regions and ecological divisions mentioned in Figure 4.1. Visits were planned to program owners’ offices; NITC and HLCIT in government to glean the list of telecenters they had established in different regions. An email request was sent to Nepal Wireless, an NGO, with no office in Kathmandu for the list of their telecenters. Telecenters in each region and topography were to be selected based on the reported performance, owners, region and topography.

This selection excluded some of the good ones as indicated by program owners. Nangi

Telecenter was recommended by NWP but not possible to include due to access issues and the security situation. The second stage field trip included a visit to five telecenters, two stated to be operating well, including Nangi. Revisiting Jomsom in Mustang provided an opportunity for interview and observation of a second telecenter established by NITC located in the same place. A total of 25 telecenters was covered in this study. The total number of telecenters was noted earlier (see chapter 3 Table 3.7).

Each of these telecenters had different names such as Rural Community information

Centre, Jhuwani Community Library and information Centre, Kalika Rural Internet

Centre, for the purpose of simplicity and clarity, the word telecenter is used prefixed by location name such as Nangi Telecenter. A similarly unique code was allocated to each telecenter with a number preceded by short form of development, for example for 4th

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CHAPTER 4: Research Method telecenter in the central development region has a code CD4. The following table shows the list of selected telecenters:

Table 4.4 Selected Telecenters

Telecenter Topography District Location Owner Code ED1 Terai Jhapa Durgapur HLCIT ED2 Terai Jhapa Triphala HLCIT ED3 Terai Morang Madhumalla NITC ED4 Hills Ilam Godak HLCIT ED5 Terai Sunsari Inaruwa READ CD1 Valley Kavrepalanchowk Panauti NITC CD2 Valley Chitwan Jhuwani READ CD3 Hills Makawanpur Kamane NITC CD4 Terai Makawanpur Bashamadhi NITC CD5 Hills Dolakha Charikot Nepal Wireless CD6 Valley Kathmandu Sankhu NITC CD7 Valley Lalitpur Bungmati Local Community CD8 Valley Lalitpur Thecho Synergy Nepal WD1 Mountains Mustang Puthang READ WD2 Mountains Mustang Marpha NITC WD3 Hills Myagdi Ghara Nepal Wireless WD4 Mountains Myagdi Khibang Nepal Wireless WD5 Hills Baglung Baglung HLCIT Bazar WD6 Terai Nawalparasi Arghauli READ WD7 Hills Kaski Lekhnath HLCIT Bazar WD8 Mountains Myagdi Nangi Nepal Wireless WD9 Mountains Myagdi Ramche Nepal Wireless WD10 Mountains Mustang Jomsom NITC MWD Valley Dang Tulsipur HLCIT FWD Terai Dhangadhi Dhangadhi HLCIT Bazar

Source: Field Survey 2009-2011

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The list presented in the Table 4.4 covers all five development regions and topologies this is made clearer in the map of selected telecenters in Figure 4.2.

Figure 4.2 Map of Selected Telecenters

4.5 Selection of Stakeholders

4.5.1 Selection of Program Owner Respondents

There are a number of organizations involved in providing access to the internet in rural areas. Based on the numbers of telecenters established, period of establishment, the geographic coverage, the sectoral representation such as government, non-government and size of the organization were considered for the selection of four program owner institutions.

Two of them represented government organizations. These included the High Level

Commission for Information Technology (HLCIT) established under the chairmanship

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CHAPTER 4: Research Method of the Prime Minister in 2003 and the National Information Technology Centre (NITC) established under the Ministry of Technology in 2001. The other two organizations were non-government organizations. Rural Education Access and Development (READ)

Nepal and Nepal Wireless Project (NWP). READ Nepal was established in 1991 with a library-based model to empower communities in rural areas. NWP is a networking project, started in 2001 to connect the Himanchal High School located in Nangi village of Myagdi district in a remote western mountain region, which had no electricity or telephone. This project was started by a local teacher at Himanchal School, Mahabir

Pun - a graduate of Nebraska University, USA. Four organization heads/managers who had established telecenters in rural communities of Nepal were also interviewed.

4.5.2 Program Owners Background

4.5.2.1 National Information Technology Centre (NITC)

NITC was established in the year 2002 in line with IT Policy 2000 under the Ministry of

Science and Technology. The main objectives of NITC were to promote and develop information technology by providing access to the general public, to create meaningful employment, and to build a knowledge society supporting knowledge-based institutions and industries (NITC, 2002). The main functions of NITC are to assist the government of Nepal in all IT related work, computerization of government offices including creating/managing websites, serve as a data repository for a national level data bank, and implement rural telecenters as envisaged in the 10th national development plan. The tenth plan of the government adopted the strategy of expanding access of IT to the general public in rural areas with the following work plan:

‘Emphasis would be given to expand disseminate important information related with agriculture, education, health, and other business information to the rural areas through the expansion of IT and establishment of community information centres. As per the policy of expanding Internet

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access to all VDCs gradually, general people of 1,500 VDCs will be brought into the access of the facility within the plan period’ (NPC, 2002). This government institution first started with UNDP support as a pilot project for 13 telecenters in different parts of Nepal in 2003. NITC adopted a community based model to improve the living standard of rural people by providing access to information and knowledge through telecenters. Initially NITC utilized sites established by UNDP but later established many more telecenters by assessing local infrastructure, to meet community demand. NITC currently owns 40 community telecenters and 100 school kiosks.

4.5.2.2 High Level Commission for Information Technology

(HLCIT)

HLCIT is a peak body formed under the chairmanship of the prime minister of Nepal in 2003. Its objective was to provide crucial strategic direction and formulate appropriate policies for the development of ICT. Its major duties include assuming the role of promoter, facilitator and regulator to develop ICT through increased participation of the private sector, and establishing, developing, assisting and managing existing physical and virtual IT Parks. It was entrusted with the responsibility of developing programs aimed at making IT services available to the rural areas where private sector investment is less likely. HLCIT aimed to help Nepali ICT firms promote their products and services in international markets, provide ICT related services to the government, promote research and development in the ICT sector and prepare acts, regulations and guidelines for the development and growth of the ICT sector in the country (HLCIT, n.d.).

HLCIT prioritized telecenter establishment to make ICT services available to rural areas. Adopting a similar model to that of NITC, it established 66 telecenters in all five

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CHAPTER 4: Research Method development regions. The objective was to raise the living standard of rural people by providing access to ICT. HLCIT wanted to establish a central hub of information for telecenters with coordination from different government departments and other institutions based on community demand and their organizational assessment (HLCIT, n.d.). HLCIT developed the rural telecenter operation directives in 2004. The directives state that the selection of a telecenter site would be based on:

 Local demand and necessity

 Availability of electricity and telecommunication

 Commitment and capacity of local institution

 Technical situation including network and connectivity

 Cost Participation

 Security situation

 Usefulness of proposed program

 Sustainability of the program (HLCIT 2004)

HLCIT failed to implement the central hub of information for telecenters. The lack of coordination between different government departments, lack of adequate resources and continuity on content development were the main reasons for this failure. The difference between NITC and HLCIT was that HLCIT developed a Telecenter Manual that described different options and possibilities available to communities for telecenter establishment. This was followed by local stakeholders establishing rural telecenters;

HLCIT also had more effective communication with local telecenters. Their cost of establishing a telecenter was higher than NITC as they provided more equipment than

NITC.

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4.5.2.3 Nepal Wireless Project (NWP)

NWP was started as a pilot project to connect a remote village Nangi in Nepal to the internet. It was the dream of Mahabir Pun who returned to his native village Nangi, in

Myagdi district, Nepal to teach and connect schools to the internet after getting his

Master's Degree in Education from the University of Nebraska. Now it adopts public/private partnership as a business model to become a national project connecting villages with wireless technology with support from a national ISP, World Link, local and foreign volunteers and occasional support from international development institutions. Its main objective is to introduce information technology to villagers who do not have any communication access. Nepal Wireless Project hopes to make the life of rural people easier and more enjoyable by providing content in education, health, communication, job creation and weather and climate change monitoring. By creating tele-teaching and tele-training programs and making e-learning materials available to students, teachers and villagers in this area, they try to increase educational opportunities in remote villages. They have partnered with a public hospital in the capital city for telemedicine virtually bringing medical doctors to rural communities for healthcare.

They have started works in other areas including job creation and communication, which are only at the beginning stage.

NWP started with a telecenter in remote Myagdi district in 2002. This expanded to 22 villages in that district by 2007 and then connected other districts, such as Kaski, Parbat,

Mustang, Baglung, Makawanpur, Palpa and Dolakha. Nepal Wireless Network in 2010 connected 80 villages in 13 districts. NWP expanded its services based on community demand and using local commitment.

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4.5.2.4 Rural Education Access and Development (READ)

READ Nepal is another non-government organization promoting empowerment through ICT in rural communities. Dr. Antonia Neubauer, the president of a USA– based educational adventure–travel company, Myths and Mountains, after her trekking in 1987, organized the Nepal Library Project and has established READ, a non–profit corporation based in the United States. Through contributions given by client trekkers and from Dr. Neubauer’s company, the first library was built in 1991, at a cost of

$10,000 (Read Global, n.d.). It has established a rural network of 45 READ community libraries and resource centres located across the country. They adopted a library based model to empower the local community. In 2006, READ Nepal won the Bill and

Melinda Gates Foundation ‘Access to Learning Award’, which included $1M to further expand READ’s sustainable rural development model and to extend its capacity to provide information technology throughout remote regions of Nepal. READ’s objective is to work with rural communities to harness local knowledge and resources and build sustainable enterprises that meet local needs providing innovative rural solution to eradicate rural poverty (Read Global, n.d.).

4.5.3 Selection of Program Committee Chairperson/ Members

The selection of a telecenter also guided the selection of the management committee member or chairperson for interview. The selection of head of the committee depended upon their availability for a pre-arranged date for visits to the telecenter. Telephone call or email was used to arrange the appointment through telecenter managers. The researcher used a quota sampling technique to include female members from management in the interview list to understand the gender perspective. This depended on the availability and consent of female members or chairpersons for interviews.

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4.5.4 Selection of Telecenter Managers

The selection of telecenter determined which managers would be interviewed. However, in some cases, other staff members available on the day of the pre-arranged visit were interviewed instead.

4.5.5 Selection of User Interviewees

The telecenter users were selected randomly, they were simply whoever was present and using the services in telecenter on the day of the visit. The minimum numbers of users interviewed per telecenter was two and a maximum of six and quota sampling was used to include female users, in some places waiting for quite a long time for the visit of female users.

Interview Questions

The questions were designed to collect information for both ex-ante and ex-post analyses. A semi-structured schedule was designed to collect information about user’s income, education, gender, user’s exposure to ICT, expectation of telecenter before establishment and ways users applied information and used telecenter for communication with others19.

19 During the first phase of field visits, the interview questions were tested in Dhulikhel town information centre, a one hour drive from Kathmandu. Two users and one manager were interviewed, with their consent, following the ethical procedure designed for the research.. This centre is not included in subsequent selected 25 telecenters studied. Similarly, a program officer in one NGO, which had rural telecenter program, was chosen for the program owner interview questions. The analysis of these preliminary interviews led to some modifications such as gender and education information in management committee interview questions. But interviews were semi-structured in nature and there were opportunities for both interviewee and interviewer to add tail questions for clarification of issues.

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Semi-structured Interviews

The interview instrument was modified for each of the four different stakeholders groups: program owners; telecenter management committee heads/members; telecenter managers; and users. Program owners were those organizations located in Kathmandu, who designed and sent representatives to implement and support the Telecenter

Program in different rural areas. Telecenter management committee heads or members were the local persons responsible for managing the telecenters. These people were committee members, either selected or elected by the community in the village. The telecenter manager was the main person responsible for the day-to-day operation of the telecenter. They had regular interactions with users and were often an intermediary between users and the management committees. Users were the local men and women who used the internet and other services at the telecenters. Users also included some tourists and visitors.

The more intensive part of the data collection process occurred in the interviews of telecenter users and telecenter observation. The use of some closed questions and Likert scales generated responses that have been easily coded for recording and analysis. The data collection process at the field level was guided by the management interview responses, these helped inform responses to questions from users.

The following table shows the number of interviews carried out with each stakeholder group.

Table 4.5 Semi-structured Interview Groups

Groups Executed Program Owners 4 Management Committee Members 25 Telecenter Managers 25

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Users 90 Total 144

There were two phases of data collection. The first phase was during December 2009 to

February 2010. Interviews with four program owners, twenty management committees, twenty telecenter managers and seventy four users, were carried out through this phase.

The second phase was through January-February 2011. During the second phase a further twenty interviews were carried out with five management committee heads, five telecenter managers and sixteen users. The second phase also included re-visiting some of the telecenters in the central and western development regions to validate the data collected in the first phase20.

Group Discussion/ National Stakeholder Workshops

One group discussion was held in Pokhara, in the western development region in 2010

January. Twelve participants at the discussion were management committee members and telecenter managers. Some of them knew each other. This group discussion was conducted along the lines of ‘group depth interviews’ (Marczak and Sewell, 1998) and participants were asked to give their opinions about telecenters. The discussion was open enabling members in the group to raise issues and frame their observations and recollections in the light of experiences of colleagues from other telecenters. They were asked to focus mainly on what they perceived as the most common form of use and application of the internet information, communication capacity of the telecenters, and other services and benefits they received, as well as actual or potential problems they

20 For semi-structured interviews, appointments were fixed with program owners through telephone and email. The research aim and introduction page and consent forms were used as per approved ethics proposal. For other three stakeholders: users, managers and management committee members, the telephone call or email was used in conjunction with visit dates with the telecenter manager after the telecenters were selected. 143

CHAPTER 4: Research Method encountered and their ideas for possible improvements. The researcher observed, listened and took notes, while moderating the discussion. The discussion continued for two and half hours divided into three time elements: the first half an hour for introduction and outlining the purpose of the discussion; the second hour for the actual discussion; and the remaining hour for presentations of five minute summaries by each participant.

A national stakeholder workshop was organized in February 2011 in Kathmandu. The purpose of the workshop was to gain additional insights about some of the key findings and to allow reflection on the analysis and findings, many from those responsible for the design and implementation of the program. The ICT working group of the

Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce (FNCCI) assisted in organizing the workshop by inviting participants, providing the conference hall and arranging other logistics for the workshop. A total of 31 participants attended the workshop.

Participants included program owners, management committee members, telecenter managers and some users, FNCCI ICT group members and representatives from the

Computer Association of Nepal were participants in the conference. The researcher presented an overview of the research and preliminary findings. This was followed by an unstructured discussion then questions, answers and discussion, which was also unstructured. The workshop lasted for three hours. The list of participant is included in

Appendix VIII.

Telecenter Observation

During the first phase of the field work, twenty telecenters were observed for on average, three hours per telecenter. During the second phase, five more telecenters were observed. In some telecenters, the researcher observed passively. This required noting conversations and behaviour concerning the use of the internet and other

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CHAPTER 4: Research Method services. On occasions, the researcher asked questions about their searches and also observed their attitude and behaviour. The activities included conversations with the manager, with users of the internet, non-users, who simply visited the centres and users of other telecenter services.

4.6 Interview Question Alignment

As stated earlier, interview questions were open-ended to facilitate the discussion when required, to hear the insights and different stories of internet use by villagers. All four groups: program owners, management committee members, managers and users were asked different sets of semi-structured questions in their interviews. Program owners questions were mainly around their expectations, the outcomes, challenges and future programs. For other three groups, questions were grouped thematically -ex-ante expectation, accessibility technical, participation, information need, problems and so forth. The themes and number of questions that related to each theme for the three groups is presented in table 4.6. For full interview information refer to appendix IX.

Table 4.6 Interview Question Alignment

Management Managers Users Committee General Question about self 6 related 7 related 10 related questions questions questions Telecenter Use/Participation 9 related 9 related 10 related Question questions questions questions Finance/Sustainability/Assistance 13 related 7 related 3 related Question questions questions questions Technical /Operation Question - 11 related - questions Problem Question 4 related 2 related 2 related questions questions questions Information Need 6 related 4 related 3 related questions questions questions Ex-ante Expectation 4 related - - questions

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Ex-post Outcome 5 related - - questions Socio-economic 7 related - 7 related Impact/Effectiveness questions questions Future Prospective - - -

4.7 Data Recording and Coding

The data were recorded in a questionnaire, itself from four groups, namely program owners, management committee members, telecenter managers and users. The interviews with four program owners were also recorded. The field notes were prepared for each telecenter based on the observations made after conducting interviews with the manager and users. The group discussion was recorded (in writing) and the proceedings of the national conference discussion was also recorded.

After the completion of data collection, the data were entered into Excel spreadsheets with data tools such as data validation and consolidation, group analysis and the generation of tables and charts.

4.8 Ethical Considerations

The ethical issues are very important in qualitative social research. Lincoln (1995) argues that ‘standards for quality in interpretive social science are also standards of ethics’ (cited in Cheek, 2003, p 95). Creswell (2007) points out many ethical challenges in qualitative research whether in the field collecting data or presenting qualitative reports.

Reciprocity, power balances, consent, confidentiality, privacy and anonymity are some of the ethical issues that must be considered when conducting qualitative research.

Cheek (2003) argues that the broader picture and potential effects of research findings and actions arising from the research should be considered as the potential harm of the

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CHAPTER 4: Research Method research rather than concentrating only on anonymity for participants or confidentiality of data while looking at ethical issues. Kvale (1996) presented ethical issues arising in each of the seven stages of interview investigation, namely in thematising, designing, interview situation, transcription, analysis, verification and reporting.

The study was guided by the University of Western Sydney Ethics Policy. The interviews were to be carried out in the community context of Nepal. Accordingly, an ethics proposal was submitted and approval received. Throughout the field investigation, the researcher followed ‘ethics in practice’ for a local social context in

Nepal where there is a lack of established ethical protocols. As the research required people’s participation in interviews and being observed in telecenters, consent for interview and observation was taken from community members assuring protection of privacy and confidentiality. The researcher must be aware of the benefits to the community from the study and it will not ‘further marginalize or disempower the study participants’ (Creswell 2003).

The researcher initially planned to provide training on data collection, including ethical issues, for research assistants. Due to the limited budget, the hiring of a research assistant for this process was cancelled. Instead the researcher collaborated with local community and the telecenter committee to ensure the needs and priorities of the community were met and to frame the strategies that respect the communities and community sites while at the same time fulfilling the research goals. The strategies included the participation of the community in research development, availability of adequate information on study objectives and benefits to the community, reviewing/confirming the interpretation and the systematic feedback of research results.

Due to the literacy levels of the villagers (many cannot read), the researcher provided a verbal explanation of study and received a verbal consent from them while interviewing.

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This research also used focus groups as one of the qualitative methods - when selecting and involving participants, full information about the purpose and uses of the participants’ contributions was provided. Participants were informed about the expectations of the group and topic and the participants were not pressured to speak.

Anonymity of data and confidentiality was maintained. The researcher explained the uses and usefulness of this research and furnished the evidence that participation would benefit the interviewee participants. This included a better understanding of the operation and effects of telecenters on the economy and social life of villages. The researcher conveyed preliminary research results in a national workshop at Kathmandu and made arrangements with central program owners to disseminate these initial research results to telecenters and for final research results when the research was complete.

4.9 Conclusion

This chapter described the selection of research methodology, justifying the research design and included the collection of qualitative data through, interviews and group discussions. Table 4.7 summarises the sources of data for this study.

Quantitative data, especially user data, were analysed using descriptive statistics.

Researcher observation at the telecenter site and the field interview comments have been additional sources for qualitative data analysis together with the interviews and group discussion. The data collected in the second phase through stakeholder conference workshops, were analysed qualitatively and this process was also a primary validation technique for the first phase of data collection. The chapter included an ethical consideration for this research and a description of methods for the interpretation of data in chapter five, where the data from the results of interviews,

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CHAPTER 4: Research Method group discussions and stakeholders’ workshop is presented. The next chapter presents data on the ex-ante expectations and the ex-post experiences of stakeholders.

Table 4.7 Sources of Data

Group Group Analysis Personal National Interviews Telecenter Discussion Conference Observation Documentary Semi Structured Semi Structured Communication Groups Planned Planned Planned Executed Executed Executed Executed Planned and Early adaptors Early adaptors Policy Documents Program Policy Owners 4 4 2 1 20 25 1 Village Minutes Makers

Filed Documentation Other Management at HLCIT and program Committees 20 25 NITC owners People Acts and from ICT Users 120 90 Regulations sectors Total 164 144 2 1 20 25 1 - -

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Ex-ante Expectations and Ex-post Experiences

5.1 A Preliminary Classification of Telecenter Performance

This chapter presents the data collected from twenty five telecenters from different regions of Nepal. The expectations and experiences of program owners, management committee members, managers and users were collected and recorded through interview results, group meetings and a stakeholder workshop (See chapter four). Program owner interview results are presented separately as each of the program owners had their own model of a telecenter and this was due to and based on the different development regions with different topographies. In this chapter the twenty five case study telecenters have been classified into three categories: average performing telecenters and outliers that are either better performing or demonstrate limited performance.

The seven criteria to determine the grouping of these telecenters were: community access; the levels and breadth of community participation; income and profitability; technical performance; information demand; availability of services; effective uses and attitude. Community access was determined by convenient location, suitable opening hours, restrictions on the use, assistance from operators and management committee approach on inclusiveness. Community participation was determined by the number of daily visitors, frequency of the visits, female participation in the management committee and frequency of community meetings. For example better performing telecenters had on average 67 daily visitors whereas limited performing had only 22 visitors. The income and profitability was assessed in absolute terms taking daily income and profitability over the last three years and whether they achieved a profit, broke even or

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CHAPTER 5: Ex Ante Expectations and Ex Post Experiences recorded a loss. The better performing telecenters, except one were profitable and their average daily income was almost A$8 per day (Rs. 583). The limited performing telecenters incurred a loss and daily income was less than A$ 2.5 (Rs. 183) a day.

Technical performance was evaluated by the numbers of computers available for users, internet speed and power outages. Information demand and service availability types were measured by information search requests from users. Besides the internet, telecenters offered other services such as training, discussion, phone and photocopying.

Effective uses were linked to the application of information and knowledge for productive purposes and having socio economic impact. In general terms, the ‘effective uses’ criteria was based on responses from managers, users and management committees about the application and value of knowledge and communication accessed through telecenters as well as the provision of training. For the last criteria that determined the grouping of telecenters, attitude was subjectively measured based on notes from field observations that took into account participants’ use of computers, demand for information, regular interaction with other users, sharing information and the availability of managers and management committee members in assisting users.

These seven factors for performance classification (see also chapter four 4.2 diagram) were supported by literature (Cheang and Lee 2010; Rothenberg-Alami and Pal 2005;

Jalali 2006; Gomez 2010; Sey and Fellows 2011) to measure the performance of telecenters. The ranking was arrived at based on the positivity of responses from users, managers and management committee members to the interview questions (see

Appendix IX question details). The question numbers that relate to each factor for users, managers and management committees are listed in Table 5.1.

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Table 5.1 Factors for Ranking Performance

Manager Management Factors User questions questions Committee questions Level of Participation 2.1,2.5, 3.2 3.2, 3.3, 3.10, 3.11 2.4 ,3.2,

Breadth of participation 3.4 3.7 3.5

Income/Profit 4.3 3.9, 4.3, 4.5, 4.6 4.6 Technical 3.5 5.1, 5.3, 5.4 8.1, 8.7, 8.8 Information Demand and 2.4, 3.3,3.7 5.6, 5.7,5.8 5.2, 5.3, 5.4, 5.5 Availability 6.1, 6.3, 6.4, 6.5, Effectiveness 3.8, 5.2, 5.4 5.2, 7.9 6.6, 6.8 Interview Attitude Interview Interview comments comments comments

Source: Field Survey, 2009-2011

Users, Managers and management committee members had multiple questions for determining each performance factor. Their responses were averaged to provide an individual score for each performance factor. As there were two to six users interviewed at telecenters, users’ responses were averaged in a user column first for that particular telecenter and secondly their responses again averaged to provide an individual score for each performance factor. The scoring was from 1 to 10, a higher score meaning higher performance. The telecenter score for each performance factor representing responses from management committees, managers and users is presented in table 5.2, which illustrates the average score for each factor and ranking for all twenty five telecenters based on the score range.

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Table 5.2 Ranking of Performance of Telecenters

Code Telecenters Level of Breadth of Income Technical Information Socio- Attitude Total Rank Participation Participation / Profit Demand economic score /Availability Impact Durgapur ED1 9 8 8 7 7 8 10 57 5 Telecenter ED2 Triphala Telecenter 4 3 2 2 4 3 1 19 15 Madhumalla ED3 7 7 6 5 7 6 7 45 11 153 Telecenter

ED4 Godak Telecenter 7 6 5 5 6 7 6 42 12 ED5 Inaruwa Telecenter 6 5 5 5 6 5 6 38 13 CD1 Panauti Telecenter 4 4 2 2 4 4 5 25 14 Jhuwani library and CD2 8 7 5 6 6 6 7 45 11 Telecenter CD3 Kamane Telecenter 5 3 1 1 2 2 4 18 16 Basamadhi CD4 9 8 10 7 8 8 9 59 4 Telecenter CD5 Charikot Telecenter 7 6 6 7 7 6 7 46 10 CD6 Sankhu Telecenter 8 8 7 7 6 6 8 50 9 Bungmati CD7 9 9 8 9 8 9 9 61 3 Telecenter CD8 Thecho Telecenter 8 8 7 7 7 7 8 52 6 Puthang Library WD1 10 9 10 9 7 9 9 63 2 and Telecenter

WD2 Marpha Telecenter 7 6 5 6 6 6 6 42 12 WD3 Ghara Telecenter 8 8 6 8 7 7 7 51 8 WD4 Khibang Telecenter 9 9 8 8 7 8 10 59 4 Arghauli library WD5 7 7 6 6 6 7 8 47 7 and Telecenter WD6 Baglung Telecenter 7 7 5 5 6 6 6 42 12 Lekhnath WD7 7 7 6 7 6 7 7 47 9 Telecenter WD8 Nangi Telecenter 10 9 8 9 9 9 10 64 1 WD9 Ramche Telecenter 7 7 6 6 6 7 7 46 10

154 Jomsom Telecenter WD10 7 8 8 7 6 8 8 52 6 (NITC) MWD Tulsipur Telecenter 7 7 5 6 6 7 7 45 11 Dhanagadhi FWD 7 8 6 6 6 6 7 46 10 Telecenter

Source: Field Survey, 2009-2011

CHAPTER 5: Ex Ante Expectations and Ex Post Experiences

The first column in Table 5.2 is the unique identification code for each telecenter, for example ED2 means second the telecenter in the eastern development region and WD7 means the seventh telecenter in the western development region selected for the study.

The last column in Table 5.2 indicates the final performance rank of each telecenter. As there were only 25 telecenters studied, subjectively, three groups, top, middle and bottom make sense for comparative performance evaluation. Therefore, the telecenters that had a 75 per cent score (53 out of 70) or more, were ranked 1 to 5 based on the score as was presented in the table and subsequently classified as better performing telecenters of which there were six in number. Those which scored 50 per cent (35 out of 70) or more were ranked 6 to 13 based on the score and subsequently defined as average performing telecenters, there were sixteen in this group. Those scoring less than

50 per cent were ranked 14 to 16 and further classified as limited performing telecenters.

These three limited performing telecenters were not even using the available resources for potential benefits and generally looking for someone else in the supply chain to deliver benefits to them.

In most of these twenty five telecenters, information in productive practices was found on agriculture and tourism. Teachers and students accessed mainly education and employment information. Some collected information about health. Almost all groups accessed news and newspapers. It was not only government information such as information from concerned departments on agriculture, forestry, health but all kinds of information from the web such as news, music and videos from YouTube, financial information and information related to communication were accessed. For example, prices and offers from different mobile vendors for mobile plans and pre-paid services, news from around the globe including BBC websites and memberships to various email and information sites such as Gmail, Facebook, Skype, Yahoo mail were used extensively. In general, the breadth of users was quite wide ranging, including farmers, 155

CHAPTER 5: Ex Ante Expectations and Ex Post Experiences students, teachers, business people, housewives, visitors and tourists and even some marginalized community groups.

The table 5.3 shows the classification of these telecenters according to the region. The western development region had three better performing and no limited performing telecenters. The central development region had two limited performing and two better performing telecenters.

Table 5.3 Telecenter Groups in Different Region

Average Better Limited Region Total Performing Performing Performing EDR 3 1 1 5 CDR 4 2 2 8 WDR 7 3 0 10 MWDR/FWDR 2 0 0 2 Total 16 6 3 25

Source: Field Survey, 2009-2011

Nepal Wireless Project (NWP) had one third of total better performing telecenters (see table 5.4). NGOs NWP and READ both had no limited performing telecenters; three limited performing belonged to government institutions.

Table 5.4 Telecenters by Program Owners

Owner Average Performing Better Performing Limited Performing Total HLCIT 5 1 2 8 NITC 4 1 1 6 NWP 3 2 0 5 READ 3 1 0 4 Others 1 1 0 2 Total 16 6 3 25

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The following section presents an overview of the ex-ante expectations and subsequent ex-post experiences and observations of program owners, management committee members, managers and users. The analysis from the point of view of management committee members, managers and users is presented separately for the better, average and limited performing telecenters. This enables some of the underlying differences in the Telecenter Program to be revealed. The ex-post outcomes are discussed in terms of organisational issues, accessibility issues, participation issues, education and training issues, using information and communication capacity for socio-economic changes, impact and technical issues.

5.2 Ex-ante and Ex-post Expectations and Experiences of the Telecenter Owners

Three government organizations and approximately ten Non-Government

Organizations (NGOs) were involved with Nepalese telecenters. Telecenters covered in this study involved two government organizations, High Level Commission for

Information Technology (HLCIT) and National Information Technology Centre

(NITC) and two NGO organizations, Nepal Wireless Project (NWP) and Rural

Education Access and Development (READ) as program owners. The interview results of these program owners are presented below.

5.2. 1 Ex-ante Owner Expectations – General Perspectives

All four program owners were asked to describe their expectations of the Telecenter

Program before it was implemented in rural areas. NITC expected that it would present useful content in six thematic areas: agriculture; health; education; productive economic activities; environment; and disaster mitigation in Nepali language. The six content areas were selected from a list of potential areas identified after the feasibility study of UNDP

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CHAPTER 5: Ex Ante Expectations and Ex Post Experiences projects. This content would be generated by coordinating with government departments and other development agencies (NITC n.d). NITC expected that telecenters in rural areas would provide internet access to rural users to enable them to gain access to this content. It was expected that this would benefit rural users by increasing their income and improving their living standard. They expected that telecenters would also help awareness, training and social mobilization for community development. Farmers, students and local community in general were the expected users of the internet. In short, it was expected that these centres would operate as a knowledge hub as well as a place for discussion for the villagers on social and economic matters (Subarna Shakya, Personal Communication, November 2009).

HLCIT expected telecenters to contribute to socio-economic development in rural areas through access to information. Their telecenters have two staff members: a telecenter manager and a “social mobilizer”. For HLCIT, local women were preferred for the position of social mobilizer, responsible for visiting the community and explaining the potential benefits of using the internet. HLCIT through this process anticipated engaging a wide range of users in those telecenters (Bhattarai, MB, Personal

Communication, November 29, 2009).

NWP expected their community telecenters to be used by tourists as well as local community members. They expected the main users of telecenters would be students and villagers and had expectations about developing distance learning and telemedicine

(Mahabir pun, Personal Communication, January, 2010). NWP planned to connect schools to the internet and provide telemedicine services to villages. Their delivery model was to provide the internet bandwidth bearing all the cost of relay stations and training to support staff. It was expected that all other support and management would be carried by local community. Technical feasibility for wireless was assessed after an

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CHAPTER 5: Ex Ante Expectations and Ex Post Experiences estimate was made about community demand. NWP expected that depending on the community location and characteristics, they would provide necessary ICT equipment.

READ libraries and resource centres aimed to provide information and knowledge.

READ established telecenters were different from other three program owners in three ways. First, it already had an active local community group, who visited the library, read news papers and books, meet friends and discuss issues. Second, the local managing group already had some experience in community dealings, their needs and a delivery strategy. Third, the community centre already owned a physical asset, a building, constructed in collaboration with local community. There were two telecenters covered by this study owned by others: one by NGO Synergy Nepal; and one by a local community. It was not possible to gain access to capture expectations from these two owner groups.

5.2.2 Financial Intentions and Expectations

To establish a telecenter in each village, there had to be availability of infrastructure like electricity and telephone and a local commitment for a venue and furniture. Any local government/village council’s financial support was an added advantage. NITC purchased equipment centrally, assisted in selecting telecenter manpower locally and trained them in Kathmandu. Internet connectivity (free for a year and fifty per cent reimbursed by NITC for next two years) as well as the first year’s salaries were provided.

Onsite equipment maintenance with support by engineers from Kathmandu was provided for the first two years. This form of assistance was a one-off package. NITC faced more demand for resources after the expiry of their support package, indicating that these centres were not financially sustainable for the designated period as initially expected. For HLCIT, the financial support model was similar to that of NITC.

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The NWP received support from the international telecommunication union and the

Ramon Magsaysay Award prize money received by Mahabir Pun was also invested. They held a “$1 campaign” in the USA and similar initiatives in Malaysia, Hong Kong and the

Middle East to support internet connection for rural villages. Financially, they did not provide a fixed number of computers or salary for telecenter employees. They provided an inexpensive internet connection, generally A$30 per month. This helped the technical establishment and provided training. The community had to bear all other costs. When

NWP provided equipment to a marginalized community, it was a one-off package of computers. The important feature of their approach was to provide subsidized internet connectivity, which was provided to all communities in surrounding locations.

For READ the telecenter was only part of an expanding project for community development. The Library based model required a building, which had to be constructed with local support. The land and labour support was provided by local communities.

Once the building was completed, READ provided books, shelves, and computers.

Computers were provided through READ funds or through partnership with government organizations such as NITC or HLCIT as one-time package. Explaining the procedure and financial support on the program, the CEO stated,

Our main aim was to establish a library in partnership with the local community and in recent years the information centre has been a part of the library. Based on community demand and commitment for land and labour, we make our organizational assessment as well as reviewing a collaborating partner proposal if such is available. Then we funded the construction of library building, supply of books and telecenter equipment. We provided training as well for operation and made sure it was sustainable locally as we only provide advisory services after this initial support (CEO4 respondent, December 2009). READ collaborated with other organizations for training staff on ICT. READ was not involved in creating content but provided consulting services for building enterprises, which in turn supported these centres financially.

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5.2.3 Ex-Post Experiences of Owners

5.2. 3.1 Socio-economic Impact, Effectiveness and Evaluation

NITC did not have any monitoring or evaluation framework in place. They received ad- hoc feedback from engineers visiting the telecenter sites or through emails sent by telecenter managers. They felt that telecenters had an open spill-over effect both at the central and the local level. However, it was revealed that NITC did not share their experiences with other organizations establishing telecenters in non-government or the private sector. In an interview, the NITC CEO supported the claim that villagers were adopting ICT.

NITC is of a view that there has been increasing willingness to adopt ICT in villages, which can be substantiated by greater demand for community telecenters and increasing demand from existing telecenters for more information on productive sectors such as agriculture and employment. NITC believes that the implementation of telecenters helped us on policy issues as their intention to change productive practices has not really worked except for some positive effect on agriculture such as organic vegetable farming in Basamadhi (CEO1 respondent, December 2009). The decision by farmers to sell crops right after harvesting or store these for future sale was facilitated by the agriculture price information available through the internet at telecenters. From NITC’s perspective, telecenters were not able to directly increase income or improve the livelihood in the rural area but they did assist in including this role in some areas. For example, many of the users in the telecenters in the western hills region were tourists which helped them become financially sustainable and increased availability of tourist related information (Subarna Shakya, Personal Communication,

December 2009).

Among HLCIT telecenters, only one the Durgapur telecenter was a better performing case with Kamane and Triphala both limited in performance. The HLCIT telecenter model was similar to that of NITC, but HLCIT allocated a special desk officer to assist

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CHAPTER 5: Ex Ante Expectations and Ex Post Experiences telecenter managers, monitor the operation and solicit feedback. In an interview with the vice chairman of HLCIT, he stated that although telecenters demonstrated a high potential to change the livelihood of rural people, outcomes were limited and not as effective as originally expected. Nevertheless there was an important learning process generated through implementation.

Despite our sincere efforts the telecenter program was not as successful as planned in all areas. But there are glimpses of hope with positive impact and its potential to improve the socio-economic conditions of rural people as demonstrated by some villages such as in the Durgapur, Dharke, and Safenbagar telecenters. Villagers were eager to use and adopt this new technology and apply information for productive social purposes. The program implementation left us with important learning in understanding rural needs, and in reorienting the design to be more effective, integrating more services from government and economic information (CEO2 respondent, January 2010). When the development of relevant content was completed, NWP hoped to change productive practices in economic sectors with information, communication and knowledge through access to the internet. They were trying to stimulate job creation from overseas and thus generate remittances. They also hoped to provide information on crop cultivation according to climate and information on how to more effectively utilize the local e-commerce portal ‘Hatbazar’. The CEO of NWP outlined their hopes for their telecenters.

Our telecenters have not been able to contribute much to increasing the income of local communities currently, but it has the potential to do so with more useful content and wider community participation. Community characteristics, technological characteristics and the economic base are critical factors for the performance of telecenters. Community driven initiatives with the use of information and technology, experienced an increase in tourism, some inspiring activities and telecenters located along the trekking route and hotel businesses had a more sustainable model and performed financially much better (CEO3 respondent, Feb 2011). NWP was aware of Government policies on telecenters and noted that it was however, not effective in all areas. They offered the opinion that government policies do not help other non-profit or private organizations, which are engaged in providing ICT access to

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CHAPTER 5: Ex Ante Expectations and Ex Post Experiences improve rural lives. In an interview, the chief of NWP, Mahabir Pun, stressed the need for content development for localized productive activities drawing attention to the earlier government failure in this area.

The government did not deliver the content in six thematic areas and so we are developing our own content in agriculture, education and health (Mahabir Pun, Personal Communication, January, 2010) He further stated that the internet was at an introductory stage and would take some time for a spill-over effect to take place but also noted that indications were positive between NWP and rural communities. The increasing number of users in the rural community was a result of the growing awareness of others who were using the new technology and their subsequent growing awareness of its potential benefits. According to Pun, there was a positive impact flowing on to the other uses of technologies such as digital cameras, projectors and mobile phones. This work brought the realization that their focus needed to be much more on the younger generation as they were more ready to adapt and utilize such resources and facilities to increase their knowledge and communication. Most of NWP telecenters were established at schools and according to

Mahabir Pun, ‘The longer term impact of the internet [will] depend very much on youth’

(Personal Communication, January 2010).

READ had not undertaken an evaluation into the impact of telecenters on their resource centres. It received feedback from operators on the problems of telecenter operation such as connectivity and maintenance of equipment and shared these problems with collaborating agencies. They emphasised that the benefit of sharing information between all stakeholders produces a collaborative effort in improving outcomes, especially when based on local feedback.

We observed a willingness to make use of telecenters among rural users and witnessed its impact on the use of other technologies. We received feedback from resources on various problems related with network,

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content in local language and shared these problems with partner organization. We realized that solutions to these problems remained unrealized (CEO4 respondent, February 2011). NWP developed content appropriate for agriculture production with the help of volunteers from the USA. They developed interactive educational content, based on government curriculum for students using open source (Ruth and Giri 2007) and did this with the help of the Open Learning Exchange, an NGO. NWP also extended their services to a central hill district, Makawanpur connecting seven more telecenters at schools with access to internet information, educational services for student and telemedicine services with wireless network between these telecenters, Hetaunda local

Hospital and Kathmandu Hospital in the capital city.

READ stated that using their model, they were able to create employment as well as generate income in villages. Each centre employed a minimum of three to a maximum of five people in a village and built a base for enterprises so as to adopt a sustainable business model with community participation. This development approach adopted by

READ reflected an expected link between the telecenter and employment opportunities.

However, READ noted, telecenters did not contribute directly to an increase in income for these communities. They were more involved in imparting information and knowledge through books and the internet and had no plans of generating their own content for local communities.

5.2.3.2 Challenges through the Implementation Phase

NITC understood that budget, human resources, infrastructure, and the cost of the internet, content and coordination were the main challenges to their telecenter program.

Their program was much disrupted through the Maoist insurgency, as they could not visit rural areas for the establishment of telecenters and program. It was largely abandoned in some areas. From NITC’s perspective, infrastructure, content and the

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CHAPTER 5: Ex Ante Expectations and Ex Post Experiences cost of internet connectivity are three policy areas on which to focus for future telecenter establishment. The lack of an adequate budget allocation from government was also a major hurdle for sustainability and expansion.

HLCIT also found financial sustainability a major issue. Retaining trained manpower in telecenters, creating useful content for villagers, providing the internet connectivity, and coordination especially at the central level provided major challenges for telecenter implementation.

We had experimented with telecenter implementation in rural areas. Our site visits and feedback from local communities suggested expensive internet connection and lack of useful content in Nepali language as two major hurdles for rural people’s access to technology and improved life conditions. Remodeling the telecenter program is needed (CEO2 respondent, January 2010). NWP faced capability problems at the local level. Government policy on establishing relay stations, sharing of national information infrastructure, fibre-optic network, VOIP, wireless and local language content issues were significant bottlenecks in spreading the internet in rural areas. (Mahabir Pun, personal communication, January 2010). READ noted that infrastructure and internet policy restricted access to information technology in rural areas.

5.2.3.3 Future Prospects

At the time of present study, HLCIT had not planned for any expansion of their program. This, it claimed, was largely due to a lack of policy direction from an unstable government, limited financial resources and the need for the reorientation of the design for programs to be more effective (CEO2 respondent, January 2010). HLCIT plans to convert some of these telecenters as an exemplar, with improved physical appearance,

(room, number of computers, telecenter staff), improved internet connection (cost and

Speed) and content delivery to benchmark future telecenter establishment model. With

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CHAPTER 5: Ex Ante Expectations and Ex Post Experiences this restructuring, it would focus more on policy issues and allow NITC to own its telecenter program. NITC had a plan to establish 30 more telecenters and support 100 schools with school kiosks annually. NITC had not planned any modification to the existing model for future telecenters.

NWP has plans for introducing additional resources for tele-medicine. The first of these telecenters was operated between Kathmandu Model Hospital in the capital city, and

Nangi telecenter in Myagdi and Om Hospital in Pokhara City. Later, this was extended to two more villages in Myagdi. Recently, they completed telemedicine services between the Dolakha hospital in the Charikot district - eastern hill district, the Hetaura hospital in the Makawanpur District - central hill district and Kathmandu Model Hospital in the capital city. They have a plan to start tele-training for teachers and health workers in rural areas, expand the virtual ATM and remittance services, expand village networks, and collaborate with potential partners for climate change monitoring systems.

NWP looks forward to having what they describe as an information highway, sharing national infrastructure, and the use of rural development funds for rural connectivity.

Mahabir Pun explained the future plans of NWP suggesting some policy changes to expand the network.

NWP is of the opinion that if access is provided, participation and support will follow. Our expansion plan is based on community demand, support from volunteers and national policies on rural fund and information highway. The policymakers need to understand that wireless is for rural people so rural development fund created from telecom tax should connect all rural community with the establishment of relay stations. There should be no tax on wireless equipments. The integration of school and community would give best results as experienced by our program. We have found that rural people have an attitude to pay for the services. Villagers may be late but never default on their payment (Mahabir Pun, personal Communication, January 2010). READ also has future expansion plans and programs to equip all libraries with ICT. To achieve this, they look forward to a policy from government for improved infrastructure

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CHAPTER 5: Ex Ante Expectations and Ex Post Experiences especially affordable internet connectivity and improved information content for villagers.

5.2. 4 Conclusion: Overlooking the Social Nature of Telecenters

The four owner organizations, two government institutions NITC and HLCIT, implemented a model of fully-fledged support (equipment, internet connectivity, manpower training, maintenance support and salary) for a limited time as discussed in chapter three. Nepal Wireless adopted a ‘connectivity access model’ mainly providing internet connection whereas READ adopted a ‘library-based model’, integrated with an already established library. Issues related to connectivity such as technology, speed, and cost were important for all organizations. Government organizations relied mainly on dial-up connections from Nepal Telecom; NWP used wireless connections of its own organized through a national ISP, and READ used wireless from NWP or UTL (a private telecom company) and dial up from Nepal Telecom in other cases. Three organizations aimed for the development of content but found that local demands for content were not being met. The challenges were identical: limited information infrastructure; limited level of education and income among users; availability of technical skills for maintenance in rural areas; and high local community expectations.

NWP and READ were critical of government policies on communication, especially on the degree of deregulation for wireless and fibre optic and deployment of the internet in rural areas. Even though Nepal had started liberalising its telecom sector, there were restrictions on wireless use. There was also a Nepal Telecom monopoly over the use of the national fibre optic.

All organisations accepted that their original expectations were not met, but telecenters had provided access to information and internet communication capability to rural communities, not available before the Telecenter Program implementation. Program

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CHAPTER 5: Ex Ante Expectations and Ex Post Experiences owners knew that some telecenters performed better than others but they had not studied why. They assumed the potential of the internet to improve socio economic conditions and as such continued to plan for future expansion programs. With the exception of READ, the belief, that if information was conveyed and communication channels made available, telecenters would automatically deliver benefit, was the prevailing perspective.

The four organization interviews reflected a common approach to telecenter deployment in rural areas - simply to provide access but no programs by owners to promote usage. Despite the location differences in economic base, ethnicity and culture, the provision of information content from the program owners had been generally similar except NWP telecenters. Technological connectivity differences were found based on the availability of communication infrastructure. The program owners concentrated more on technology, connectivity and the operation of telecenters than creating value through information generation, flow and application. The original six thematic areas were often ignored in plans for generating improvements. The lack of monitoring and evaluation of programs and interagency co-ordination weakened the effectiveness of the program. There was limited opportunity to make use of feedback for improvement of telecenters. The Nepalese government appear to be aware of these problems, especially the social nature of the telecenters (Sharad Shah, personal communication, February, 2011) but had not introduced policy reforms intended to improve the system.

The next section will be looking into the social nature of telecenters from the perspectives of users, managers and management committees. As discussed in the following sections, management committees, managers and users were more deeply

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CHAPTER 5: Ex Ante Expectations and Ex Post Experiences interested in the values of the information provided, the nature and purpose of the communication and application to daily life.

5.3 Ex-ante and Ex-post Expectations and Experiences of

Other Stakeholders

This section presents the experiences of users, managers and management committee members. These are presented separately for the average performing, better performing and limited performing telecenters. Ex-ante and ex-post experiences were recorded.

Organizational issues included the performance of management committees and managers’ roles, financial and other organization issues. Accessibility issues included physical access and cost, human capacity and relevance and enabling environments for equitable access. Use and participation were concerned with the actual application and communication of knowledge through the use of the internet and community participation (activity types and level). Technical issues dealt with connectivity, equipment and other information infrastructure situation.

5.3.1 Experiences from the Average Performing Telecenters

The following table presents the list of average performing telecenters. It includes three telecenters in the eastern development region (EDR), four in the central development region (CDR), seven in western development region (WDR) and one each in the mid- western development region (MWDR) and the far-western development region

(FWDR).

Table 5.5 List of Average Performing Telecenters

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Name of the Region Topography District Location Owner Telecenter Madhumalla EDR Telecenter Terai Morang Madhumalla NITC Godak Telecenter EDR Hills Ilam Godak HLCIT Inaruwa Telecenter EDR Terai Sunsari Inaruwa READ Jhuwani Telecenter CDR Valley Chitwan Jhuwani READ Charikot Telecenter CDR Hills Dolakha Charikot NWP Synergy Thecho Telecenter CDR Valley Lalitpur Thecho Nepal Sankhu Telecenter CDR Valley Sankhu Kathmandu NITC

Marpha Telecenter WDR Mountains Mustang Marpha NITC

Ghara Telecenter WDR Hills Myagdi Ghara NWP Nawalpara Arghauli Telecenter WDR Terai Arghauli READ si Baglung Telecenter WDR Hills Baglung Baglung Bazaar HLCIT

Lekhnath Telecenter WDR Hills Kaski Lekhnath Bazaar HLCIT

Ramche Telecenter WDR Hills Myagdi Ramche NWP

Jomsom Telecenter WDR Hills Mustang Jomsom NITC

Dang Telecenter MWDR Valley Dang Tulsipur HLCIT Dhanagadhi Dhangadh Dhangadhi FWDR Terai HLCIT Telecenter i Bazaar

Source: Field Research, 2009-2011

5.3.2 Ex-ante Expectations of Average Performing Telecenters

The management committee members of these telecenters expected communication with friends, relatives and businesses and useful information for the community to be the main advantages of establishing telecenters. In general, most committee members thought users would use telecenters mainly for communications with friends, relatives

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CHAPTER 5: Ex Ante Expectations and Ex Post Experiences and businesses using internet phones, emails and recently Skype. Some expected telecenters to provide information on employment information, while some expected users to use them for their occupational interests, students for educational purposes, farmers for agriculture information (price and others) and trades people for business information. Some committee members offered the opinion that users would use these telecenters to fill the gaps in their knowledge.

We were very excited, when telecenters were proposed in this place. It was totally a new thing for us. Most of us did not know how to use and how beneficial it would be. The interaction meeting helped us to expect that this will help us to improve our living conditions with various information and opportunities such as making right decisions related to our occupation whether in agriculture or business, helping students in education, promoting tourism etc (Committee head interview, ED3, January 2010). Committee members expected all community members to be users, some expected users to be mainly the young and some specifically student groups. Anticipated benefits were that relevant content would be available through the internet and would serve to increase the income of villagers. Most rural resident users expected that telecenters would bring positive change to their living conditions. They hoped that information related to their occupation would improve rural and traditional practice, provide communication infrastructure, create employment opportunities, and improve education, enabling the younger generation to be ‘up-to-date in technology to face future challenges’ (User respondent, code 63, 2010). One user explained how villagers expected more far reaching results in their livelihood from the telecenter.

When we heard officers from Kathmandu on the benefits of telecenters during the first community interaction program before telecenter establishment, we expected very drastic and positive changes in all sectors of our community, from communication to education, from agricultural information to beginning of newer economic activities, from government services to growth of local business and employment opportunities. We thought of it as a complete solution to our existing rural problems (User respondent, code 63, 2010).

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There were some variations in the expectations of users, for example users in the

(WDR) expected more tourists to visit as there were many trekking and expedition sites while farmers expected increased market prices for their apple products. Youths in

Inaruwa, EDR region expected to find out about employment opportunities.

5.3.3 Managing and Using the Average Performing Telecenters the Ex-post Perspective

5.3.3.1 Organizational Issues

Organisational issues are discussed in the light of operation management practices and financial sustainability.

Operation Practices

Managers were seen as the critical factor in the telecenter organization. The sixteen managers, of the average performing telecenters, had on average three years service in telecenters. Five of the managers had graduate level education with six month computer training and eleven had intermediate level education with computer and telecenter management training/workshops. Twelve managers were happy with their job but four were unhappy mainly because of what they considered as lower salary and benefits from the telecenter employment. They were responsible for the daily operations of telecenters, management committee meetings as directed by the chairperson, and the preparation of meeting minutes. They were responsible for conducting user level and student training in the use of computers and the internet, assisting users and managing financial matters. They assisted users to search for information, set up Skype calls or

Facebook and translate information available in the internet into Nepali language.

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Not all managers were invited to attend committee meetings. Twelve managers were regularly invited to management committee meetings, two were never invited and two were invited sometimes. Invited managers were asked to provide user feedback to management committees and some were asked to present their suggestions and plans to improve organisational arrangements. Managers would get instructions following the meeting. One of the respondent managers, who was never invited to a meeting, observed that the lack of collaborative effort and feedback system had potentially limited performance.

I am not invited to the committee meeting as a manager. As such I am not able to express and share my experiences and ideas generated through user interactions everyday to all the members in the committee. This would have helped them to make informed decision. My feedback is limited to the head of management committee only (Manager Respondent, ED4, January 2010). This particular telecenter did not appear to be operating well in comparison to the other telecenters in this category. For example, the cost of the internet and salaries were generally paid late, monthly income at telecenter was less than average income of other telecenters and community participation was low. This result may not totally be attributed to the manager’s invitation to the meeting, but it shows a more limited approach to open management practices.

The number of committee members varied from nine to fifteen and female members accounted for less than twenty five per cent of total committee members. The committee members met at least once a month in all telecenters but some telecenter committees met whenever they considered it necessary. Generally, they discussed management issues such as financial, staff and operation issues. Some of the committees also discussed ways to expand user access and use information for economic benefits.

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Three of the average performing telecenters were locally managed by libraries. These libraries usually had more employees but the manager was responsible for the library as well as telecenter management. Three telecenters were managed by schools and the remaining ten by communities. Few offered an opinion as to whether either option was a better model. Some managers expressed the view that they had more participation from communities and better support from management committees. Others stated that their telecenter was different, some stating better off and some lacking initiatives, in terms of being pro-active, participation and promotion of telecenter services by the members of the committee and telecenter staff.

Financial Sustainability

The financial sustainability looked into four areas: program owner or external financial support; operational income from the telecenter services; cost of internet connectivity and user payment affordability. Program owner financial support was discussed earlier

(See section, 5.2.2).

Very few of the average performing telecenters return an annual profit. Six of them were in profit, four were sustainable, and marginally meeting the cost of operation and six were returning a small loss. The loss making telecenter was operating from donations from the community including financial assistance from the village council and volunteer work from telecenter managers. Daily average income of telecenters was only

AUD 5.2121. The cost fixed by local management varied in different telecenters. In the long run, all committee members reported that they needed some changes in their operational model to address additional or alternative sources of income.

21 Thirty four per cent of users paid AUD 0.45 per hour for the use of the internet; twenty seven per cent paid AUD 0.30, fifteen per cent paid AUD 0.37, eight per cent AUD 0.60 and five per cent A$0.75. Most of the users 43 per cent said they had to pay different charges for different services besides the cost of the internet for other services. 174

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In some centres, drastic changes in the operational model were sought such as stabilizing a fixed income source. With this in mind, some managers argued for the popularization of telecenter services with greater social awareness to increase the number of users and others argued for a fixed asset such as a building for the telecenter, which could offer alternative income source through rent. All members felt that they needed additional funds of between AUD 150 (NPR 10,000) to AUD 200 (NPR 15000) a month to sustain financial stability.

The major expense was the cost of internet connectivity and the salaries of staff. The cost of electricity was affordable but when they had to switch to alternatives such as generator and Uninterruptible Power Systems (UPS) then this cost was much higher.

Out of sixteen only six were users of NWP internet connectivity. Management committee members from ten other telecenters said the internet cost was expensive. For

NWP connected telecenters monthly internet cost was from AUD 30 to AUD 45 per month while for others, average internet connectivity cost was AUD 90 per month.

Telecenter managers and social workers were paid salaries fixed by management committees. Occasionally they were paid late due to resource constraints in some telecenters.

Most managers expressed their dissatisfaction about the limited level of external support they received. There was no continuity of support from government organizations except one-off, initial packaged support which included computer and related equipment, connectivity cost for a year, staff salaries for one year and training of managers. None of these average-performing telecenters were currently receiving government support. The support from the local village development council was limited to the provision of space or some cash assistance for some telecenters.

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Most members felt that rural people had difficulty in paying for the services of telecenters; while six members said the cost was ‘just affordable’ to people and four said it was affordable. Six telecenter managers said the capacity of the community to pay for telecenters services was extremely small. One contradiction that arose between users, managers and management committee members related to telecenter service charges.

Users in most telecenters complained about charges fixed by their committee for the use of services, stating that the charges for the internet and photocopying were very high.

Most members of the committee commented that charges were reasonable and except for a few, claimed it was affordable to rural residents. Managers were divided: some taking the side of the users’ on the grounds of their affordability and some taking the management side, reasoning the sustainability of services. Some managers believed that the charges set by the management committee were minimal but confirmed that it was not affordable to all sections of the village communities due to their low income.

One respondent from a management committee stated that at the time of their establishment, they did not concentrate much on the financial aspect on the assumption that external support such as from government and locally the revenue generated from user charges would suffice for the operation of the telecenter22. With high expectations for financial cost, many locals struggled to pay the fee, expected a business model that did not reach beyond the centre for return on the cost of operation and use. The log

22 We could not foresee the current problems in operating Telecenters at the time of establishment. These problems are critical now making it difficult for sustainability of the program. The availability of electricity, Internet connectivity and cost are major concerns, but if we had enough financial resources, we would have applied alternatives. We need some new framework of support from government or other organizations so that it could be made sustainable and make Telecenters useful for villagers (Management head respondent ED4, January 2101).

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CHAPTER 5: Ex Ante Expectations and Ex Post Experiences books kept at the telecenter indicated that users had used computers on average for half an hour per person. One of the reasons for not using the internet for longer time periods was the cost factor. Users paid a minimum of 30 minutes for the internet use, even if they used only 20 minutes. But the internet phone was based on call minutes.

5.3. 3. 2 Accessibility Issues

Accessibility issues included three components: equitable access (that is breadth of access); local human capacity to use the equipment; and the “enabling” environment.

Equitable access considered physical access including time spent to reach telecenters, and availability of access based on caste, gender, religion and affordability. Local human capacity included education, community skill level and availability of a quality ICT workforce in the community to offer advice, training or support for the integration of the internet into their daily routines. Enabling environment referred to local institutional support including village level enterprises, political will, social inclusion and a legal framework for transactional purposes such as remittances.

All telecenters had a very popular accessible location. Physical access for valley and

Terai telecenters was not a problem as most users travel by foot or bicycle but in hilly regions, they had to spend half an hour on average to reach the telecenter. Most of the users stated that half an hour walk was usual. It was found that most villagers who were using telecenter services resided nearby as 80 per cent stated they reached the telecenter by foot within a few minutes. The opening time was similar across most telecenters - 10

AM to 5 PM, 6 days a week with the exception of the one in the FWDR Dhangadhi, where they opened 3 hours in the morning and four hours later in the afternoon. The reason for this change was due to heat during the day. Some users expressed difficulty in using the telecenters during these times as they had to be engaged in other productive activities such as farmers in the field, students at school. Users offered suggestions that

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CHAPTER 5: Ex Ante Expectations and Ex Post Experiences operations be extended for a few hours in the morning and evening, enabling them to make better use of the telecenters. Almost one third of the users interviewed, visited the telecenter daily and fifty per cent of respondent users said they used telecenters two to three times a week.

Managers in average performing telecenters agreed with committee members on the need for a popular location and a policy of non-discrimination based on caste or religion for the use of services. However, some managers noted that despite the policy, use by lower caste people and marginalized groups was more limited. The lack of awareness, education and prevalent rural occupational demands were particular determining factors for these groups. Men and women had equal access. Telecenters were closed on religious holidays. There was no restriction on the content of information searched.

Among these sixteen telecenters, NITC’s the Jomsom and the Sankhu telecenters and

READ’s the Arghauli telecenter, were operating with all women staff. All other thirteen telecenters had at least one woman as a staff member. Managers reported that having female staff eased potential barriers to access that other women may have felt in coming to and using the services of the telecenters.

The issue of affordability was discussed earlier (see section 5.33.1), but it should be noted that cheaper access to the internet would mean more people would be able to use it and current users would use it for longer. Low income levels are a crucial factor for

Telecenter use. A management committee member in the eastern region linked the affordability with outcomes.

For a population, who live on under $1 day, spending one third of this for one hour’s use of the internet is difficult unless they find the outcome is to increase their income directly or indirectly. At certain times, the satisfaction of spending is abstract, because when they talk to their family members abroad, the happiness and satisfaction they get is not measureable. The tea producers in this village are benefitting from their use of the internet through market information

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and contact with potential buyers, but for other general users, who just want to use it for information and knowledge, which may be applied later; it is a little unaffordable (Management Committee Member respondent, ED4, January 2010).

Villagers’ skills to use the computers were generally low, most managers however, stated that following the establishment of telecenters, the capacity to use computers independently, increased as a result of the training programs organized by the telecenters. It was reported that some private schools in the terai regions introduced computers to the students - having students as independent users also helped telecenters. Some management committee members stated that students were very quick to learn and adapt and they helped other family members who had limited formal education in computer use. It was reported that the majority of community members were unable to use the computer independently (at least initially) and needed at least some assistance from telecenter staff. One of the intended objectives of having two employees (manager and social worker) at the telecenter was to disseminate the availability of services through community awareness programs. This included translation of information available on the internet into the Nepali language. This objective was however, rarely achieved, and frequently cited as the reason for some non- users as the particular barrier for not visiting a telecenter. All the managers were asked on at least some occasions for help to search for content, especially by farmers and housewives with more limited computer skills.

In hilly areas, management committee members noted there were not enough technical workers and had difficulty getting suitable replacements when experienced telecenter staff left. This had an impact on the level of frequency available to users of computers at telecenters. Many accessed a telecenter at least three times a week. This more regular interaction seemed to be associated with more generated social interaction. A manager

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CHAPTER 5: Ex Ante Expectations and Ex Post Experiences in the Arghauli commented that the frequency of internet use was encouraging in their telecenter.

The main issue is to make community people aware about information availability and perhaps a convenient venue for community interaction at telecenter. Once they find it useful, they start coming back again and again with more questions. We have found that lack of knowledge to operate the computer has not prevented them coming to the telecenter (Manager respondent, WD5, December 2009). Telecenters, in general, remained apolitical23. However, most management committee members reported that the political will of the committees, local council or municipality and village level enterprises were important for telecenters to become socially inclusive and accessible. Some members of the committee believed that telecenters may need to have support from a legal framework. This was the case because it needed certain approvals to carry out services that generate additional income, such as central bank approval for remittance services.

In average performing telecenters, students were the main user group according to the observations of managers and management committee members. Table 5.3 below shows the ranking of the user groups based on their responses to interview questions.

In fifteen telecenters, student groups were the most frequent users, followed by farmers.

The Jomsom NITC telecenter found tourists ranked first as users and the Charikot telecenter in the central hills found that a community forest group ranked as the second most frequent user group.

Table 5.6 User Group Ranking in Average Performing Telecenters

23 The local level politics, except during the Maoist insurgency, had no negative impact on the operation or the performance of the Telecenters. 180

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Rank Total (No of Telecenters)

Students 1 16 (15 Ranked #1) Farmers 2 14 (6 Ranked #2) Businesspeople 3 11 (4 Ranked #2) Teacher 4 10 (3 Ranked #2) Housewives 5 6 (1 Ranked #2) Others 6 7( 1 Ranked #1, 1 Ranked #2 for tourist

Source: Field Survey, 2009-2011

The users of this technology were young people - almost 70% of users were under the age of 35 and of this group, most were students. 50% of the respondent users were either students or teachers. Farmers and business people representing productive sectors were 30% and only 13% of respondents were housewives. However, as discussed later in this thesis, age may be a factor in determining who accesses the internet but it is not only the accessor that uses the information.

5.3.3.3 Participation Issues

Community participation issues were important in understanding how telecenter users met with local friends, other people and new friends through the use of the internet; what they discussed and how they supported telecenter activities (See also 5.1). Fifty people on average visited these average-performing telecenters daily. Not all visitors to the telecenter actually used the services. Some visited for other services such as internet phone or photocopying, some visited to meet other villagers and some came to share the information they had accessed with other users. It was reported that instead of sitting at home, they came to the telecenter to see others and talk with them, meet friends and engage in conversation. Some felt that it had helped to establish activities, such as providing a meeting point and discussion a center for villagers around a source of information. Telecenters were thus providing a meeting place for social interactions

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CHAPTER 5: Ex Ante Expectations and Ex Post Experiences of varying types. Interestingly, more than half the respondents revealed that telecenters were useful in building social relationships. The group discussion at the WDR suggested that building and strengthening social relationships was one of the most important outcomes of these telecenters.

There was contradictory evidence about whether the caste system inhibited access or use. The lower numbers of respondent users from low caste and marginalized groups indicated that there was a participation problem for these groups. On the other hand management committee members and managers stated there was no discrimination on either gender, a caste. However, one of the managers in the Jhuwani telecenter noted a lower participation level among the marginalized.

When we started the library, we held community meeting and built an inclusive management committee, which included representation from marginalized group. After introducing the telecenter in the library, we have tried to encourage Tharu, marginalized group, to use the internet. But the adults from that group have not been using despite our efforts, though their students, who are studying, come and use the internet (Manager respondent, CD2, January 2010). 5.3.3.4 Education and Training Issues

Telecenters provided training in the use of computers. After this training and awareness program, people were using computers to solve their queries and increase their knowledge. Managers assisted uneducated users to send emails on their behalf and read emails from their relatives. Some of the telecenters were at a library, where other activities such as reading newspapers, books, periodicals and borrowing books took place in addition to using the internet. Interactions and learning were principally with library telecenters. Libraries in Jhuwani and the Arghauli also conducted the adult literacy classes. One of the advantages for the community in this model was that they would use library services while waiting for their turn to use computers. The visit to the telecenter was not necessarily for the use of the internet as telecenters located at schools

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CHAPTER 5: Ex Ante Expectations and Ex Post Experiences and libraries had other purposes, for example, learning computer curricula for students at school telecenters and reading for library telecenters. They also observed that telecenters had helped rural people to use computers and other technologies like mobile phones, photocopies, and scanners. One respondent member explained how telecenters helped to engage people with training in computers.

People found new activities in the village with the telecenter. Villagers enroll themselves with computer basics course provided at no cost by the telecenter. Even people as old as sixty years attended these courses. Those who wanted to be skilled users paid for advance course and those who were skilled enough to open the Facebook or read newspaper started using the internet. Especially, it has provided new and productive activity for old people, who otherwise would have just stayed home, play cards or engage in unproductive work (Manager Respondent, WD7, December, 2009). Three committee member respondents in average performing telecenters found that telecenters did not produce the expected benefits. Some stated the benefits were

“almost as expected” and a few others stated it did not benefit the community at all.

Their expectations were higher.

5.3.3.5 Using the Information and Communication Capacity for

Changes in Socio-Economic Practices

Telecenters were mainly used for personal communications: emails; the internet phones;

Skype; and Facebook. Email was the most popular activity. This communication was most often associated with issues related to local production, followed by personal contacts with family and friends, education, employment, news and general information.

Students communicated for educational purposes and farmers for agriculture prices.

Some used the internet for general information such as reading news and finding examination results. Amongst the information searches, employment information

(which was not included in the main six thematic content areas) was most sought often, particularly by rural youths. Some youths used the internet for games.

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Most of the telecenter managers kept user logbooks that contained information on their identity, residence, occupation, purpose of use and time used. The observations contained in the user logbooks revealed that the most common purpose was communication with the internet phone and emails. For some, telecenters enabled better communications among friends and relatives and for others it helped to manage children’s education and information. It was also observed that most of the visitors were from the same village with few people coming to use the internet from adjoining villages.

The geographic location of the telecenter determined the use of specific product prices and information by farmers. For example, most farmers in the Godak in the EDR, specifically used the internet for price information and contacting potential pre-harvest purchasers of tea leaves. Farmers in the Charikot telecenter were interested in potato prices and farmers in the Ghara telecenter in Myagdi wanted price information concerning oranges.

Farmers stated that among the content of agricultural information, agriculture prices were the most searched for content followed by pesticides information, care for cultivated crops, vegetables and plants. Access to agriculture price information was the principal reason behind the changes in the product cultivation choice, product supply and storage behaviour of farmers, with 80% responding that the use of the telecenter had changed the way they carried out their work and only 20% claiming it had not changed their behaviour at all. However, some farmer users reported that they could not find content related to farming techniques, disease prevention for these productive activities in Nepali language 24 , so its value for them was limited. Managers also

24 In some cases, an information search on the web, the manager assistance helped them. 184

CHAPTER 5: Ex Ante Expectations and Ex Post Experiences confirmed that they did not receive any content information in Nepali language in any of the six thematic areas to be used by telecenter users. Some of them knew about the government’s six thematic areas and managers received some information from government sites in these areas. One of the things rural users sought from government websites was government forms such as applications for the citizenship certificate or applications for a driving licence. There were no government services available through the internet.

Telecenter services were also changing over time as the communities started looking for more services. It was evident that management committee members thought that farmers would use the internet more if there was more relevant information available to them. One respondent drew attention to the limited content.

They did not find telecenters benefitted as expected, because there was no information in six thematic areas in Nepali language as discussed during local consultation and most of the telecenters did not receive expected support from institutions involved for the establishment (Committee Member respondent, CD3, December 2009). Most respondents felt telecenters brought some improvements for the tourism sector with the ease of contacts, marketing and other tourism related information. For the young, employment information and access to applying for jobs through the internet was the greatest contribution of telecenters.

It was revealed that users, who started using the internet when telecenters were first established, contributed to the continuous use of the internet and other telecenter services. For example, one of the users stated:

When we had telecenter in this village, we were excited to use it though we did not know much about it. After orientation and guidance from telecenter staff, we were able to see information on the internet, create email accounts and communicate with our friends and relatives. Newspapers come in this village after two days of publication but we can read it the same day through the internet. Now, it has been a daily routine

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to visit telecenter to find what is happening (User respondent, code72, December 2010). Few noted any negative social or economic problem as a result of the establishment of the telecenter. However, some reported that the benefit of the internet was less than the cost incurred. Some felt it negated ethical values when adult sites were viewed by other users.

In short, in using the internet, most average performing telecenters used information effectively in one or other form, particularly agricultural product information but that the integration of all services available was not realized25.

5.3.3.6 Technical Issues

In average performing telecenters, three telecenters were using dial up modems for internet access. Their telephone charge was much higher and speed was very slow.

Others had a minimum of 1 MB speed using wireless from different vendors. Electricity was one of the major hurdles for telecenter operation. Earlier than 2009, electricity was unavailable for only a few hours, but with an extended load shedding (6 to 16 hours no electricity) period and a lack of alternative power sources, access to the internet was restricted. Telecenters without alternative power had no option to enable the use of computers and with increased hours of load shedding, managers closed telecenters during periods when there was no electricity. Two of the telecenters had alternative means to run the computers for three hours while the power was off. However, interestingly, telecenters located in Mustang and Myagdi, the more remote areas in the

25 Many villagers had expected that telecenters would bring meaningful changes such as increase in income level, availability of government services, information in Nepali language and promotion of local products and services. Though the internet helped students and youth and other villagers for voice communication at an affordable cost, benefits were not as expected (Member respondent ED04, January 2010).

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CHAPTER 5: Ex Ante Expectations and Ex Post Experiences western hills, had local micro plants and as such were getting electricity regularly. They all had similar opening hours except one, which had longer opening hours.

Most of the telecenters had only two computers, three telecenters had six computers and three had three computers. The telecenters with less equipment naturally had lower numbers of users and a lower daily income. Limited equipment was one of the reasons for the lower levels of user income generated. For example, one telecenter, which had three computers, generated daily income of AUD 11 (Rs. 800) much higher than the average income of AUD 5.21.

A few of the managers (Thecho, the Bungmati, the Sankhu and the Lekhnath bazaar) were able to update on-site maintenance of computers. All of them had to take equipment to cities for maintenance purpose. When the computer had a problem, it was down from four to ten days depending on the location of these centres.

Most committee members felt that the internet connectivity and cost was the biggest problem. Some sighted equipment maintenance as their big concern, while others said telecenters simply did not have enough computers.

5.3.4 Conclusion: The Inherent Difficulty of Meeting Differing

Expectations

Most communities in these locations of average performing telecenters had high expectations from the use of the internet and delivery of other services. However, most rural users in these average performing telecenters were not satisfied as reality did not meet their expectations. They experienced a lower benefit due to the lack of useful information in Nepali language. According to one user from the (WDR), there was a big gap between expectations and actual outcomes. This difference was the result of unrealistically high user for services such as access to e-governance services and direct

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CHAPTER 5: Ex Ante Expectations and Ex Post Experiences improvements in their income from the establishment of the telecenter in a village. They had also underplayed their own capability in terms of skills in using these new technologies effectively. In addition, inability of program owners for the delivery of information in Nepali language from a central hub was another factor for this difference. Neither program owners nor users anticipated technical problems, such as wireless connection, power outages, and unavailability of telephone lines or exorbitant dial up costs from Nepal telecom internet connection. Similarly, management committees did not anticipate financial sustainability would be a major problem. A management committee member from the western region claimed program owners had not properly considered the overall ramifications of such an initiative and listed the major problems of the telecenter in rural areas.

Telecenters assumed that establishment will follow the usage without considering inhibiting factors of income, education and technical skill levels of rural people. They forgot the demand side of it and infrastructure. Why did they plan these telecenters without the electricity or any other affordable power source? Cost of use, electricity, information in Nepali language, skills of rural people and social awareness on potential benefits of using the internet are general problems of telecenters (User 56, Field Survey 2010). However, some expectations such as communication, skills for using computers and the internet were met. There were some positive results from the use and applications of the information as explained earlier (see section 5.3.3.5). Program owners seemed to be more focused on providing technology for information and communication rather than content delivery and engaging in its development. Management committee members were more interested in generating income than social interaction. None of the local stakeholders raised the issue of the competition from cybercafés. Telecenters though were unable to meet all the differing expectations of the community but were engaging as a focus for social interaction and learning.

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5.4 Experiences from the Better Performing Telecenters

There were six Telecenters – outliers- defined as better performing (see Tables, 5.1 and

5.2). There were more extended family networks actively associated with access and use.

Users patiently searched the information, synthesized this information for local application, managers were motivated, often putting in extended hours at telecenters and exceeding the general requirements of the position. The better performing group was most concentrated in the WDR (three telecenters). The CDR had two and the EDR had one better performing telecenter. Table 5.7 presents the list of better performing telecenters. Out of the six better performing Telecenters, two were established by NWP and one each by NITC, HLCIT, READ and a local community. Locally, two of them were managed by schools and four by local communities. Four telecenters were located in the mountains and hills and one each from the terai and valleys. On average these better performing telecenters were in operation for six and half years, starting from 2002 at Nangi.

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Table 5.7 List of Better Performing Telecenters

Name of the Durgapur Basamadhi Bungamati Puthang Khibang Nangi Telecenter/Factors Telecenter Telecenter Telecenter (Jomsom) Telecenter Telecenter Library and Telecenter Region EDR CDR CDR WDR WDR WDR Code ED1 CD4 CD7 WD1 WD4 WD8 Topography Terai Hills Valley Mountain Hills Hills District Jhapa Makawanpur Lalitpur Mustang Myagdi Myagdi Program Owner HLCIT NITC Community READ NWP NWP 190 Local Management Group Local Community Local Community School Local Women’s Local Community School

with youth sports group club Year of establishment 2005 2003 2003 2003 2004 2002 Daily Visitors 100 50 30 60 25 40 Daily Income 700 500 500 700 250 400 No of Computers 4 6 8 6 6 6 connectivity Wi Fi IMB Wifi 1 MB, before 2 MB Wi Fi before 2 MB Wi Fi 2 MB Wifi 2 MB Wi Fi dial up dial up No of Staff and gender of 2 2 2 2 1 2 Manager Male Female Female Female Male Female

CHAPTER 5: Ex Ante Expectations and Ex Post Experiences

5.4.1 Ex-ante Expectations of Management Committee Members,

Managers and Users at Better Performing Telecenters

Managers and management committees at all six better performing telecenters had expected positive outcomes. This was expected to mean better incomes for farmers, better opportunities for businesses, quality education for students, access to government services and other news and information for communities in villages. Three telecenters located in the WDR expected to help tourism, especially the hotel industry. There were also expectations that services associated with local products such as apples and porters and trekking guide services in Puthang (Jomsom) would deliver financial benefit. The school owned telecenter at Bungmati expected general benefits for the community but had primarily expected use of it for education. The telecenter managers at Basamadhi and Durgapur expected it to help with farming.

At Nangi, in the WDR, the community expected health services, especially telemedicine to be available along with new communication facilities through the internet. The management committee chairperson stated that foreigners began arriving in the village to connect wireless from 2000 AD and by 2002 when the connection work was completed, the villagers expectations began. One of the members of the committee explained the broad outcomes village communities expected.

We have been hearing many possibilities from the internet in the village. We can foresee a minimum of three outcomes connecting to distant family members via internet phone and emails by our community, able to consult doctors in urban area through telemedicine service and children in our community will be knowledgeable in these technologies and be able to compete with their urban peers (Committee member respondent, WD7, February 2011). All of the telecenter committee members expected benefit to be derived from emails, the internet phone and other services such as training in the use of computers, preparation of job applications, and the availability of photocopying. Some expected

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CHAPTER 5: Ex Ante Expectations and Ex Post Experiences hotel and lodge owners to use the internet for their business promotions and hotel booking facilities; it was also expected that students and the community in general would be users. As one of the respondents noted:

Based on the interaction program they had expected that farmers will be able to get all required information for their production, students for education, health, business information and also some of government services from the telecenters (Committee member respondent, WD1, December, 2009). The users in these six telecenters expected that the availability of the internet would deliver two main benefits. First, it would enable them to use the information for productive purposes, education and keeping up to date on the current political and economic situation. Second, it would bring communication services that were currently not available in most of these villages.

5.4.2 Managing and Using the Better Performing Telecenters the

Ex-post perspective

5.4.2.1 Organizational issues

Operation Practices

Organizational issues in better performing telecenters were generally much the same as the average performing telecenters presented in 5.3.2. Of the six managers four were female with four and half years of service each on average. Two of them had graduate level education and 6 months training and four had intermediate level education and training. They had also participated in other telecenter related workshops, conferences and interaction programs in Kathmandu. All managers claimed to be happy with their job. The responsibilities of managers were similar to those in average performing telecenters. All six managers were always asked to participate in the management committee meetings and were asked to submit a status report and community feedback.

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All managers received follow-up instructions after each meeting. One of the managers emphasized their critical role in expanding the use of the telecenter through the support and social interaction.

The success of the telecenter depends on the manager’s role and his/her attitude towards the responsibility. For example, we work here sincerely and even operate extended hours without additional employment benefits. We do this because we like interactions with people, we enjoy assisting them in information search, this helps our understanding of the subjects. They share the problem; we make efforts to satisfy their information need and other service requirement like getting connected to their relatives through internet phone, helping on job applications. We deal with different groups of people and this has helped our understanding of the community. Community has a whole has been very supportive of this telecenter (manager respondent, ED1, January 2010). Thus the managers at these centers were very much focused on the social roles they performed.

The management committee members in these were selected by local communities at a general meeting, usually resulting in a unanimous decision, representing different communities from different locations. Three telecenters had eleven members in the committees; two had nine while Khibang management committee had only seven. The main role of the management committee was to oversee telecenter operation, broaden the use of technology among community members, and in particular, promote their use in schools.

They would normally meet once each month but would convene a meeting if they had urgent issues to discuss. The Puthang (Jomsom) telecenter established by READ was owned and managed by a women’s group, all eleven members were women and two girls were working as telecenter/library manager and support staff.

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Financial Sustainability

All six telecenters were financially sustainable. The Durgapur telecenter had a larger number of users and their computers were usually occupied. Other services like word processing, photocopying, and fax send/receive activities helped them to raise additional funds. For the Basamadhi telecenter, computer training fees from a multinational industry and monopoly photocopying services helped them to become financially profitable. This telecenter bought a piece of land using the income generated from the telecenter. The Bungmati telecenter, owned by the school, employed telecenter staff as revenue generated from the community users was sufficient for the expenses of the telecenter operational costs such as internet connectivity, electricity. The Puthang

(Jomsom) READ telecenter had many tourist users and they were charged a much higher rate than local users. In addition, the rental income generated by a library owned building provided the required expenses to operate both the library and telecenter. At

Khibang, the telecenter was not able to generate profits from the operation as they are a very small community with a small number of users. The people from this village were employed in the British and Indian armies and provided a monthly donation for the operational cost of this telecenter. At Nangi, telecenter staff were provided by the school, thus the manager was the employee of the school and the telecenter did not need to pay for the internet, it was extended from the school to the community centre.

As such the receipts from user services were sufficient to provide the financial sustainability of this telecenter. Khibang and Puthang telecenters had internet connectivity through NWP which required only A$30 per month. The other three telecenters had to pay A$75 per month for their internet connection.

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Most committee members thought their fixed charges for telecenter services were affordable. However, the Khibang chairperson stated that it was too expensive. Two telecenter managers also believed it was too expensive.

The government established two telecenters, one at Durgapur and one at Basamadhi and these received all the necessary equipment, funds for two years of internet connectivity and staff salaries for two years. The school-owned Bungmati telecenter received only equipment support from NITC. NWP telecenters at Khibang and Nangi received equipment support from NWP. The Puthang telecenter received only two computers from READ. All of these telecenters had managed to procure additional computers, some managed through donations, some from locals working abroad and some from savings of their operational income.

The Durgapur, Basamadhi and Bungmati telecenters reported the internet connection cost as the main concern for their telecenter and suggested that an inexpensive internet connection would enable them to have more users as well as contribute to their profitability. All managers expressed their dissatisfaction at the level of external support.

Apart from the initial equipment and training they had no on-going support. While in comparison to the average and limited performing telecenters, this group were in a stronger financial position, they stated that they required additional funds of $200 per month in order to expand and sustain telecenters in these regions.

5.4.2.2 Accessibility Issues

The school owned telecenter at Bungmati opened from 9 am to 5 pm, the first hour and last hour opening was targeted mainly to community users as schools only opened from

10 am to 4 pm. The Durgapur, Basamadhi and Puthang telecenters opened from 9 am to 6 pm and the Khibang opened only for four hours from 3 pm to 7 pm. All were at convenient locations. The Durgapur telecenter was in the middle of the market, in a two

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CHAPTER 5: Ex Ante Expectations and Ex Post Experiences storey building provided by the local council for community use. The Basamadhi was on the highway, with easy access for the community. The Bungmati telecenter was in the school building and the school was in the middle of the village market. The READ telecenter at Puthang was in the middle of Jomsom market, Khibang in the community building in the middle of the village and Nangi telecenter was with the high school.

Users did not spend much travel time to reach the Durgapur, Khibang and Bungmati telecenters, but it took half an hour to an hour for villagers in Jomsom, Nangi and

Basamadhi.

As in other regions, there were no restrictions on the nature of content, boys and girls had equal access and there was no discriminations in terms of gender or caste for the use of telecenters. One of the respondents noted,

The management committee has welcomed all villagers equally without discrimination but the lack of education and traditionally inherited self- imposed conscience prevented marginalized community and low caste to be same level users in the telecenter (Committee member respondent, WD8, December, 2009). Skill levels in these telecenters were not much better than the average performing telecenters and the literacy level was low, but the activities and initiatives taken by the management committee members and managers, such as adult literacy classes, computer training courses and awareness programs, helped to improve skills in the communities.

The English language was the most quoted deficiency in these telecenters, but this barrier was removed through managers and telecenter staff assistance in helping them to search content, especially for farmers and housewives. One user in Basamadhi stated how he has been able to get the information he required.

I am not a very educated person but am able to read and write in Nepali language. I got the training to operate the computer but even after training, I cannot operate it well because I do not know English. The telecenter has a keyboard in Nepali, so I can type in Nepali for my emails, read Nepali newspapers and chat with friends and relatives. But I ask the

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manager here when I need information on agriculture or other subject, they find and translate the information for me (User respondent, code 26, January 2009). This interaction process was a common feature across the better performing telecenters.

The Himanchal High school and Nangi, Public High School at Bungmati, the library at

Jomsom, the Tribhuvan University affiliated college and multinational manufacturing company, Unilever, at Basamadhi and local high school at Durgapur all pooled their educational resources, teachers and educated employees, to expand the knowledge base in these communities. The close institutional relationship of the telecenters was perhaps one of reasons for the performance of these telecenters.

The capacity of the management committee to lobby for government assistance was also a feature of these telecenters. Some of the members of these telecenters approached government departments requesting a flow of productive information from them to telecenters. Telecenters adopted a flexible approach on rules, norms and activities as per the community requirements and the local community supported this approach. For example, the absence of a legal framework did not prevent a flow remittance services at some of these telecenters.

5.4.2.3 Participation Issues

Tourists were ranked as the number two users in Puthang READ telecenter. Students were ranked number one users in five telecenters while in the Nangi telecenter, farmers were ranked first. Local women were highest among the second ranked users group in

READ established Puthang and Khibang telecenters. The average numbers of people using telecenter services were sixty seven per day. Unlike the average performing telecenters, most visitors in these centres used the internet or other services. All the telecenters kept user logbooks. The observation of logbooks revealed diverse user groups and 30 minutes use of the internet, on average. Important on the agenda for

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CHAPTER 5: Ex Ante Expectations and Ex Post Experiences users at community meetings was their desire to expand their skills and ability to use the internet - enrolments in coaching and training sessions reflected this.

Caste was not an issue in these telecenters. In fact, Bungmati telecenter at Lalitpur had a majority of Newar caste, READ telecenter at Puthang had a majority of Thakali caste and in the Khibang telecenter at Myagdi, only Magar caste people were users of the services. The characteristics of telecenters were described differently. Khibang, a remote place 6 hours walk from the nearest motor able road in the hills in Myagdi, has a community of 250 people and ninety five per cent belonged to one caste, the Magar.

The telecenter at Nangi also had Magar community, but its users were from other castes as well because of the presence of a 12th grade high school where students and teachers from different castes were present. Only Durgapur and Basamadhi telecenters had a multiple caste composition. It was evident in these telecenters that the majority caste however, did not dominate an inclusion/participation approach in the society.

Management committee members stated that their approach is socially inclusive as evidenced by the inclusive management committee, but practically there are some challenges to including poor and marginalized groups at the village level in an information society.

5.4.2.4 Education and Training Issues

Committee members in these telecenters believed that the introduction of telecenters improved the learning capacity of the community. The READ library telecenter in

Jomsom organized computer training programs for women and children, enabling them to use the computer and the internet. The manager at Durgapur stated that the community had a practice of sending at least one member from each family for the training organized by the telecenter. This family-focussed approach to telecenter usage allowed for the further discussion of knowledge and skills to other family members. The

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CHAPTER 5: Ex Ante Expectations and Ex Post Experiences telecenter in Nangi had organized both adult literacy classes and orientation classes for computer use. The grade twelve students at the high school in this village also took part in these programs. In Khibang, the committee chairman would announce a specific day for free internet access for students and women to learn to use the internet. He explained the intent of such initiatives, notably the collective approach to learning.

We offer once a month free internet for students and women in the village. This attracted new users coming to the telecenter, to learn how to use the computer and operate the internet and it also helped students to learn more without spending. When they see the potential, they enjoy using it, they will be habituated to use the internet and later will spend the money for use. The community will benefit in the long run, with their knowledge and its application and from the revenue for their use (Committee member respondent, WD4, December 2009). In these telecenters, committee members emphasized the importance of the community training for capacity building in accessing the internet but also in absorbing and making use of information. There were some examples of distance-learning and the potential to expand educational support through the internet to the school. For example, distance teaching for English, maths and science was possible from towns to schools in mountainous regions, where such teachers are not available; this was described as an important development. One respondent emphasized the emergence of new opportunities for poor students to get quality education.

We expect through the internet, distance teachings from quality teachers from Kathmandu or Pokhara in the special subjects such as English, math and science. This will improve the standard of education in our villages and sons and daughters of poor rural families would have access to good education, as a benefit of the internet in rural areas (Committee member respondent, WD8, February, 2011). 5.4.2.5 Using the Information and Communication Capacity for

Changes in Economic and Social Practices

Users mainly accessed a telecenter for communication purposes associated with tourism and business purposes, for education and agriculture prices. Services at the telecenters

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CHAPTER 5: Ex Ante Expectations and Ex Post Experiences changed over time due to the changing demands of the users and/or changes in the technology. Initially telecenters were used mainly for communication using email and phone and for training, word processing and photocopying. Recently however, there has been greater use of the internet for accessing new information on agriculture, business, education and employment. Mostly students used the Khibang telecenter though the local school offered education up to grade seven only. The chairperson described the use of the telecenter by the community as a means to empower them,

This village does not have many male youth as they are serving in the British, Indian or Nepali Armies. Some have left for middle-east employment. The users are students, women and retired people from the army. For students it is about learning computer, internet and they are also learning Nepali word processing in computers. Women usually chat with their husbands and send emails. For retired people this has changed their daily routine, they used to play cards the whole day to pass the time, now they come here to read newspaper in a group on the internet and engage in discussions on different issues including community development (Committee head respondent, WD4, December 2009). Thus, while the telecenter provided enormous information and communication opportunities it also served to generate local social interaction. READ Puthang telecenter, owned by the library, had a variety of library and entertainment services like

TV, kids playing room and a separate discussion room. This also served to stimulate village based social interactions.

Agriculture was the major economic activity in the villages around five of these telecenters while tourism was a major activity at Puthang. Users noted that information was available from the internet to support their economic activities, though it was not developed by a national organization for use. They felt that agricultural, employment and other tourism related information were important for them. As such, the content sought was primarily associated with tourist information, education, agriculture prices, employment, government information, and weather.

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These telecenters contributed to some change in productive practices. For example, according to the Basamadhi telecenter respondents, the traditional farming of grain crops was now being replaced by organic vegetable farming and improved supply chain efficiencies through the information on the internet by the farmers. Some respondents drew attention to changes in the storing and selling practices related to various agricultural products with the advent of new and better knowledge about agricultural market prices. Changes in the way tourism operators function and provide services could be traced to their use of the internet, at Puthang (Jomsom) hotel bookings, managing trekking logistics and product sales were facilitated through emails or hotel websites.

Information and services provided through telecenters were helping businesses to reduce their operating expenses. For some, the knowledge and information helped indirectly to increase their income. For example, a farmer in Basamadhi stated that he was able to purchase fertilizer at a cheaper price because of information accessed through the internet.

At some of these telecenters there was information made available for non-English speaking users with managers posting news bulletins in hard copy on the board and assisting with word processing services for tasks such as application letter writing and completing application forms for employment. READ Puthang telecenter generated additional income from word processing services and tourists, who were major users, were charged a higher rate. However, managers in tourist centric areas said they lacked specific information to meet tourists’ needs like weather, trekking routes and other online tourism related information from authentic authority though users used those services from the net.

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Some used the cybercafés available in some telecenter areas such as Durgapur. They reported differences in terms of internet speed, set up, and cost but felt the level of assistance and other services such as skills training, just visiting to meet, discuss and share information were available only at telecenters. Thus cybercafés were just a business but lacked the social aspects of the internet use as observed at telecenters.

Most committee members in this group noted that it will take time to embed new ideas and practices with farmers. According to managers, most villagers used a range of technologies such as mobile phone, computers, photocopier, scanner, and digital camera. This was also often a collective activity. For example, teachers and students often shared the same computer lab room at the Himanchal High School at Nangi. This helped interaction between teachers and students informally, sharing the information and learning while using the internet. One of the students stated that this informal interaction with teachers boosted his confidence and helped subsequent interactions in the classroom.

One of the management committee chairman explained changes in collective behaviour following the establishment of the telecenter,

Villagers used to have interaction about their economic and other personal matters with family members only. This pattern changed now. When they met at telecenters they shared the happiness or the grief, needs or problems. For example, if one resident needs to buy a pair of oxen, the information becomes available at the telecenter, if no one in the community is selling, then information is looked at the internet and then only they proceed to the market. This behaviour helped in saving their expenses and also contributed for the generation of more local information and attitude to share the information (Committee member respondent, WD4, December 2009). Another example of sharing information and sharing benefits was seen at the

Basamadhi telecenter, where the first farmer who switched to organic vegetable farming

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CHAPTER 5: Ex Ante Expectations and Ex Post Experiences shared his experience and benefits with other farmers, who followed him and changed productive practices.

5.4.2.7 Technical Performance

Most managers were satisfied with technological issues but stressed there was a need for continuous improvement. These telecenters had six computers on average but there were eight computers in Khibang for a community of only 250 people. According to the manager they did not require that many but they received computers through donations from local people serving abroad. Some were used for training students and some were spares for times when other machines broke down. The internet connection was provided by NWP and was good for three telecenters in the western region. The other three telecenters were paying much more for their internet connection. The manager at the Durgapur elaborated on these technical issues for his telecenter.

We understand that it is the information that helps the community but we need technical ability for the telecenters. The number of computers and internet speed is important for users simultaneously so that we can generate some more revenue. The revenue loss due to the problem of electricity could be substituted by having more users when electricity is on with a higher number of users and thus speed is also important. We also need to think of private cyber cafes, which will be more equipped technologically (Manager Respondent, ED1, January 2010) Nangi telecenter had two computer centres one for school use (teachers and students) and one for community, as such there were enough computers for users.

Jomsom, Khibang and Nangi had local small hydropower systems so electricity was not a problem but power outages affected the Durgapur, Basamadhi and Bungmati telecenters. All telecenter managers explained they were able to undertake minor maintenance but for major problems they had to take the machines to cities for repair.

This could take up to two weeks as travel time was extensive from rural hilly areas.

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5.4.3 Conclusion: Drawing Benefits from the Social Process

Most of the better performing telecenters enjoyed a level of technical reliability in terms of good internet connection, technically capable people and higher numbers of available computers. There were no telephone connections in most of these villages so telecenters provided the first access to information through the internet and telephone services.

The lack of other alternatives for communication contributed to telecenter income and to financial sustainability.

Organizational factors appeared to be effective at these telecenters. Sound management and leadership in the western region and the defined role of the Basamadhi telecenter chairman contributed to the organizational capacity of telecenters. This was supported by an understanding of the need for a substantial focus on specific local needs.

The integration of core telecenter activities with other local activities along with local community feedback were significant factors. The Puthang READ telecenter had for example, a variety of programs, such as literacy, weaving, training and a cooperative saving deposit scheme. At this centre’s Mothers Group, Telecenter staff and users from the local community discussed their particular interests and collaborated to cater to them. Library services and general training, children’s separate play area, audio-video programs, the internet, and discussion groups were common features of these better performing telecenters. The level of social interaction taking place in these telecenters was high as evidenced by the number of community meetings and the frequency of repeat visit users and the overall high number of users.

Therefore, there are important implications from the experiences of better performing telecenters. First, there is enormous potential to benefit from the use of the internet for improvements in productive practices. A potential for e-commerce was also in evidence.

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Second, telecenters increase the skills and capacities of communities, which enable them to focus on local needs, especially in generating useful locally-focussed content. Third, integration of telecenter activity with local activities, pro-activeness and sound management practices lead to financial sustainability. Finally, telecenters promote the sharing of information thus contributing to social interaction and learning.

5.5 Experiences from the Limited Performing Telecenters

Based on field data, there were three outliers classified as limited performing telecenters

(see Table 5.1 and 5.2). There were no telecenter activities in these compared to the average and better performing telecenters. Managers were not motivated and management committee members were not interested in financial aspects. Table 5.8 presents the list of limited performing telecenters. Of the three limited performing telecenters, two were established by HLCIT and one by NITC. Two were managed by the community and one by the library. Two were located in the hill districts of

Makawanpur at Kamane and at Panauti of Kavrepalanchowk and one in terai at

Triphala of Jhapa.

Table 5.8 List of Limited Performing Telecenters

Name of the Telecenter/ Triphala Kamane Panauti Factors Telecenter Telecenter Telecenter Region EDR CDR CDR Code ED2 CD3 Topography Terai Hills Hills District Jhapa Makawanpu Kavre r Palanchowk Program Owner HLCIT HLCIT NITC Local Management Group Community Library Community Community Year of Establishment 2006 2005 2003 Daily Visitors 40 30 20 Daily Income 200 150 200

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No of Computers 2 2 3 Connectivity Dial up Dial up Dial up No of Staff and Gender of 2 2 2 Manager Male Male Female Source: Field Survey, 2009-2011

5.5.1 Ex-ante Expectations of Managers and Users at the Limited

Performing Telecenters

Respondents from these telecenters expected benefits that were generally similar to average performing telecenters (See 5.3.1). Interestingly rare, was the idea that telecenters were thought of as providing a common point for community interaction and development. This was only the critical difference in expectations. One of the respondent committee heads summed up their expectations,

We think that Community people would change the way they work or think over the long run. Accumulation of information may create the knowledge to change the way they choose the crop cultivation, make decisions on selling or storing agricultural products based on current market prices. The connection to friends and relatives in distant places, local interaction and internet information influence their other decisions like education for their kids, preservation of local forest promoting the overall societal value in the community (Committee head respondent, CD1, December 2009). 5.5.2 Managing and Using the Limited Performing Telecenters the

Ex-post Perspective

5.5.2.1 Organizational Issues

Managers had less relevant experience in these telecenters; generally less than three years. All had intermediate level education and three months training except for one, who had six months training and had participated in a number of short term capability development courses and workshops. Only one manager in the EDR was happy with his terms of employment; the other two were “not happy”. Duties of managers were

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CHAPTER 5: Ex Ante Expectations and Ex Post Experiences similar to those in the better performing or average performing telecenters. Only the

Panauti telecenter manager was aware of how other telecenters were operating due to her participation in a telecenter conference and workshops in Kathmandu. Management committees at these telecenters were elected by the local communities. The average number of committee members was fourteen and only fourteen per cent of them were women.

Managers showed little enthusiasm or excitement about the telecenter and most of their answers were neutral if not negative. Some managers were minimally committed to their present job and were looking for alternative employment. The woman manager in

Panauti telecenter noted how she enjoyed the social component of her job and that helping users individually to access the internet was always a learning process. The management committee of these telecenters did not feel the sense of ownership that was experienced in average and better performing telecenters. The interaction with them revealed that the importance of the role for them was more about the social prestige of being a chairman than making the telecenter work.

These telecenters had no ongoing financial support from their program owners and thus relied mainly on user fees. The dial-up internet connection cost was $125 per month and user numbers were low. Simply, these telecenters were not financially sustainable.

5.5.2.2 Accessibility Issues

The Triphala Telecenter in the eastern region was easily accessible; near a highway and not far from the centre of the village, users could reach the telecenter by bicycle in a few minutes. The locations of the Kamane and Panauti were not as advantageous26. The

26 The location was generally chosen at the centre of the village such as market place, school or health post because there were constant commuters. Kamane Telecenter was at popular location 207

CHAPTER 5: Ex Ante Expectations and Ex Post Experiences manager of the Kamane Telecenter blamed the centre’s limited use on the difficulty caused by its location.

Before, we started at a market place, there was no community property and we had to rent a private place, rental charges were much higher, we still had managed but the landlord wanted to use his property and we moved to this distant place and we hardly find users coming to this location (Manager Respondent, CD3, December 2009). The Panauti telecenter in Kavre was neither in the middle of the community nor at a market place. The manager reported that earlier, when the internet was not available nearby, more people used to visit though the location was not that popular, but now because there is a private cyber cafe in the market, the telecenter attracted very few users. Most users and telecenter staff reported that this location was not convenient. A further difficulty was that the current chair is also a local development officer and has a range of responsibilities leaving less time for telecenter matters.

These telecenters were opened for six hours only from 10 am to 4 pm unlike other groups which opened for extended hours. Some of the users stated that the opening hours were like that of a government office and not like a community organization which looked after community interests. The students had to attend school 10 am to 4 pm during week days and on Saturdays with the telecenter being closed, they could not gain access. All three telecenters were closed during holidays.

It was stated that telecenters provided equal access. However, in all these places marginalized communities and lower caste people, were very low in number among users. One member of a management committee explained their equal access policy at the telecenter.

when established but Kamane Telecenter had to move from its initial location and had no community place like community school, health post or village council building for its housing. 208

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There were no discriminations on the use in terms of gender, caste, age and other issues set by the management committee but lower cast people had hesitation in using the services. We had conducted awareness campaign and designated separate user training session for them; despite our efforts they had limited use of the internet (Committee member respondent, ED2, January 2010). The Triphala telecenter was located in the library building where many visitors came for library services. However, as reported by residents, these organisations had problems facilitating access to the internet. For example, available computer equipment was not installed for years. Many users chose to access alternative private cyber cafes in a nearby market.

5.5.2.3 Participation Issues

Users in these telecenters were mainly students, farmers, and local business people. In the Panauti telecenter, there was initially a larger group of women using the telecenter, but more recently they have not been regular users. The manager reported that participation was low due to the low internet speed and old machines. The Kamane had larger number of students using the internet before they were relocated. The average numbers of users at this limited performing group was around 22 persons per day, much less than at average performing telecenters. The Panauti telecenter in its early years had a minimum of fifty users in the telecenter. The Kamane telecenter reported that in their initial location they had from forty to fifty users per day. The managers reported that community participation was not very encouraging. They offered the suggestion that having more useful information on productive sectors like agriculture in the Nepali language, employment information and some government services and support would attract more users in their telecenters.

The initial higher number of users and recent fall in numbers using the telecenters suggests that those users have switched to the private cyber cafe in the market, which would be conveniently located and have higher speed and new machines. All three

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CHAPTER 5: Ex Ante Expectations and Ex Post Experiences villages, which had these limited performing telecenters perhaps faced competition from private cyber cafes, whereas for most of the average and better performing telecenters no such alternatives were available.

5.5.2.4 Education and Training Issues

The Panauti telecenter organized many training courses on computers and internet operation for students and community people during the first few years. They had conducted six courses for students per year and three courses for the general community. This has not continued over the last two years. Neither Kamane nor

Triphala had conducted any training programs but initially offered awareness programs.

However, they offered assistance to users when they needed help.

The Kamane telecenter claimed that it needed more content on education so that more students could use the internet for educational purposes and teachers for teaching purposes. One of the managers from these telecenters summed up the problems as follows,

Users ask us for information for varied information such as employment, fertilizer prices and nearest available market places, government college admission information but none of these are available. Some information on the six areas could be found in websites in English from the internet but national level information in local language stated previously during the establishment time had to come from related government institutions, which were not available (Manager Respondent, CD3, January 2010). These problems also existed in better and average performing telecenters, but they found ways of minimizing these problems either through translation, language training, computer literacy classes and social interaction.

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5.5.2.5 Using Information and Communication Capacities for

Changes in Socio Economic Practices

The major economic activity in these villages was agriculture. The Panauti telecenter was also popular for tourism particularly for rock climbing and archaeological interests. The availability of the content in the Nepali language and other information delivery issues from government or program owners were similar to average and better performing group (see 5.3.2.5). The internet phone was very popular among users as it was much cheaper than land lines for calling long distance. The purpose of the visit of users and availability and use of internet phone and photocopier were similar to other telecenters.

However, the availability of information, the level of assistance from telecenter staff for users in finding useful information on their behalf, availability of training programs and discussion between different social groups, were lower compared to other telecenters.

For example, at Panauti, services of the telecenters had not been changed much since the time of establishment in 2003. This was one of the earliest telecenters established by the NITC, near the capital Kathmandu, a site often used to show telecenter initiatives to potential donors. Explaining the earlier development and juxtaposing this to the current state of it being almost closed-down, the current manager stated:

This was perhaps the first telecenter established by NITC in 2003. We received financial, maintenance and training support from them. As it was a new technology in the village. Villagers used to find out about the telecenter and our awareness and user training program helped them to use. A lot of foreign visitors used to come here to watch the activities and use of the computers by students and villagers. We also had, a NGO, FIT, Nepal supporting our training programs with trainers and training materials. But from the last three years, all activities have slowed down, there are cyber cafes in the market place with new machines, we stopped receiving support from NITC, we even could not maintain the internet connectivity recently, the earlier manager and chairperson of the management committee have left. Despite being close to the only IT park of Nepal and Kathmandu University we are in difficulty financial, technical and other factors, almost in a closing down position (Manager CD1, December 2009).

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The internet availability at the IT Park or university was not open to general village users.

Despite problems, these telecenters provided photocopying and scanning services and helped illiterate users to send emails on their behalf. The eastern telecenter had

Diversity Visa (USA) forms downloaded from the internet, filled the customer application form in the computer and printed it out for applicants. All managers were asked for help in searching for content, especially by people with language barriers. In all three places, they did not think telecenters had directly contributed to the generation of additional income.

Both managers at Triphala and Kamane said that there was not enough content in the six thematic areas in the Nepali language as were reported by previous groups. Only the

Panauti telecenter had content in the Nepali language posted on a bulletin board to convey local news and other information. Telecenters also printed government application forms for users when they demanded them. There were no other government services available in these telecenters. They were dismayed with the lack of any kind of government service such as application for citizenship. All three telecenters stated that demand for the service from the community was high and varied. In all these telecenters, local stakeholders felt that the expected benefits were not received.

Even at the limited performing telecenters, some of their expectations for things such as email and the internet phone were met. Students were the most common users. Some productive sector information such as agricultural prices enabled farmers to make more rational decisions. However, the breadth of such practices among farmers was limited.

Though telecenters encouraged use of other technologies such as mobile phones, computers, they have not broadly changed the way people work.

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The case of the Panauti telecenter demonstrated that the exposure to the internet provided the stepping stone to the use of private cybercafés for users. The initial training programs it offered to community people and students imparted skills to use the internet and it was suggested that these activities enabled some changes in the social practices such as sending girls to schools and telecenters for computer training.

5.5.2.6 Technical Performance

All three telecenters of this group had less ICT equipment in comparison to average and better performing telecenters. They each had only two computers. Managers felt that the number of computers was inadequate. The Panauti telecenter, which is in close proximity to the capital city and an IT Park, was confined to a dial up connection to the internet. This resulted in limited internet availability, slow speed and higher internet cost

(telephone charges). The eastern region telecenter had its dial-up disconnected because the telephone cost made it unaffordable. The Kamane telecenter was using wireless but it did not work very effectively. Electricity regularity has reduced over the last two years and they have no alternative power. None of the telecenters had a website and while they had to take computers to the city for maintenance, downtime was less than a week.

None of the managers said they had worked in other telecenters. All managers said they some changes were required, like expansion of equipment and services and more useful information for rural people, for the telecenter to be sustainable in the long run.

5.5.3 Conclusion: Factors Associated with the Limited

Performing Telecenters

The factors for limited performance of these telecenters can be summarised in two categories: technical; and social. Technical factors included the limited internet connection, lower number of computers, technical quality of human resources such as

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CHAPTER 5: Ex Ante Expectations and Ex Post Experiences for training, maintenance and website creation, such are largely product of financial constraints. However, broader social connection to the community, NGOs, village production units were comparatively much less than with the better or average performing telecenters. For example, these telecenters were unable to build or maintain important partnerships with NGOs, local development offices and schools. There was less evidence of social interaction between users. Overall there was less effort in understanding local needs. For example, these three telecenters had not created their own website whereas better performing telecenters like Puthang, Khibang and Nangi had their own web presence or local information bulletin boards where local content and information was posted. Limited performing telecenters neither facilitated interactions nor arranged rooms for such discussions or conducted meetings with communities. The competition from cybercafés was also a possible factor.

5.6 The Need to Integrate Technology, Information and

Skills in the Telecenter Social Process

These three groups of telecenters have been discussed separately in order to explain them as three set of case studies. Many activities and issues were common to all these groups. First, all telecenters provided access to information, contributed to skills to use the services. Second, telecenters fulfilled some expectations of users and these were prominently associated with communication. This enabled ‘being in touch’ with family members and relatives living or working outside the village or abroad and had financial implications such as managing the flow of remittances sent by their family members.

Third, telecenters provided a venue for meeting, interacting, sharing information and in some cases taking collective actions for community development. In this regard there were clearly differences between these three groups. For example, better performing telecenters at Nagi, Puthang and Khibang created some local content and events on 214

CHAPTER 5: Ex Ante Expectations and Ex Post Experiences their websites which enabled them to get further resources, in particular cash and in- kind support from their local community expats working in other countries. Social interaction in better performing groups was extensive and regular. In contrast, social interaction at limited performing telecenters was ‘symbolic’ in terms of number of people engaged and how frequently. Telecenters offered some improvements in business practices such as in agriculture through timely access to price information and in tourism for hotel booking and trekking services. For some, a failure to network and engage with local production units, offices and NGOs contributed a lower impacts, access and social inclusion. It is argued in this thesis that for telecenters to serve as drivers of development, there is a need to integrate technology, information and skills into the social process of telecenters. This integration between technical arrangements and social activities at telecenters appears to be a central factor in whether the program is able to deliver on the expectations of all stakeholder groups. How to account for this and why it is important will be dealt with in the following chapters.

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Chapter 6

Exploring the Social Dynamics

6.1 Introduction

This chapter extends the discussion of the research results presented in chapter five and returns to the research questions and issues raised in preceding chapters. This chapter investigates the social dynamics envisaged among stakeholders with the 25 telecenters included in this study. The analysis presented here reveals some contradictions with respect to the impact of telecenters. As argued throughout this thesis, it is not just access to and the diffusion of the technology or simply the use and application of information, communication or knowledge, but all these things combined with social interaction that is driving change. This chapter explores the social process and the impact it is having on rural development. This chapter also explores some of the unintended consequences, (positive and negative) as telecenters evolve and contribute in a variety of ways to the emerging national innovation system of Nepal.

6.2 Revisiting the Research Objectives

The main objective of the present study was to investigate the impact telecenters have on the social, economic and organizational practices among rural communities in Nepal.

The study primarily examined the expectations of different stakeholders and the achievements of telecenters to determine whether they have been an effective mechanism for enabling new activities and socio-economic transformation. The literature review in chapter two argued the need for a case study approach to explore the social dynamics associated with access to and use of telecenters for information and

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CHAPTER 6: Exploring the Social Dynamics communication. The review identified gaps in our understanding of the effect of social behaviour not only in the way information and knowledge is accessed and communicated but in the way it is used and disseminated. The role of geographic variations as well as local contextual differences in culture, ethnicity and social relationships in a less developed country were taken into account. The present study aimed to answer the following questions:

1. What were the expectations of the government, implementing agencies, local

managing groups and users groups on telecenter implementation and to what

extent were the expectations achieved?

2. What were the facilitating or inhibiting factors for outcomes that led to

varying outcomes?

3. Should telecenters be considered a contributing component of the Nepalese

National Innovation System (NIS)?

This chapter discusses the first two research questions. The third research question is addressed in chapter seven. The first research question considered the expectations of four stakeholders: program owners; management committees; telecenter managers and users. Their experiences of telecenters as a mechanism for improving rural access to information, communication and knowledge, intended change in productive practices and outcomes and its effectiveness in engaging the community for socio-economic development is analysed. The second research question investigated the facilitating and inhibiting factors for ex-ante and ex-post outcomes. These factors included accessibility and organizational issues, geographic variations, usage patterns and socio-political forces to explain the internet diffusion in rural areas.

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6.3 Communication and Information Flows Through

Telecenters

The overarching research question this thesis asks, is did telecenters fulfil the expectations of the four stakeholders engaged with the delivery and use of telecenters?

It was found that telecenters did bring positive effects to all sites visited but there were differences in the range of benefits and the extent to which social benefits were transformed for the population of each region served by the telecenters. Few stakeholder groups anticipated the way that affordable fast communication might change the nature of their societal relationships. There was evidence of some return economic impacts but as argued in this chapter, this largely depended on maintaining a multi dimensional flow of information. In contrast, program implementers assumed their role was to simply provide technology and deliver information as though it were simply one way process ignoring the dynamics and outcomes of the telecenters.

6.3.1 Stakeholders’ Ex-ante Expectations and Perceptions on Telecenter

The ex-ante expectations of telecenter management committees as explained in chapter five were that information would be provided by the government and that they would also provide support for the operation of telecenters. Most users and managers had expected telecenters to improve access to information for rural people. Moreover, they expected that many villagers for the first time would have the capability to communicate well beyond the confines of their villages. They expected that telecenters would reduce the location disparities caused by geographic isolation and lack of transport facilities.

One member of the management committee expressed his expectation for improvement in the condition of his village in these terms.

This telecenter is very important for us. We have to travel on foot nine hours to reach district headquarters. Therefore, as a means of

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communication, sources of news, connection to our friends and relatives at distant places and local level meeting place, telecenters would be our best companion (Committee member respondent WD9, February 2011). Local operators and users expected that telecenters would enable them to learn about using new technology, especially youths and children in the village. The learning environment at schools would be improved and students from these communities were expected to be on par with students in urban areas in terms of access to educational information and performance in the examination.

Local communities expected the availability of computer equipment from the government and that internet connection would be made available at an affordable price. One of the users, a teacher in Ramche village school, justified their expectations of the government plan for establishing telecenters,

We were aware that government planned 1500 telecenters in its 10th plan for rural areas, which meant the villages would receive computers, the internet connection and other useful information from the government and communities would be able to use and sustain this noble initiative to improve rural living ( User respondent, code 86,February, 2011). The community users expected information especially about agriculture, tourism and forestry. They also expected access to information about government services available through the internet. A user at the Marpha, in Mustang expected that his family would no longer need to travel to district offices for citizenship certificates.

We thought that government was bringing computers and establishing centres, we would be able to receive many services locally without making a number of trips to district head quarters such as applying for citizenship certificate or paying land taxes (User respondent, code 58, WD2, December 2009). In Summary, the anticipated policy objective of government and other program owners was to provide access to information and technology to rural residents by providing connectivity and useful content for socio-economic development. The Nepalese

Government identified agriculture, distance education, health, productive economic

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CHAPTER 6: Exploring the Social Dynamics activities, environment and disaster mitigation as six thematic areas around which they planned to develop content in local Nepali language. Positive changes in agriculture practices in relation to price information, diversity of crop production, production techniques, and disease prevention were expected. In the education sector, timely availability of curriculum through the internet, improvement in teaching methods, interactive learning and skills to use the new technology were expected. Community members clearly expected an increase in employment opportunities and improvement in health services through telemedicine in village health posts. They expected telecenters would enable the beginning of new socio-economic activities in rural communities.

6.3.2 Ex-post Outcomes

6.3.2.1 Bridging Programs for Enabling Accessibility

Data presented in chapter five on accessibility issues drew attention to the importance of physical access and an enabling environment for promoting equitable access. Such access does not necessarily imply an effective use of information received or knowledge transferred; it merely establishes the initial conditions for gaining benefit from the use of the internet. The results across all three case-study categories indicated that telecenters improved rural access to communication and information. The degree to which these information and communication facilities were used depended on the social nature of the telecenter. One of the users in a remote hill area, Ramche village, explained how their local telecenter actually preceded telephone communication.

We have no telephones yet in our village and this year a tower is being built for mobile telephone from Nepal Telecom. But we got wireless connected through NWP from Nangi village in 2004 at our local school, which provided us with the facility to talk over the internet phone and communicate with our relatives through email and chatting. Therefore, if we did not have this project even after six years we still would have been isolated from the outside world. This facility has really helped us (User respondent code 84, February 2011).

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Physical access not only to the internet but to other services such as photocopying or faxing a document at a convenient location, was also reported to be useful. It was reported that telecenter services saved the much needed and scarce resources of villagers. Without the internet, the cost of getting the same service was much higher due to the time spent travelling. For example, a user in the Basamadhi telecenter explained how administrative practices undertaken on the internet saved considerable community resources.

Before having the telecenter here to have a photocopy of document we needed to go to Hetaura Market spending 15 Rs in transportation both ways, 2 Rs per photocopy and 2 hours of our time. We happily paid 3 Rs per copy at this telecenter saving 14 Rs. The same thing applies for government forms. For government forms, we do not need to make trips to government offices spending transportation cost and much valued time, at nominal fees we get these forms at the telecenter. We just make one trip for submission. In totality it has saved a lot of resources for the community- both time and money (User code 26, January 2010). The literature discussed in chapter two drew attention to the language factor in the use of telecenters. For the present analysis, users were divided into three categories according to language skills in rural communities. The first group was able to read and write in English and use the computer independently. Teachers and students mainly made up this group. The second group were literate in the Nepali language. Farmers and local business people generally formed this group. The third group was for the most part functionally illiterate; some of them only able to sign their name, many old people and people from marginalized groups fell into this category. The designing of training programs by telecenter managers was a difficult task as different groups had different interests and needs. Bal (2009) designed a training model for five telecenters under

Nepal and found that chat and internet phone applications were of interest to ex-army men’s groups and mothers groups. Office applications, email and internet were of interest to teachers and student groups, information on fertilizers and market prices of agricultural products were of interest to farmers. These differences as well as language

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CHAPTER 6: Exploring the Social Dynamics capabilities also led to differing expectations of users and managers and thus differing outcomes. Bridging programs were important for the second and third groups of users and this is where the role of managers and management committees became important in designing and implementing such programs. Among the better performing telecenters, these programs were conducted regularly while in limited performing telecenters few bridging programs were available.

The importance of accessibility for effective use of telecenters is supported by some of the finding of other studies (Rao 2008; Bailey 2009; Pick and Gollakota 2010). Rao

(2008) discussing seven effective telecenter initiatives such as ‘Drishtee’ and ‘e-Choupal’ in India and Bailey (2009), assessing sixteen Ttelecenters in Jamaica concluded that telecenters increased access among rural users. Pick and Gollakota (2010) however, noted that although the telecenters in developing countries provided public access in rural areas they were underutilized in delivering potential benefits due to a lack of awareness, community confidence, effective social networks and ability to use the technology. Thus access alone does not necessarily lead to broader social or economic benefit. Moreover, the flow of benefits also depends on absorptive capacity, this is argued later in the thesis. This does not simply apply to the capacity of individuals to absorb and learn but on the collective capacity to absorb and use the communication process and information conveyed.

The access to telecenters for maintaining social contact, particularly with family, and extend social networks encouraged many older people. Users who were more than fifty years of age, were very limited in numbers, suggesting that lack of literacy and age was a barrier. However, the statistics on Facebook users in Nepal stated that there are nine thousand persons aged 54 or more, who use Facebook in Nepal (Bastola 2011). There are stories of use of the internet by old people such as a 65 year old social worker Uma

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Banstola at Lekhnath telecenter or a 63 yeas old grandmother Goma Panthi at

Arghakhanchi using Facebook and a 58 year old ex-teacher joining a computer training class at Nangi Telecenter. The 65 year old Uma’s Facebook account was opened by her husband and that of Goma by her grandson (Bastola 2011). These two inspiring examples illustrate the importance of family social networks in gaining access to the internet. It is unlikely that in these two cases elders would have made these internet connections without family assistance. Despite problems with literacy, language, adequate hardware and reliable internet, these telecenters provided access to information for remote residents in rural areas in an interactive social environment, which is the positive expected outcome of the introduction of telecenters. This provision of access set the ground for some improved performances in productive practices and some unintended consequences as well, which are discussed later in this chapter.

6.3.2.2 Operational Knowledge and “Horizontal Networks”

In all telecenters, local organizations were instrumental in the day-to-day operational aspects. It was a requirement that the management committees and telecenter staff come from the local communities. While limited capacity and skills were important factors (see Chapter 5) in availability of effective knowledge about operation, the capacity to useful local generate content to support local users was perhaps even more important.

Management committee members in general, had limited training and had almost no prior experience in using computers themselves. Many were unaware of information available on the internet that could be used for local production practices. However, the chairperson or some members of the management committees were better informed about local matters. This local knowledge mattered just as much as technical knowledge.

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These observations were also supported at the subsequent group discussion held at

Pokhara, in the WDR.

At the average and limited performing telecenters, most of the managers did not receive attractive remuneration packages. They were using their current employment at the telecenter as a platform for a possible next employment step. Very few managers had a graduate education; this lower level of education appeared to limit the performance of telecenters. The other important observation to note about the activities of the managers was that they were less proactive than those in the better performing group, sitting at their chair and waiting for someone to come to them rather than asking users if they needed assistance. They also expressed some uncertainty as to whether telecenters should run purely as business organizations, such as a cybercafé, or as a community support facility. The lack of a decisive direction from their management committee in choosing an appropriate operational model (business or community facility), created a dilemma, as explained by one of the managers interviewed.

We are not really sure how to operate telecenters. If we needed to operate as community support organization the management committee should have provided us with enough financial and equipment resources, which we do not have. To operate telecenter as profit making internet access outlet, people here do not have the capacity to pay for the charges fixed by management committee to run as business model’ (Manager Respondent ED2, January 2010). Better performing telecenters had maintained and developed some organizational linkages for their telecenters. For example, the Himanchal high school at Nangi village

Myagdi had collaboration with the Open Learning Exchange (OLE), a NGO, for curriculum development and for student access through the internet. The telecenter at

Jomsom was connected to a local development district office for joint community development programs. Some average performing telecenters were connected with

NITC, a government organization for capability training programs for their telecenter

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Human Resource Development

In all telecenters, local organizations were instrumental in the day-to-day operational aspects. It was a requirement that the management committees and telecenter staff come from the local communities. While limited capacity and skills were important factors (see Chapter 5) in availability of effective knowledge about operation, the capacity to generate useful local content to support local users was perhaps even more important.

These observations were also supported at the subsequent group discussion held at

Pokhara, in the WDR.

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CHAPTER 6: Exploring the Social Dynamics telecenters should run purely as business organizations, such as a cybercafé, or as a community support facility. The lack of a decisive direction from their management committee in choosing an appropriate operational model (business or community facility), created a dilemma, as explained by one of the managers interviewed.

Myagdi had collaboration with the Open Learning Exchange (OLE), a NGO, for curriculum development and for student access through the internet. The telecenter at

Jomsom was connected to a local development district office for joint community development programs. Some average performing telecenters were connected with

NITC, a government organization for capability training programs for their telecenter staff. These “horizontal” connections were particularly evident in the better performing group of telecenters.

6.3.2.3 Information Use and Changes in Socio-economic Practices

Chapter three introduced the objectives of telecenters in providing information content in six thematic areas. The field results revealed that except the translation of a book ‘IN

THE ABSENCE OF A DOCTOR’ in the health sector and agriculture prices there was very little information from the government or its agencies. Although there is ample evidence about the value of these six thematic areas for development, communications provided through its telecenters were often used for different purposes. The high rate of rural unemployment has meant that the unskilled labour force is recruited elsewhere: for

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CHAPTER 6: Exploring the Social Dynamics example, Korea, Malaysia and middle east countries. Telecenters were used to seek information on employment opportunities. It was reported that in the hilly regions, the community feared their younger family members would join the rebel group and create more conflict in the community (see Anderson 2007). The use of the internet interactions and networking helped them to look for alternative employment opportunities overseas. Managers stated that employment opportunity information and application form filling services for US diversity visas were also important activities, but only conducted periodically.

The telecenter network in Nepal had no local web presence, except for the Khibang and the Nangi. Lack of village web pages appears to limit e-commerce adoption or selling of local products or promotion of village tourism and receipt of donations from local community abroad (see chapter 5). This supports the literature that emphasizes the importance of the construction and development of village websites to reduce digital divide between rural and urban areas and promote rural village identities (Akca et al.

2006).

The most frequent use of telecenters was for communication such as using the internet phone, Skype, Facebook and email. Farmers reported that they needed information for the prevention and cure of diseases in plants and crops and wished for online chat or voice message with experts at agriculture offices. However, there was very limited feedback on requests from local management committees. One of the respondent managers commented on how some central coordination was necessary to achieve their goals.

We sent emails to programs offices in Kathmandu with our status reports of telecenter operation, progress, and problems and requested for national level content based on user demand. Most of the time, we did not get response, when we did, it was often redirected to another government agency. Simply, there was no mechanism for systematic coordination at

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the central level to provide content for our telecenters (Manager respondent, CD4, January 2010) In all regions, students were the top group of internet users. The important factor behind this was their skill level and their interest to adopt ‘New things’. However, while students are sometimes ‘prime users’ for a family, the telecenter provides a connection for broader social interaction. One female user at a western mountain region described this process.

I use the internet at this telecenter in this school. I am the only user in my family, because my parents do not know how to operate the computer and also have no knowledge of English language. My father comes to this telecenter just to meet people and sometimes to contact my brother, who is working in the Middle-east. So, I use the computer for my study purposes such as writing school homework; use the internet to email my friends and relative, to read the news and other information, which I share with my family (User respondent, code 83, February 2011). Management committees viewed the internet as an enabling technology to induce changes in agricultural practices especially through price related information for farmers and the potential for interactive teaching and learning. They reported that farmers have been able to locate and contact buyers for their produce at the prevailing price and sometime decide not to sell but store it for future sale. They have also been able to find information on improved seeds and fertilizer and their availability. Agriculture price information updated every day, was available through all telecenters connected to the internet.

There were reports that teaching practices in schools changed. Committee members reported that previously teachers used to lecture, having their own notes prepared for the students, now they ask the students to find the information in the net and every student needs to report the finding in their class. According to respondent reports this has improved learning practices.

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The group meeting and stakeholder conference confirmed the failure of government institutions on the proposed content development. But they also argued that there is enough content in the Nepali language available on the internet in the form of newspapers, periodicals and Nepalese websites. However, these websites did not carry the content on those six thematic areas proposed by the government. The difference in content availability was seen in differing local level initiatives that created content locally or found useful content from the web between these three telecenter groups.

One of the managers among the better performing telecenters noted how local farmers had used the internet to improve the diversity crop production.

Before, the telecenter was established in this village, farmers were just planting traditional two crops Paddy and Maize. After we had internet access, one farmer came, used internet, asked for our help also to find information on organic vegetable farming. Next season he produced organic vegetables and sold it in the market. His income increased fivefold than from previous crops. Now more than 50 per cent farmers are in organic vegetable farming in this village and their supply goes from east to west of Nepal. The increase in income has improved their life-style; their kids now study in private schools instead of public schools as before (Manager respondent, CD4, January 2010) An average performing telecenter located at Godak in the eastern hills was offering information on the price of tea leaves and connecting them to tea producing companies in the eastern Terai region. The connection yielded a guaranteed purchase of the product from farmers with a fixed price. This allowed farmers to make more informed decisions as to whether to cultivate tea with anticipated profit or take a risk on grain production with an uncertain future price of the product. The telecenter at the Nangi had facilitated information flows for yak farming and tourism development.

Paudwar and Nangi villages are using the network to run their income producing projects smoothly. They have been running Yak farming and Camping Grounds on joint venture basis way up from the villages (at 12,000 ft) for several years. Now the management committee of the projects is using the network to communicate with each other through NetMeeting or email in order to take appropriate decision for the projects.

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Moreover, laptops have been given to the camping ground and Yak farming staff. The management committee and the staff communicate regularly with each other to run the projects smoothly. Nangi School has also started a cross-breeding program between yaks and cows near the Relay Station in mountain at an elevation of 11,000 ft. There is a person working on that project. It has been easier for the person taking care of the yak and cows to communicate with the villages and other yak herders through his laptop (Habib 2007, p.155 ). The income generation activity in these two villages underlined the significance of social networks and communication and indicates how regular interactions and information flows diffused the knowledge on cross-breeding. The residents of a remote Marpha village in Mustang reported improvements in the tourism sector through use of the internet. For example, the telecenter manager in Marpha, which is a popular trekking route in the western hills, reported that they had experienced growth in tourism and partly attributed this to the downloading of pictures of mountains and landscapes by tourists in social media such as Facebook and emails to their friends and relatives as they trek and use the internet in a village telecenter. Thus, the use of the internet by foreign trekkers along the trekking route served not only as communication across a social network of trekkers but also for individuals across networks of trekking organizations and local communities.

Some users depicted a gloomier picture in terms of use and content. Many residents responded that they had not been able to increase their income level or been able to improve productive practices. At a group meeting in the WDR and national stakeholders’ workshop in Kathmandu it was reported that telecenters did little to change the livelihood of rural residents. Explanations offered were around affordability and the quality of internet connectivity and the limited training of managers.

Nevertheless, there were also contrasting positive expectations. One user in the Panauti telecenter, included in the limited performing category, underlined his expectations for agriculture information.

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Though there is no reliable connectivity to the internet and telecenter is not opened regularly these days, we were exposed to agriculture price information before which had helped us to make an informed decision on what to produce this season. This technology and information has the power to improve our traditional practices of production and there is a lot of potential to increase the income of villagers with the information and knowledge’ (User code 15, December 2009). The group discussion in the western region and stakeholder workshop in Kathmandu both reaffirmed the potential of the use of the internet to have positive impacts but specified that this was under certain conditions. Participants in these discussions emphasized the need to reorient the efforts of all stakeholders such as coordinating and sharing experiences between different location telecenters and users, and between program owners and telecenters in order to have any significant level of improvement in agriculture and tourism. In short, they were drawing attention to the need for information to flow between telecenters, between government agencies and to engage users more effectively in providing feedback. At these group meetings it was noted that the storing of agriculture products based on internet information on current and future prices, yielded better income for farmers. Further decisions on choice of crop, grain or cash crop or vegetable farming emerged from the sharing of information from the internet. This sharing of information through families, often accessed by young users, was a recurring theme in the group discussions.

The better performing group of telecenters generally appeared to have more community support and consequently served as community facilities. Proactive management committees were an important factor so too was the understanding of local needs for communicating with families in online connections. Many young people from the remote hills areas were working for the Indian or British army or employed as unskilled labour in the Middle-East. They supported these telecenters in their respective villages by donating computers or by sending cash for operational expenses. These contributed to both a local demand for internet communication but also a local capability to do so.

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6.3.3 Ex-post Unintended Outcomes

6.3.3.1 Family Bonding

Most of the user respondents stated that they did not anticipate or foresee valuable interactions with friends and family members with the establishment of telecenters.

They were pleasantly surprised at how telecenters evolved to enable improved communication and support social relationships. One committee member in the WDR emphasized how the internet strengthened family bonds in his village.

Earlier, when young adults left home and joined the British or Indian Army, their wives used to wait for six months to a year. In absence of not having letters or their arrival at home, they used to abandon the relationship and start new relationship with other adults in the same village or distant village. But through internet enabled chatting, Facebook and Skype , they are in constant touch, share the joy or grief, plan and dream the future creating strengthen bonding in this social relationship’ (Committee head respondent,WD4, January, 2010). This notion was shared by other members especially in the WDR, where the tradition of joining a foreign army was common among the Magars, Gurungs, and Thakali communities. The availability of the internet enabled phone, Skype, email, and

Facebook to maintain social interaction not only among couples but also through extended family relationships.

6.3.3.2 Extended Networks

Most of the user respondents stated that they did not anticipate or foresee valuable interactions with friends and family members with the establishment of telecenters.

Earlier, when young adults left home and joined the British or Indian Army, their wives used to wait for six months to a year. In absence of not

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having letters or their arrival at home, they used to abandon the relationship and start new relationship with other adults in the same village or distant village. But through internet enabled chatting, Facebook and Skype , they are in constant touch, share the joy or grief, plan and dream the future creating strengthen bonding in this social relationship’ (Committee head respondent,WD4, January, 2010). This notion was shared by other members especially in the WDR, where the tradition of joining a foreign army was common among the Magars, Gurungs, and Thakali communities. The availability of the internet enabled phone, Skype, email, and

Facebook to maintain social interaction not only among couples but also through extended family relationships.

6.3.3.3 Conflict or Tools for Civic Freedom

One of the unintended consequences revealed in the field was that telecenters became the subject of conflict during the Maoist insurgency. These problems emerged at

Katuwa Chaupari, in the Parbat district and Jagatpur in the Chitwan district and were reported by respondents during interviews. One executive director stated that his organization did not expect his telecenter to escalate social tension.

Local operators reported that telecenters had been the target of state army and the Maoist. The state army asked them to shut down the internet in a bid to prevent the Maoist using the telecenter for their agenda dissemination, while the Maoist asked them to open even extended hours for their access to the telephone and the internet in Katuwa chaupari. In Jagatpur, the Maoist looted the computers provided to the telecenter probably fearing the information from the centre would report their activities to the program owner, which is a government agency and perhaps local units wanted the equipment to use for their own communication purpose (Respondent, CEO2, January 2010). Contrary to this, some people launched an internet campaign for democratic freedom during the people’s movement in 2006 to pressure then king to restore the parliament and elected government, telecenters disseminated this information to the community.

One of the news blog sites started during that time, ‘mysansar’ was used to distribute this information. National constitutional debates were extended into rural areas and

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CHAPTER 6: Exploring the Social Dynamics rural communities. Telecenters were used to disseminate the content extensively but how many engaged in this process is not clear. Overall, there was evidence that telecenters were being used for civic freedom and participation in governance which was not an intended outcome.

6.3.3.4 Negative Impacts

Some user respondents reported that the introduction of the internet into village life created an extra financial burden for them. They stated that their children demanded money for the use of the internet at telecenters “just to gossip with their friends” or play a game.

Our two sons go to the community school in the village. We can barely fund their school fees. After the establishment of telecenters, they are asking us for every week extra money to use the computers at the telecenter. We know that they are not using it to generate income nor to better their education, it is to gossip with their friends chatting on the internet or playing games in the computer as their richer peers do. So telecenters have made us poorer by taking our scarce resources through our children (User respondent, user code67, December 2009). Some members of the committees and some users stated that there was a need to restrict websites as they were “eroding moral and ethical societal values”. They were referring to the use of adult websites by some people and even by students and argued for the restriction of such content at the origin from internet service providers.

6.3.4 Facilitating Factors

This section extends facilitating factors (see chapter five) in the forms of transparency, collective process for extending networks and learning environment.

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6.3.4.1 Effective Communication and Transparency

The most used and appreciated characteristics of telecenters were communication capabilities. A user noted effective communication capability as an important benefit of the telecenter.

My son works in the Indian army. We had difficulty in contacting him, because we had no telephone here and we needed to go to city such as Pokhara. Due to the nature of his job, we could not call barracks, he needed to call us in city telephone and sometimes we had to be back because he could not call. Now with the telecenter, we communicate with email, fix a time for Skype telephone call, where we can see each other face to face and understand each other well. He could see his children and talk with them. This communication capability brought by the internet is really amazing and useful to us (User 58, December 2009). The other important outcome noted in the literature concerns transparency and openness. Some of the schools, such as Himanchal high school at Nangi, placed information about school performance on a website so that parents at a distance from the school, could access this information. Other schools posted student information on web in order to more effectively inform parents. One of the donor agencies, which supported the telecenter establishment through a rural-urban partnership program under UNDP Nepal, summed up their experience of the telecenter as a mechanism to improve transparency within local municipalities.

Despite the insecurity created by the Maoist insurgency, 9 telecenters in 5 regional market centres (Bhimphedi, Khaireni, Kohlpur, Dulegaunda and Rangeli) and 4 in 4 Municipal Ward Offices (Biratnagar, Nepalgunj, Butwal and Pokhara) were set up and became operational.... The project contributed to the Information Technology (IT) Policy 2000 issued by the Government of Nepal by demonstrating the implementation of ICT on the ground. It is observed that websites and telecenters have enhanced access to information, particularly on agro-pricing, which is useful for women entrepreneurs. 4 telecenters in RMCs and 4 telecenters in Ward Offices of different municipalities have emulated this initiative by launching similar activities. The project has also helped improve transparency in the municipalities and raises awareness on the importance of information amongst citizens. It was learned that the institutional infrastructure and framework built by the Rural-urban Partnerships Programme (RUPP) was essential to sustaining these telecenters, and in ensuring that the Village Development Committee (rural market centres),

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regional market centres and Tole/Lane organizations (TLOs) had ownership of the project (UNHABITAT 2003). These observations emphasize the need for the implementation of telecenters to be established and operated in an open environment and thus able to contribute to transparency in government processes.

6.3.4.2 Collective Process for Extending Networks

As noted earlier in this chapter the better performing telecenters generally had more pro-active and open management committees, consulting more regularly with communities. The woman manager at Puthang drew attention to the value of a collective effort.

The ‘Ama samuha’ (mother’s group), who is managing this centre is very active. All eleven members contribute collectively and put individual efforts to raise awareness and specially encourage other women to come to the telecenter and use the library. Their collective efforts convinced READ to support the construction of this two story building at this market place and rental income from downstairs is enough for telecenters and library operation. Communities actively participate in the program and provide feedback (Manager respondent, WD1, Feb 2011). The story of the Basamadhi telecenter was similar. The Associate Professor of the university was the chairperson of this management committee, who encouraged the telecenter manager and used his knowledge and networks for the successful operation of the telecenter (Ramila Shrestha, personal communication, January 2010). His network with the university helped to generate some useful content for the telecenter and also helped to engage some graduate ICT students to run computer classes at the telecenter.

His interactions and meetings with the multinational company, Unilever in Basamadhi led to a training program for spouses of employees of the company, held at the telecenter and served to generate additional funds. His direction and support of telecenter staff and his regular interactions and consultations with local community provided a stronger local community of users, more trust, a shared goals and extended

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Figure 6.2

6.3.4.3 Promoting a Learning Environment

The availability of skilled human resources in the community other than telecenter staff and the skill levels of the community in terms of general and digital literacy, were important factors for the use and dissemination of the internet. The learning and sharing approaches, very much evident at better performing telecenters, were important causes of difference in the performance of these telecenters. Better performing

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CHAPTER 6: Exploring the Social Dynamics telecenters appeared to provide a more interactive learning environment, offering community training programs and facilitating social interaction around the use and sharing of information. Even average and limited performing telecenters had a positive effect in creating a ‘premium’ for literacy that spurred illiterates to join literacy classes to read. Parents could see the immediate benefits of schooling for their children.

Therefore, the learning environment, attitude, and availability of skilled human resources were facilitating factors for the use and application of information through the internet.

6.3.5 Inhibiting Factors

The inhibiting factors were: financial sustainability; skills level; social issues such as caste and ethnicity; technological issues; geographic variations; and finally political instability regarding IT policy and practice (see Chapter 5). The lack of widespread use of telecenter services by the community restricted the greater demand for Telecenter services, which affected the income of telecenters through users’ charges questioning sustainability of the model. Users cited facilitating factors such as social mobilization, training, subsidized access cost for an initial period and social effort at all levels, in preventing the greater use and hence greater demand for telecenter services. This section extends the discussion on caste and ethnicity, geographic variation and lack of information flows as inhibiting factors.

6.3.5.1 Implications of Caste and Ethnicity

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CHAPTER 6: Exploring the Social Dynamics sustainability of the model. Users cited facilitating factors such as social mobilization, training, subsidized access cost for an initial period and social effort at all levels, in preventing the greater use and hence greater demand for telecenter services. This section extends the discussion on caste and ethnicity, geographic variation and lack of information flows as inhibiting factors.

6.3.5.2 Lack of Information Flow/Feedback

According to the ex-ante experiences of government organizations responsible for the task of telecenter establishment, they did not appear to consider the importance of information they might receive through the internet feed-back. Responses from the interview process with management committee and managers suggest that they made numerous suggestions on issues such as connectivity, content, design and provision of additional resources but they received little by way of responses. Most of the program owners had neither a monitoring or evaluation plan nor a specific procedure for information flow or mechanism to address feed-back. Only NITC added employment as an important content theme for rural areas after feed-back but even then it did not take any initiative in providing or streamlining employment information to telecenters.

The mechanism for monitoring, evaluation and feedback was not in place for the roll out of telecenters. The lack of horizontal and vertical flows in all groups of telecenters seemed to be inhibiting factor for the effective use of telecenters.27

27 Horizontal and vertical information flows are the dynamics of the ways information is held and directed. Vertical flows are related with the information delivery directed from government or program owners to telecenters and user feedback through telecenters to the government. Horizontal flows are within and between users, managers, management people and local organizations such as village development council. 239

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6.3.5.3 Geographic Variations

The disparities in ICT adoption between the development regions of Nepal are significant; however, this study did not find any substantial difference between the use and application of internet information based on geographic variations. Income of the residents, industry and business composition, level of employment and education are highly correlated with the internet adoption.

The CDR concentrates all economic, political and technological power and geographic proximity to the rest of the world. As such it is likely to continue to be the leading region in ICT (see table x6.1 Appendix XV). The substantial differences in the development in the mid-western and far western development regions indicated the highest poverty levels and lowest access to services. Remoteness and poverty are also the factors most often cited by economists as causes for a lack of economic opportunities - making the affected regions fertile grounds for the Maoist insurgency

(Aasland and Haug, 2011).

The geographic variation directly affected internet expansion because of access and infrastructure difficulties and also indirectly due to the lower level of developments such as income, human capital index and education in the rural areas of mid-western and far- western regions of Nepal. 28 Thus, geographic and or topographic variations were considered important for the internet expansion through telecenters in terms of physical access and the cost associated with installation and connectivity, but once the access was

28 As illustrated in Table 6.1 the mid and far western development regions are at the bottom of development indicators within Nepal. Much of the literature supports the argument that geographic proximity matters for the transfer of more complex technological knowledge, e-shopping and spatial distribution of the internet (Tödtling et al. 2010; Farag et al. 2006; Billion et al. 2007).

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(Aasland and Haug 2011).

6.3.5.4 Political Instability on IT Policy and Practice

The political instability in Nepal had a negative impact on development. The 1990’s transition to parliamentary democracy could not adopt a development strategy to raise socio-economic status of the rural poor, which some writers explained as growth failure, institutional break down, decreasing per capita and increasing poverty level and cause of the Maoist insurgency (Sharma 2006; Murshed and Tadjoeddin 2009;

Routtledge 2010). Even after a decade long conflict and UN led peace process, the country is yet to stabilize. These have led effects on policy and implementation restricting the Telecenters spread and impact on rural communities29.

Among program owners, non-government organizations raised the issue of policy problems in national information infrastructure and need for a transparent information flow from government despite the legislative provision of right to information act. One

NGO CEO, who was establishing Telecenters in rural areas, but not covered by this study as a program owner institution drew attention to the need to encourage information flows across government agencies.

Government does not have clear and facilitating policy on national information infrastructure to promote access to rural areas. We need to share national fibre optics cable, National telecom should utilize rural development fund for relay stations to provide wireless access to rural

29 Burton (2003) drew attention to the impact of the political instability on Nepal’s IT Policy.

“The political and social instability ... worsened considerably since 2002, the year IT Policy was approved. The government has been overwhelmed by political discord, a royal massacre in 2001, and a violent Maoist insurgency. It has been forced to divert a large portion of its resources to restoring law and order in the country. …. With scarce resources tied up in security efforts implementation of the IT Policy has slipped from the government’s priority list”

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areas. We have difficulty in accessing government reports and information timely. Even innovative ideas to accelerate the growth of human capital through provision of affordable access get abandoned by NGOs in lack of facilitative policy measures (Bhakta Ranjit, statement at National conference, February, 2011). Socio-political factors, such as political instability and the Maoist insurgency, and policy issues were critical for the expansion of Telecenter programs in rural areas.

6.4 Conclusion: Positive Socio-Economic outcomes

This analysis suggested that there are certain enabling conditions, which are determinants of the success or failure of telecenters. Further, these conditions can be further classified as being either a necessary or sufficient condition for success.

Necessary conditions include: a minimum level of literacy; effective computer equipment; internet connection; knowledgeable ICT human resources at the telecenter for user assistance; and a location conducive to social interaction. Sufficient conditions include: availability of economically useful content in productive practices; availability of updated technological equipment; increased speed of internet connection; knowledge of

English language; digital literacy; a proactive management committee and educated and motivated telecenter staff, considerable face-to-face social interaction and both vertical and horizontal flows information.

The discussion on facilitating and inhibiting factors revealed some positive economic outcomes. An effective communication capability of telecenters, proactive management, extended network and better skill level were facilitating the use of the internet at telecenters. Telecenters facilitated the re-establishing of the missing link between village production units and potential markets (Grimes 2000) and the reorganization of some economic activity (Castells, 1996) such as apple farming in Mustang, thus adding value with the production of apple brandy and packaged dried apple snacks.

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Substantial social interaction was necessary to generate a change in cooperative behaviour at a community level. Most managers expressed the view networks between telecenters would encourage sharing the “valuable knowledge” between telecenters.

Inter-telecenter coordination and interactions could also potentially generate more appropriate and useful content for telecenter users. The different expectations, between many implementing agencies created difficulties for co-ordination.

The analysis of expectations and outcomes from the points of view of different stakeholder groups, presents a diverse picture of whether and how telecenters have served the original expectations. This chapter drew attention to the various facilitating and inhibiting factors. The next task is to reveal some of the underlying structural features of better performing telecenters. This is the objective of next chapter.

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Chapter 7

Insights into the Social Dynamics around the Use of

Telecenters

7.1 Introduction

Chapters five and six presented an analysis of the 25 telecenters included in the present study. Chapter five identified three categories within this overall group: better performing; average performing; and limited performing telecenters. This provided three case-study groups through which to explore differences in ex-ante expectations and ex-post outcomes. Chapter six extended this analysis with an investigation into how different stakeholder groups managed, accessed and used the telecenters. In conclusion, it was found that the social dynamics at telecenters and the multidimensional flow of information between stakeholder groups were critical factors to the effective access, use and diffusion of information. Most importantly, it was the “means of communication” both digitally and face-to-face at telecenters that produced the greatest potential for change. In this chapter, the underlying structural features of the process are explained in more detail.

The telecenters that delivered the most in terms of expectations were able to do so because local communities were able to make use of the information in innovative ways.

This is conceptualized here as absorptive capacity. Secondly, the telecenters and the information conveyed were used and accepted most often when there was a sufficient level of trust in the source of information, that it was reliable and that telecenter operators could be relied upon to offer support and discretion in accessing information.

Thirdly, in the better performing telecenters, owners and operators were able to learn

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CHAPTER 7: Insights into Social Dynamics around the Use of Telecenters from the users about their information needs, about how such information could best be provided and to adjust their information and delivery strategy in response. The owners of better performing telecenters were also the most likely to be learning from the experiences of other operators. Similarly, among users of better performing telecenters, there was a considerable level of sharing of information and an accessing the telecenters on behalf of others less able to do so. This learning and sharing process is discussed in this chapter as an example of openness. Finally, it is argued that the better performing telecenters were better, not because of the quality of the technology and its accessibility and not even because of the quality or timeliness of the information, but because of the social interaction occurring in the telecenters and more broadly in the community as a consequence of using telecenters. Users often made use of information for some collective activity. This included sharing information about agricultural production and marketing, but also included establishing and managing new business activities. Telecenters thus offered users and their local networks extended access to social capital through extended networks and information well beyond that which was previously available. Social capital, extended through the better performing telecenters is conceptualized here in two forms: bridging social capital; and bonding social capital. It is bridging in the sense that it has the capacity to link users to new sources of knowledge, information and networks (See Anheier and Kendall 2002). It can also be characterised as bonding in nature because of the often collective ways information and knowledge is shared, learned and used. These concepts of absorptive capacity, trust, openness and social capital help explain why some telecenters were functioning more effectively than others in terms of delivering on the expectations of owners, managers and users.

This chapter also discusses the national innovation system (NIS) introduced in chapter two and reflects on the potentiality that telecenters are a functional component of the

NIS of Nepal. It is argued that telecenters do serve rural development, offering 245

CHAPTER 7: Insights into Social Dynamics around the Use of Telecenters communication capacity, information, knowledge and opportunities for individual and collective learning.

7.2 Outcomes in a Conceptual Framework

Chapter two dealt with the framework for analysing three case studies of 25 telecenters.

The research results presented above indicated that despite lesser absorptive capacity and openness, the village telecenters delivered on expectations in some remote areas such as in Myagdi and Mustang. It is argued here that the main factor for their success in these areas was the ways in which telecenters were accessed and used for collective activity. Contextual factors such as collective community participation and regular sharing of information and extended communications were very much evident among the better performing telecenters and to some extent among the others also. Further investigation of the data collected across the 25 telecenters using the concepts of absorptive capacity, trust, openness and social capital helps explain why these collective conceptual factors are so important.

7.2.1 Social Capital and Contextual Social Dynamics

Telecenter users and managers were engaged in a process that draws on and contributes to social capital in order to maximize the potential social and economic benefits from

Telecenters. Putnam (2000) defined social capital as the connections among individuals, social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them

(p. 19). Woolcock (2001, p. 9) defined social capital as referring to ‘‘the norms and networks that facilitate collective action”. In chapter two Bourdieu’s (1986) discussion on social capital relating to public interactions in a network was introduced to illustrate how the concept might help explain the collective nature of telecenters.

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The pervasive nature of the internet in forming institutionalized relationships theoretically leads to an expansion of Bourdieu’s notion of social capital into the ways in which telecenters provided access to social capital. Portes (1998), building on

Bourdieu’s definition of social capital, drew attention to the ways social relationships allow individuals access to group resources and consequently, access to economic resources. Thus social capital is an enabler of economic resources: “Economic capital is in people’s bank accounts and human capital is inside their head, social capital inheres in the structure of their relationships” (Portes, 1998, p.7).

From these observations, social capital can be regarded as emerging from the ability of individuals in a group to gain benefits from accessing resources through social networks or other forms of social structures. The development of social capital thus depends on the levels of social interactions. Falk and Kilapatrick (2000) argued that sufficient numbers of interactions and in particular, the quality of these interactions, are the preconditions for building social capital. Learning from the delivery and flow of information and extending social relationships into new dimensions such as government agencies and specialist groups engaged with farming or tourism, interacting through the internet, provides access to bridging social capital. Consequently, the value of networks created through the internet becomes just as important as the information conveyed.

The field data documentation and analysis of this research revealed that social networks were indeed expanding through telecenter use. Thus telecenter use served to consolidate and extend existing rural social networks. Social networking in this way can facilitate learning especially in the rural and remote regions of developing countries through collaboration with agencies, institutional structures and also community networks

(Chapman and Slaymaker 2002; Hanna 2010; Turpin and Ghimire 2010). In the absence of larger firms and a bigger customer base, family enterprises in rural areas are

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CHAPTER 7: Insights into Social Dynamics around the Use of Telecenters the main economic unit for the application of knowledge. The formation of linkages between family enterprises, organizations and institutions that convey information and knowledge useful for such enterprises provide opportunities for access to “bridging” social capital (Putnam, 2000, Leonard 2004). That is, social capital can be accessed that bridges knowledge and networks beyond the village modes of production and thus connects them to the broader national innovation system and potentially beyond.

Telecenters in Nepal were introduced at a time when there is a lack of information literacy (skills to use computer) and a volatile political climate in rural areas. The process of establishing telecenters, including initial interactions, village meetings and related intervention programs such as awareness and user training, in many ways promoted a sharing of ideas and knowledge. There was evidence that the collective nature of this process also served to consolidate village networks. In other words, horizontal flows of information between local families and their members enhanced bonding social capital

(Ellison et al. 2007; Leonard 2004). ‘Vertical’ flow of information beyond local communities and with social networks often at considerable geographic and social distance prohibited access to engaging social capital. The following diagram illustrates the nature of horizontal and vertical flows as discussed in this thesis.

The information flows between central level institutions and local institutions such as the Department of Agriculture and a telecenter were at a minimum as indicated in the diagram by dotted lines. There were some horizontal flows between central level institutions such as the Ministry of Tourism and NITC but not to the extent to create a national hub of information; these are indicated by thinner lines. At the local level however, information flows between and within different social groups and telecenters were very frequent and thus effective. Examples of this were the flows of information

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CHAPTER 7: Insights into Social Dynamics around the Use of Telecenters between telecenter managers and users or management committees and village development councils.

Figure 7.1 Horizontal and Vertical Information Flows

It is argued in this chapter that among the better performing group of telecenters there was more evidence of extended feedback through the vertical flow of information between users in rural areas and central organizations and institutions; some horizontally between these organizations and institutions and some horizontally among central level organizations. However, there was little evidence that policy makers and program owners were aware of neither the nature of the social dynamics nor their necessity in enabling this to occur.

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Ex-post analysis suggests that while agencies were involved in vertical information flows few received or made use of information received back from the rural telecenters. At the local level, access to information did not always translate into tangible benefits such as productive agricultural practices and the tourism business. So too at the central level, access to information about telecenter operations did not always translate to better program delivery or better information content30.

Access to Social Capital

The example of the Basamadhi telecenter in organic farming demonstrated how the information flow when combined with tacit knowledge among farmers, extended their knowledge network and enriched access to new information, techniques and specialized professional advice. The argument here is that such examples of networks for sharing information and improving traditional practices in the local productive sector has considerable potential to increase social capital. The networks accessed via the internet bring collective integration of new knowledge through these networks at the local level, and is bonding in nature. In this way, access to social capital facilitates the spread of knowledge and innovation, thus reducing the cost of transactions for rural enterprises and promotes cooperative behaviour that generates good outcomes for a society (Batt

2008). As Lundvall (2002), commenting on the Danish case, has put it:

30 The example of yak farming and tourism development at Nangi village( see chapter 6 section 6.3.2.3) shows how locally relevant content, interactions and networking provided access to social capital. According to interviewees in Jomsom, this telecenter located at a library imparted ICT skills to women in villages enabling further access to extended social networks. At this centre, a group of village women started an SME to process locally grown apples, dried apple snacks and apple wines, which were sold in the local market. Tourists (national and international) were the major market for these products. The use of the internet by these women to access and use the information reflected access to what is referred to here as bridging social capital. The internet provided the information ‘bridging’ point for the group. These extended networks extended further to family members (husbands, sons and daughters) thus extending their access to social capital.

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Small countries have amassed a form of social capital that enables citizens to cooperate and participate actively in learning processes that promote growth and competitiveness more easily. … it is interesting that while the learning economy is characterized by increased competition, it is also characterized by an even more close collaboration between firms and their customers and suppliers (p. 100). An example from Himanchal High School at Nangi village supports this view. The

NWP had established a computer lab room in the school and a community telecenter in the village; it was not just the information flow but also the cooperation and active participation of the community that extended so much benefit to this school. Teachers had a greater commitment, and extended their tutorials at out-of-school-hours in their own time. Their mentoring of students and networking with parents and communities resulted in higher score results for students.

At the local level the present study also found a significant amount of cross group communication. Farmers were meeting and talking with students and business people as well as their family members.

We have a mixed community, in terms of caste, ethnicity in this village. We have farmers, business people, travel trade people, teachers, students, mothers group and so on. Earlier, Communications and interactions between different social groups and different occupational groups used to happen occasionally such as an annual general meeting organized by the village council. But after the establishment of this library and information centre there is almost a regular program of interaction. Sometimes adults and youth discuss useful books to study by each person and present summary of books read by individuals at the next meeting. Sometimes students, youth and adults all recite poems and stories they have written. Sometimes, high school students offer literacy classes to adults and adults from different social groups discuss and debate socio-political -economic issues and community development (Committee member respondent, CD2, January 2010). The level of communication appeared highest among the best performing telecenters.

The limited performing telecenters had lower levels of communication due to the lower numbers of users, thus, interactions between different groups were limited. Although

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CHAPTER 7: Insights into Social Dynamics around the Use of Telecenters this may simply reflect a telecenter still becoming established, there is a probability that some may remain underdeveloped with more limited social interactions.

Access and Equity

Though respondents at most telecenters reported no discrimination against caste and gender, deep roots of caste-based social structure are still evident in Nepalese rural societies (Pigg 1992; Gurung, 2003). In most of the average and the limited performing telecenters, it was found that women were less likely to use the internet in telecenters if there was no other woman present. Similarly, a low caste marginalized person would rarely sit alongside a higher caste user sharing the resources at the same time. This highlights the difficulty of drawing more marginal groups into the learning community, though awareness and social inclusion programs helped to some extent in introducing new technology to these groups. But there was some evidence, albeit limited, that telecenters were beginning to extend interaction through use of their “social space” in ways previously thought unlikely.

Access across National Boundaries

The use of the internet for communication is bridging geographic distance and enabling interaction between family members who are internationally dispersed. For example, one user (User respondent, code 68, See chapter 6, 6.3.5.1) visited the telecenter in her own village to contact her son in the middle-east using the internet phone, an example of ‘reaching the unreached’. These telecenter networks provided conduits to useful and relevant information, knowledge and experiences and served to maintain family social network across regional/national boundaries and time. They serve to consolidate family networks and enhance “bonding social capital”.

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Thus as argued in this thesis, the technology remains a useful tool for enabling communication to social capital in bridging and bonding forms that offers the biggest potential impact for rural development.

7.2.2 Trust in Telecenters

Seeking to explain how some telecenters were better performing than others, in terms of stakeholders’ expectations and practical outcomes, the literature suggests that trust is an important factor. The concept of trust was therefore included as an analytical variable in the analysis of 25 case-study telecenters. The trust literature (Fisman and Khanna, 1999;

Ratan et al. 2010; Kelton et al. 2008) suggest that trust between individuals embedded in a social network increases with increasing frequency of interactions, with better information flows and online communications. Kelton et al (2010) further found that trust was a vital facet of social interaction and a key intervening variable between information quality and information usage arguing that there was a positive relationship between trust and regular information flows. The literature review in chapter two discussed the findings of Rajalekshmi (2008) and how a local intermediary increased trust in the services of the telecenter. However, the case study analysis in this thesis shows that trust is very much a multidimensional factor. There is the issue of personal trust between people and an intermediary, and institutional trust in government. Trust can also have extrinsic value in gaining access economic resources such as the reduction of transaction cost enabling interaction between people and institutions. It can also have intrinsic value as a dimension of the broader notion of quality of life and includes the motives of self respect and social recognition (Nooteboom 2002).

Trust in information and trust in institutions are key constituents for the effective use of information accessed through telecenters. According to user and manager respondents, trust in information accessed on the internet was generally greater if it was a

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CHAPTER 7: Insights into Social Dynamics around the Use of Telecenters government run website. This is consistent with the studies carried out elsewhere

(Rajalekshmi 2008; Kurian and Ray 2009; and Kuriyan et al. 2010). From the point of view of the telecenter owners the issue of “trust” appeared to be considered as a

“given” factor. In practice it was not the case. For example, the initial distribution of government application forms, especially applications for citizenship and driving licenses printed at telecenters from a government website were subsequently rejected by local district offices. The negative ramification from this was costly and even after rectification; it took a long time to regain the trust.

Trust at Telecenters and Cybercafés

The establishment of cybercafés in semi-urban areas have offered an alternative point of access to the internet (see chapter 3). A Bungmati telecenter in the CDR experienced declining numbers of young users and students, who were making use of a nearby cyber café recently established. The cybercafés had newer machines, higher speed, friendly operators and cubical private space for users. Among users there, these were described as the main factors of attraction. In their research at cybercafés, Gomez and Gould

(2010) drew attention to four determining variables of trust: safety; perceptions of relevance; perceptions of reputation; and the ‘cool factor’. This latter factor was found to be important for subjective perceptions about the attractiveness of cybercafés. The

‘cool factor’ was defined as being synonymous with youth. At the cybercafés, it was unrestricted internet access, friendly operators, and comfortable space for social interaction (Gomez and Gould 2010). However, this sociability Castells draws attention to (Castells, 2007) is a different form to that observed at telecenters. Telecenters not only worked for a ‘death of distance’ (Mok et al. 2010) by enabling communities to contact distant friends and relatives and businesses or institutions but also provided for face-to-face meetings and interactions. At cybercafés the “cool factor” appeals to

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CHAPTER 7: Insights into Social Dynamics around the Use of Telecenters specific young cohort of users. Telecenters in contrast, are attended by a wide range of users, different age groups and for different purposes. Social networking at cybercafés and telecenters consequently take different forms.

The literature by Nooteboom (2002) supports this notion as he emphasized the importance of both social interaction and trust.

I propose that something like this happens when academics go to scientific conferences. This goes beyond the mere transfer of information, which could have been done by distributing papers via email. One goes to explore who has something interesting to say, in a pool of people one may not all know, and who convene because of shared interest. Having indentified interesting potential partners, one assesses their trustworthiness in terms of competence, willingness and dedication to collaborate, and benevolence in not expropriating ideas and being willing to engage in voice. With such colleagues one may next convene for more intensive seminars, where one gets down to developing shared categories, crossing cognitive distance, building an epistemic community. This may next be followed up by teams jointly making innovative novel combinations, in the form of joint papers, in a community of practice (Nooteboom 2002, p. 138). The study found the existence of relationships based on trust between users and managers. For example, many users trusted managers to create their email account and even to write emails on their behalf to their family members abroad. This is the interpersonal trust between the user and manager. There is also institutional trust in the telecenter. Telecenters were established by mostly big organizations, supported by a local governance body, managed by a local community of people, and operated and assisted by a knowledgeable local person as manager. This provides an institutional arrangement that is quite complex.

Trust in institution is trust in the quality of the institutional arrangements within which they operate’ (Cook et al. 2005 quoted by Smith 2010). On the one hand, trust in the organizational arrangements was clearly evident among the better performing telecenters. On the other hand, lack of “trust” is clearly a barrier

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CHAPTER 7: Insights into Social Dynamics around the Use of Telecenters to social network building. Trustworthiness cues are basic for building institutional trust, as Smith (2010) found in his study

Within e-services, the most easily perceived and influential trustworthiness cues are those outcomes that directly impact the citizen…. Key to understanding the process of building and destroying trust is the identification of the value conflict that can emerge from e-service implementations and how they align with citizen’s value (p. 222). It was not only the trust in organisational arrangements that were important but also in the technology and information conveyed. A woman user in WDR pointed to trust in the telecenter manager as part of her social networking and family communication, thus reducing the level of fear in unexpected events.

When I use the internet here, normally I chat with my husband, who is working in the Indian army. I am not good at English, so I have to take the help of the manager here. I need to share my personal feelings and need to talk about finances and remittances. These are private issues and I do not want others to know it. But the manager is local and is from our community and caste. I have complete faith in him and I have no hesitation to share the information transmitted to my husband. Using and doing these activities, now I have learned to type the English alphabets and hopefully I will be able to chat in Roman Nepali (User respondent, code 49, December 2009). This practice indicated bonding through frequent communication and information sharing at the telecenter.

Researchers have considered social networks as a social resource and consequently social capital (Daniel et al. 2003). This is not only a consequence of trust but also one of learning. Social networks are also information networks providing information and strengthening social ties as trust consolidates. The reverse is also a possibility. For example, another respondent in a limited performing telecenter explained that he did not trust the information or the forms accessed at the telecenter.

I did not use the forms from the telecenter for my citizenship application, because if the district office does not accept that form, I would spend twice as much money and time for the same thing at the district office. I have also heard vegetable and other farming would increase income

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instead of paddy, but if that crop does not go well because of the wrong production technique or a fall in the market price, we will get starved, so I practice, what I am experienced with (User respondent, code .., CD3, January 2010) This example illustrates and emphasizes three important features of social interaction at telecenters, information sharing, learning and trust.

Thus, trust is built through continuous and constructive contacts between individuals and telecenters and expanded among groups and communities as the economic and social value emerges from the use of the internet and related services.

7.2.3 Telecenters and Openness for Development

Recently the concept of ICTs for development has been promoted as an analytical dimension to enhance the use of ICT. The concept deals with institutional arrangements from the preparation of information, to its delivery through technology that is widely accessible. Smith and Elder (2010) operationalise openness along a dimension from less to more open arrangement in a society. This they argue promotes social relationships favouring universal access, participation and collaborative information production. The introduction of telecenters in Nepal has contributed to some extent towards universal access and participation of rural residents in receiving and sharing information.

However, there were many limiting factors particularly among the less effective telecenters. There is a strong argument for organizational arrangements with open access for sharing information so that it enhances social relationships and bridges knowledge gaps across rural and remote areas.

Many variables were at play providing limitations to open ICT through telecenters in

Nepal. For example, telecenter management committees in many average and limited performing telecenters did not think of managers as important stakeholders and as such did not invite them to the management committee meetings. Table 7.1 illustrates the

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CHAPTER 7: Insights into Social Dynamics around the Use of Telecenters participation of managers in the management committee meeting. A salient feature of these data is that in better performing telecenters managers were always included in committee meetings.

Table 7.1 Managers Participation in the Management Committee Meeting

Categories Invited Occasionally Not Invited Total Invited Better Performing 6 0 0 6 Average 12 2 2 16 Performing Limited 1 1 1 3 Performing Total 19 3 3 25

The open delivery and use of information through telecenters was limited in two ways, first, due to a skills deficiency among rural users and secondly, through the limited use of feedback from users. There were, however, some examples where open feedback was a feature of information content design.

At Himachal High School at Nangi village, students benefitted through interactive educational content. In this case, educational content was developed through the help of an international NGO, an Open Learning Exchange. This removed the barrier of access to the government curriculum, which otherwise was impossible to receive in time due to the remote location. Thus, openness locally allowed the broader dissemination of information between users and village councils with open access to web-based information. But the horizontal flow of information as discussed in section 7.2.1 was generally limited.

Better performing telecenters were more regularly engaged in community discussions.

These telecenters often altered the design and operational procedures as a result of

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CHAPTER 7: Insights into Social Dynamics around the Use of Telecenters community feedback. Similarly, some telecenter managers found that most users searched the internet for employment information. Because of this, they sent that feedback to central program owners and the government added employment as a content theme and directed the Department of Labour to provide increased interaction about employment opportunities. Although the second phase of the telecenter roll-out drew upon some community feedback, there was little evidence of information sharing among telecenters. It was also noted that there was no horizontal sharing of community feed-back across government agencies.

For the present study, telecenters were ranked already to observed levels of openness.

This was done in order to explore the relationship between openness and three case study performance clusters.

The ranking was based on the interview questions for the management committee on: cultural issues QN 3.4; Information sharing QN 3.8; Interaction QN 6.8. For managers’ question, it was based on: interaction and participation QN 3.10 and 3.11 (See appendix

IX and X); and institutional structures and trust issues noted during field studies. Results of this analysed procedure is shown in Figure 7.2

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Figure 7.2 Level of Openness

As shown in Figure 7.2, a higher level of openness in terms of access, trust, network building and interaction and participation was evident among the better performing telecenters and vice versa for limited performing telecenters. The telecenter WD1,

Puthang and WD8 at Nangi had the highest degree of openness, possibly contributed to by the influx of tourist users and other communities from Nepal travelling through, which also promoted more open participation and interactions. The telecenter WD4 at

Khibang had lowest level of openness among the better performing telecenters, a community of 250 persons limited access to same caste and culture possibly limited openness to other communities and cultures.

Figure 7.1 (see this chapter, section 7.2) earlier showed a flow of information, indicating higher levels of openness by thick arrows and lower levels by thinner arrows. To some extent it was expected to find a close relationship between performance and openness, their openness in accessing, using and sharing information and knowledge. However,

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CHAPTER 7: Insights into Social Dynamics around the Use of Telecenters the point here was to deepen the analysis in order to investigate the relationship between openness and access to social capital. Adults extended the breadth of their networks by interacting with younger people, which was rare according to peer conversations. Openness was clearly a factor in social bonding through an integrated collective learning experience. For example, adults were perceived to have more knowledge through their experiences in productive practices than young users. But, when the internet was available, student users had more knowledge due to formal education, English language skills and their quick learning and adopting abilities. This led to adults interacting more with youth in a face to face learning process. This promoted bonding social capital between generations.

7.2.4 Absorptive Capacity and Performance

Earlier in this thesis it was proposed that absorptive capacity would be a major factor to determining how the communication capacity of telecenters was used. It was also proposed that this would be an important factor in whether telecenters met the expectations of different stakeholder groups. It was also proposed in the present analysis that there would be some evidence of interconnecting relationships between absorptive capacity, trust, openness and access to social capital.

This research also looked at the levels of absorptive capacity as a formative component of the social processes in using telecenters. When individual users, and telecenters as organizations are engaged in social interactions, absorptive capacity enables the transformation of new knowledge to the local context. When program owners in the central Kathmandu transmitted the new information and knowledge through telecenters, it was the absorptive capacity of a particular community that enabled use of this new knowledge in the local context. Hotho et al (2011) stressed the importance of social interaction as a key link between individuals, and organizational level absorptive

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CHAPTER 7: Insights into Social Dynamics around the Use of Telecenters capacity. This cited social interaction as a prerequisite for institutions to absorb and make use of knowledge.

The telecenter strategy adopted in Nepal assumed integrated activities across different institutional agencies such as HLCIT, NITC responsible for telecenters, implementing programs and different agencies such as the various government departments responsible for agriculture education, health and industry to contribute relevant content.

Ex-ante expectations, which were pre-implementation ideal assumptions, presupposed local capacity to make use of information across the areas. Ex-post results showed that this was not always the case. Ex-post results also demonstrated a lack of integration at the central level for the delivery of content and for absorbing feedback about connectivity issues from managers and management committees or unmet expectations of users. Noticeably, the programs were unable to create a central information hub portal to deliver the information to communities through telecenters as originally envisaged as outlined in chapter three.

However, at a local level, the interaction and communication between different social groups was considerable. The telecenter provided a social location and a rationale for meeting and discussion to occur. This use of the internet and connections with new people from different places promoted a sharing of experiences. Feedback that was not evident across the agencies engaged with the delivery of the program. In contrast, the village development councils modified their local procedures. The Panauti telecenter in

Kavre received annual funds from its village development council after their feedback on their financial difficulty and the council in Baglung set up a procedure to process citizen application forms printed at the telecenter31. Earlier, council had required a press

31 Earlier council required press printed application form from the district office. 262

CHAPTER 7: Insights into Social Dynamics around the Use of Telecenters printed application form from the district office. Feedback also helped them to establish a common approach to development issues at the community level particularly among the better performing telecenters. For example, villagers in Madhumalla, in the EDR agreed to provide a room in a library building to convene women adult literacy classes in the evening. After several interactions in library, the telecenter manager helped them to reach a consensus.

While the literature draws the attention to the necessity of absorptive capacity among user communities this thesis draws attention to the necessity of absorptive capacity of both users and suppliers of information. The feedback mechanism that was practiced in telecenters from users flowed in two ways. The first was from users to telecenter managers, who passed this feed-back to management committees, which in turn passed these to village development councils. Village councils in their judgement would then forward feed-back to the central level. The second procedure for user feed-back was directly sent by telecenter managers to the program owners’ office in central

Kathmandu. Telecenter users had no direct link to agencies except through managers.

Managers had a link only to program owners not to other related agencies.

Figure 7.3 shows the level of absorptive capacity according to each of 25 case study telecenters performance. Again the absorptive capacity was ranked one to twelve based on the total score using six factors: finding information; information sharing; skill level; interaction; extended networks; and bonding and bridging social capital (see appendix

XII for factors affecting absorptive capacity with related question numbers and appendix XIII for total score and ranking). Telecenters were better performing in those communities, which had capability to explore external knowledge through the internet, social network and social interactions. Average performing telecenters had potential absorptive capacity to maximize the knowledge sharing and limited performing

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CHAPTER 7: Insights into Social Dynamics around the Use of Telecenters telecenters had a lower level of absorptive capacity resulting in lower impact in socio- economic livelihood. As shown in Figure 7.3 the stakeholders in better performing telecenters generally had higher absorptive capacities, some because of their skill levels, some through extensive sharing and learning. In contrast, all three limited performing telecenters lacked the capacity to absorb, use and apply information and knowledge largely because of more limited social interactions and a less conducive learning environment.

Figure 7.3 Level of Absorptive Capacity

As argued throughout this thesis, there is a need for community based social empowerment to enhance absorptive capacity in order to expand access to utilize the internet and the social capital made available through telecenters. Similarly, there is a need for the capacity to absorb feedback in vertical and horizontal flows of information along the telecenter supply line and horizontally between agencies and organisations engaged with the telecenter program.

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Absorptive capacity seemed to be weak at the level of individual and users often combined resources and acted collectively to partly overcome such limitations. In some cases there was evidence of managers recognising this collective approach and responding by offering training and language workshops.

The learning and information sharing process provided some improvements in the delivery strategy and was influenced through feedback mechanism. The continuity of face-to-face communication at telecenters strengthened the level of trust between telecenter stakeholders. As social capital, enhanced trust, openness and absorptive capacity are interlinked factors associated with the delivery of expectations held by telecenter stakeholders. The discussion above has shown how each of these factors intersects with the other. Consequently, all four should be considered in the design, delivery and evaluation of telecenters. The discussion above also suggests that the potential benefits from better performing telecenters will contribute to a better functioning national innovation system. The following section of the chapter explains this possibility for the Nepalese NIS.

7.3 National Innovation System (NIS)

Chapter two introduced the concept of a National Innovation System (NIS) and

National innovation ecosystem. It is argued here that the telecenters in Nepal are nested in and contributing to extending social networks. They are also nested in the Nepalese national innovation system, because these centres are engaged in diffusing information and knowledge through ICT and carry the capacity for a flow of information within and between institutions and social structures that comprise the system (Lundvall, 1992).

Considering the role of ICT from an NIS perspective is important for policy because once defined, the system provides a framework through which governments can seek to

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CHAPTER 7: Insights into Social Dynamics around the Use of Telecenters evaluate and influence the innovation process (Metcalfe, 1995). Lundvall (2011) broadened the understanding of innovation process distinguishing innovations as outcomes of science-based or experience-based learning process. NIS in its broader perspective does not relate only to science systems and technologies but also to social institutions concerned with learning processes (Lundvall et al. 2009).

Thus, the NIS on the one hand consists of components, typically of knowledge intensive organizations, universities, and research institutions but also includes firms, which promote experience-based learning and tacit knowledge, by doing, using and

Interacting (DUI) and linkages between these different components (Chaminade et al.

2010, Lundvall 2011). A national innovation system then, is a set of research universities, public laboratories, innovative enterprises, venture capital firms and those institutions and their interactions that support and contribute to the production, diffusion, adoption, transfer and use of new and economically useful knowledge, new products and processes (Freeman, 1987; Nelson, 1993, Niosi 2010).

Most of the NIS literature has focused on systems in industrially developed economies with highly efficient institutions with scientific and technological knowledge, particularly government and corporate incentives for private research and development (Niosi

2010). With inefficient and poorly funded institutions in developing countries a key question is whether ICT offers enabling opportunities for development where there are weak flows of information between local communities, policy makers, and agencies responsible for transferring information, knowledge and skills. Nepal is a least developed country and as such it has a weaker NIS, this thesis argues that telecenters offer a social space where intense social interaction, collaboration and learning can take place. Moreover, the social space enables these processes to occur in the same context as many village based enterprises.

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When innovation takes place, its introduction alone is not sufficient for success. Adnor

(2006) stated that external factors are critical to what a firm does internally for successful innovation and that these external factors embed a firm within an ecosystem to engage in interdependent innovations. Other actors who accompany changes to the focal firm’s environment, need to be the part of the innovation process. Innovation platforms such as Apple’s iphone, are orchestrating value creation and value appropriation by encouraging firms to innovate, which enable them to develop and shape their ecosystem (Zahra and Nambisan 2011). Telecenters at each rural location in

Nepal are comprised of family production units, village enterprises and their local resources and relationships.

7.3.1 The Nepalese NIS

There is a very limited array of science, technology and innovation institutions in

Nepal 32 . Government investment in Research and Development (R&D) remained mainly restricted to research into budgetary contributions to universities and autonomous institutions like the National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) previously RONAST. There are some institutions involved in research such as the

Nepal Agriculture Research council (NARC), the Alternative Energy Promotion Centre

(AEPC), HLCIT and NITC. There are no policy incentives for encouraging private

R&D and business expenditure on R&D is negligible. Least developed countries usually have inefficient science and technology institutions due to a lack of STI policies to

32 . It was only the sixth development plan (1980-85) that just mentioned Science and technology. This was in the context of raising agricultural productivity (Singh & Bhuju, 2001). National Council for Science and Technology (NCST) and Royal Nepal Academy of Science and Technology (RONAST) were established in late 70s and 1982 respectively. These institutions were focusing on raising awareness on the use of Science and Technology (S & T) for national development. The establishment of a Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) in 1996, which later changed to Ministry of environment, Science & Technology (MOEST) in 2005 was major step taken by the government to promote S & T in Nepal. 267

CHAPTER 7: Insights into Social Dynamics around the Use of Telecenters encourage diffusion of knowledge and ideas, poor funding and lack of government commitment to R&D to promote innovation (NIOSI 2010).

The lack of funds in existing public and private STI organizations, emphasizes the need for a more unconventional approach to the analysis of the NIS in Nepal. This is because the actors and organizations associated with rural based development are rather different than those that are the focus in more industrially developed economies. Biggs and Lewis (2009) have studied the case of the Association of Craft Producers (ACP) in

Nepal to explore some of more unconventional innovation processes in Nepal. They argued that actors who change the operating environment of organizations are more interactive and dynamic and carry the potential for generating increased levels of innovation. Their study concluded by defining ACP as an innovative fair trade organization that had engaged in institutional innovation for over 25 years. Collective engagement of the executive director, board members, villager level producer groups, higher level federations, networks and alliances were not dissimilar to collective engagement at telecenters. Their reflections on learning and change mechanisms created an effective way of progressing in both cases.

The process behind the flow of information and technology between different actors and their linkages has important implications for learning and innovation (Joshep 2006).

Gauchan et al (2003) drew attention to the Nepal Agricultural Research Council in the development of a new strategy for participatory technology development (PTD) in agricultural and natural resources. This development was associated with emerging changes in partner/client relationships and alliances at local, national and international levels. For example, NARC was the source of information and knowledge provider across a wide range of PTD activities. NARC also developed programs for other research and development actors, NGOs and private sector institutions. Thus, it has

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CHAPTER 7: Insights into Social Dynamics around the Use of Telecenters now emerged as a receiver of knowledge and learning from its partners due to feedback from informal local R&D practices. Learning and knowledge also flowed to this public institution vertically from NGO institutions, private sector alliances, and multiple linkages with horizontal information flows. This example illustrates how the vertical and horizontal linkages in agriculture between multiple actors helped learning and sharing knowledge to occur (Gauchan et al. 2003).

Rice is the most important crop in the hills and plains. Biggs (2005) discussed how policy and institutional changes occurred in the rice research innovation system with the improvements in the national varietal release procedures. This was possible due to the integration of informal local R&D practices into a formal R&D system of collaboration between farmers, NGOs and government institutions. It also set in place institutional arrangements to extend plant breeding and seed production (Biggs 2005). Biggs also noted that the positive innovative outcome was influenced by the innovative behaviour and activities of enterprises in rural areas, which operated as a not for profit organization to improve social development in rural areas. These two examples illustrate the ways that local practices can convey change “knowledge feedback” providing appropriate institutional arrangements are in place.

Ojha et al (2009) discussed a community forestry program in Nepal, which they presented as a global innovation process in participatory governance. This process was supported by legislative development and further operational innovations over the years evolving to a broad based forestry-use strategy. Ojha and colleagues further argued that policies involving the local community in forestry promotion and management enabled innovation to proceed. This community forestry program also had an experimental and multi-stakeholder collaborative learning process and a strong civil-society network.

Learning from this process to accommodate changing needs and circumstances at the

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CHAPTER 7: Insights into Social Dynamics around the Use of Telecenters community level by all major actors in a socio-economic network was an essential prerequisite. In another case, an actor oriented power tiller innovation system illustrated how the linkages between district agricultural offices and international NGOs established a power tiller for agricultural and non-agricultural purposes in rural and urban areas (Biggs et al. 2002).

These examples lead to the conclusion that for the Nepalese NIS linkages and feedback mechanism that engage local communities, NGOs and government agencies are critical for innovation to occur. An interactive and dynamic environment to facilitate learning is a feature of all these examples. In the absence of strong STI institutions, the role of intermediary agencies and linking mechanisms become crucial for innovations to proceed. The telecenter system, which promotes interactions, facilitates the extension of extending networks and contributes to a learning process, should equally have an important part to play in the innovation.

The Nepalese national innovation system is weak compared to developing countries.

There is limited interactive learning and collaboration between system actors such as universities and enterprises as shown in figure 7.4. There are weak system actors, inter- links and the flow of knowledge and ideas is often channelled through less formal arrangements. As Chaminade et al (2009) argued the existence of an emerging NIS with less research and research funds at universities, weak links and lack of interfaces are typical of less developed countries and thus require a rather different policy approval.

The figure 7.4 shows Nepalese institutions that could potentially contribute to innovative practices in rural areas but are extremely limited by weak organisational

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CHAPTER 7: Insights into Social Dynamics around the Use of Telecenters linkages.

In figure 7.4 thicker lines represent a higher level of institutional interaction, collaborations that exist between firms, enterprises and end users of the products. But importantly there was a very thin layer of connections between firms, universities and research organizations. The dotted line indicates a much lower level of interaction and collaboration between government, universities, and research institutions. The current conceptualized model of innovation lists central level firms and enterprises and end user interfaces in a production structure. There are many small village level enterprises and production units that are not connected to any central level agencies in figure 7.4.

A telecenter system as a local institution is connected with village enterprises and thus can potentially bring them into an emerging Nepalese NIS. The arrangement illustrated in figure 7.4 does not take into account these sorts of intermediary organizations which are engaged as intermediary information and learning interfaces. However, as the

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CHAPTER 7: Insights into Social Dynamics around the Use of Telecenters analysis above shows, telecenters can serve as an intermediary interface between village production units and more central elements of NIS.

7.3.2 The Nepalese NIS and Telecenter

The telecenter design documentation (see chapter3, section 3.10) in Nepal did not explicitly consider them in the context of a NIS. Telecenters served as organizations diffusing information and enabling communication across other components of the

NIS. It was a product of the relationships and collaborations between different stakeholders (users, managers) and institutions (program owners and management committees), that enabled learning to occur, albeit with limited feedback. Lundvall has argued that social capital is a critical precondition for the development of a learning society, and consequently, innovation and growth (Lundvall. 2002). As shown in this thesis, telecenters have the potential to extend the social networks and provide bridging social capital that links local productive processes to the national innovation system structures. Consequently, this can potentially serve as a spur for development. From the analysis presented in this study, openness, trust and absorptive capacity together contribute to access to social capital. In some telecenters bridging social capital enabled an expansion of knowledge networks while bonding social capital (through its social experiences of using the telecenters) consolidated the use of new techniques and learning. Even among the average performing telecenters there was evidence that networks and relationships between rural users and institutions in cities were facilitated through internet use activities. In a similar way, Doh and Acs (2010) found a positive relationship between the overall level of social capital and innovation.

The overall level of social capital, consisting of trust (passive and active), membership and norms of civic behaviour across all individuals within a country has a positive influence on overall innovation (Doh and Acs 2010, p.257)

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One of the contributions of the present thesis, however, is to show that a balance between bridging and bonding social capital is necessary in order to allow fundamental changes in local practices.

Telecenters facilitated cooperation between members of the communities through face to face interactions in telecenters while also being virtually connected through the internet. The data presented in chapter five highlighted how community members came to the telecenters to meet friends and relatives and to share and exchange information.

This often culminated in a process of social bonding. Doh and Acs (2010) argued that the greater the associational activities of society to share useful information and knowledge, the greater tendency to innovate.

7.3.3 Revisiting Expectations and outcomes of Telecenters: NIS

Perspective

Telecenters in Nepal have had as expected by the program designers, some impact on socio-economic conditions. This occurred in different ways and usually these emerged from social interaction at the centre. For example, organic vegetable farming at the

Basamadhi was made possible through the use of information conveyed through the internet but the collective use of that information was largely a product of social interaction, discussion and the debates that followed.

The important expectation that was not met was the creation of a national hub of information in Nepali to deliver information to rural communities on the six key themes through telecenters. This however, does not constitute a failure of the telecenter, rather it suggests there was rather limited foresight into how the use of telecenters would evolve.

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In the rural and remote regions of Nepal, it is not so much the collaboration between firms, customers and suppliers that is critical for learning, but collaboration between local producers, government institutions, development agencies, academic and research institutions, and other institutional structures and the telecenter networks. Telecenters were clearly contributing to such collaboration. Some researchers in innovation have argued there are network types crucial to innovation: networks of collaboration; networks of communication; networks of technology (Valk and Gijsbers 2010). All three were shown important in the present study.

Niosi has referred to what he calls positive ‘habits of thoughts’ (Niosi, 2010). There was much evidence that the convergence of bridging and bonding social capital at many telecenters were generating such change. Khadka (2011) stated that the Ramche village has transformed itself through wireless internet connection as women, who were previously limited to farm and kitchen work could now take time out for a few minutes to be on the computer keyboard, using Facebook or writing emails to their husband working in the middle-east. Similarly, youth trained at Nangi village schools were able to find jobs in other village schools as computer teachers. Most schools teach computer technology as an additional subject, thus creating more employment opportunities and income in villages. Even 60 year olds had taken part in basic computer training at telecenters and started using it. This activity on the one hand increased their skills in accessing the information and on the other hand inspired other villagers to be a part of these extending social networks.

Contrary to this, the more limited performing telecenters appeared as ‘short-term-carers for someone else’s job’. There was only limited sense of ownership. The management committees were more neutral even on anticipated outcomes and managers in those centres gave responses that were more negative. Instead of working with what they had,

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CHAPTER 7: Insights into Social Dynamics around the Use of Telecenters they cited lack of resources for things that did not happen. Even at the user level, it was found that there was higher level of resistance to change.

As stated in chapter five, for most users, emails, chatting and connecting distant friends and relatives were the main purposes along with interaction with other people at telecenter. Warschauer (2003) stated that ‘Using ICT extends people’s social capital’ and social interaction through the internet promotes social capital. Although others such as

Brown and Duguid (2002) have argued that face-to-face communication contributes more to social capital than online communication, the promotion of social inclusion through community technology projects creates social capital ‘affecting broader access to the socio-economic benefits of the information society’ (Warschauer 2003). The essential argument of this thesis and contribution to these debates is that both bridging and bonding social capital can be generated through the internet and that analyses must take into account both forms. Moreover, this thesis points out that the benefit derived from one form requires complementary access to the other.

7.3.4 Telecenters a Conduit of Information Networking in NIS

Rural Economic development in Nepal is based mainly around family enterprises, small cottage industries, small agro-based processing, and a few firms. As discussed earlier in this chapter and through earlier chapters, telecenters serve to deliver information, enable communication and present an institution central for becoming and accessing social capital.

Figure 7.5 illustrates this process and shows conceptually the potential role of telecenters in the Nepalese NIS. Three distinct domains are illustrated: Content domain; product/information serving domain; and social domain. It is argued here that telecenters can potentially serve as “enabling” institutions across all three domains. The

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CHAPTER 7: Insights into Social Dynamics around the Use of Telecenters necessary conduit for their effective structuring is the exclusive and effective vertical and horizontal information flows, absorptive capacity, openness in the delivery and flow of information, actual trust and interaction, a social space that serves to mediate a balance through telecenter action believing, bridging and bonding social capital.

The figure 7.5 illustrates the position of telecenter a revised conceptual view of the

Nepalese innovation system. The left column represents the content domain, which pre- supposes the offering of horizontal information flow and network coordination between central level agencies for content creation and delivery. Program owners are linked through telecenters to rural users, regardless of whether it is government or

NGO. Central organizations, especially government departments related to agriculture, health, education and employment are engaged in the delivery of information for productive purposes at the telecenter. The middle column represents the product/

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CHAPTER 7: Insights into Social Dynamics around the Use of Telecenters information serving domain, with use and application of information in productive processes. Numerous examples have been shown through this present study. The third column represents the social domain, where social processing occurs, illustrating connections, interactions and information flows and users’ access and applications.

However, individuals and families are connected to production information diffused through extended family networks, at their workplace in a social network or social network through the web such as Facebook.

To be most effective there is a need for feed-back mechanisms, coordination between central connection hubs and accommodation of user feed-back for continuous improvement in information delivery via telecenters. Again, the absorptive capacity of rural communities to adopt new knowledge received and then apply it depended on their prior knowledge, trust in this new source and capacity to offer feedback. It is the second domain often negotiated in telecenters that can enhance absorptive capacity. The present study revealed complementarities in the form of awareness programs, adult literacy classes, and information flows through extended family networks. The differences in the performance of telecenters were, as argued earlier in this chapter, due to the differences in absorptive capacity of the communities. Communities with prior knowledge, skills and external linkages through networks were active learners, thus enabling them able to use the information from telecenters.

By exploring these issues through three clusters of case studies, it was expected that different practices and outcomes would be reflected and it was possible to observe and reflect more deeply on how telecenters were able to provide access to extended social capital, thus limiting or enhancing nature of openness, trust and absorptive capacity.

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7.3.5 Revisiting the Nepalese NIS

The discussion above suggests a need to revise the NIS model illustrated in figure 7.4. A revised version is shown in the figure 7.6, where telecenters are shown as both a

“connecting” component and a learning environment.

The other important revelation is the weak relationship between Universities and ICT enterprises in the area of any collaborative effort in research for innovative products and services (see chapter 3). Similarly, there seems to be very weak or almost non- existent interaction between telecenters and academic institutions and research institutions. Therefore, much more collaboration, information flows and stronger linkages between actors and relevant institutions will strengthen the telecenter network for innovative use of ICT in rural areas of Nepal and in achieving socio-economic transformation.

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The analysis of the results in chapter six dealt with the expected and unexpected outcomes of telecenter implementation. Unexpected outcomes discussed in this chapter were at village level production units, using and applying information for employment opportunities in foreign countries, contribution to consolidating family and social networks through intensity of social interaction and stronger horizontal information flows at the local level. These outcomes were depicting a product of the social nature of acting at the telecenters.

7.4 Conclusion: Telecenters Critical Component of

Nepalese NIS

This chapter presented an explanation of what it was that made better performing telecenters, especially in terms of their contribution to expectations as well as to innovation in village level enterprises. It is argued that the concept of social capital, trust, openness and feedback and absorptive capacity enabled deeper insights into the social dynamics of telecenters. Social capital was useful for identifying telecenter’s impact through both bridging and bonding social capital. Trust was an important factor for the intended use and sustained use of telecenters. An exploration of existing openness and feedback mechanisms exposed some of the potential weaknesses in the system. Absorptive capacity enabled transfer and use of information and knowledge in a local context and in their own innovative ways despite thinner levels of content flows and skill deficiencies. Because telecenters provide the social space for interaction, collaboration and using the information, a shared experience for learning and extended access to knowledge networks, they should be seen as a critical part of an emerging

Nepalese national innovation system.

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Chapter 8

Innovative Role of Telecenters

8.1 Introduction

Chapter seven presented the research results from the 25 case-study telecenters through an analytical lens using the concepts of social capital, trust, openness and absorptive capacity. The analysis revealed that telecenters provided access to bridging social capital through extended social networks facilitated by communications through the internet.

Social interactions at the centres however, also generated bonding social capital that consolidated extended family relationships and in many cases contributed to collective learning experiences in local communities. The analysis in chapter seven also showed how the use of telecenters contributes to some local innovative practices. It was also argued that in the cases where telecenters have promoted stronger social ties at the local level through bonding social capital, this has also contributed to enhanced absorptive capacity. While access to bridging social capital, enabled through telecenters extended knowledge and information networks well beyond village based production, it is bonding social capital that contributes to the local capacity to absorb and use information and knowledge. Finally it was argued that because telecenters can provide access to social capital, a learning environment and support for rural based enterprises, they should be considered an important component of the Nepalese national innovation system.

This chapter summarizes the main findings from the previous chapters and their specific contributions to this thesis. It also draws out some of the policy implications for

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CHAPTER 8: Innovative Role of Telecenters managing what are essentially rural based innovation systems, addresses some of the limitations of the present study, and offers suggestions for future research.

8.2 Overall Argument and Research Findings

Chapter one outlined the overarching research problem and presented the specific research questions. Nepal, in rural areas, has bypassed costly land based communication and moved directly to the introduction of mobile phones and internet services. The applications of these phones and the internet have changed methods of communication, social practices and ways of doing business. The present thesis, specifically addresses the social practices surrounding the internet use at telecenters.

People in rural remote mountainous regions in Nepal are excluded socially, politically and economically from the institutions that are generally defined as the core components of a national innovation system. This is partly to do with widespread illiteracy, partly to do with geographic isolation and partly to do with limited access to information about national institutions. Therefore, the application of ICT technology in the form of telecenters in these areas was introduced with an expectation from government an information hub focussed on six thematic issues:1) Agriculture; 2)

Distance Learning; 3) Tele-medicine; 4) Productive Economic Activities 5)

Environment Protection & 6) Disaster Mitigation would be the result.

It is now nine years since the Telecenter Program was designed and introduced. The present study investigated a cross section of 25 telecenters to determine whether this

ICT concept was delivering on the expectations of the Program. A particular feature of this study is that it sought to investigate the expectations and outcomes from the point of view of a range of key stakeholders along the telecenter “value chain”. This included the program owners, telecenters management committees, telecenter managers and

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CHAPTER 8: Innovative Role of Telecenters telecenter users. The study sought to review the documents associated with the introduction of the program and document the original expectations (ex-ante) through the retrospective perspective of these stakeholders. Ex-post experiences were documented from interviews conducted with the same group of respondents with regard to their experiences of engagement with telecenters since their introduction.

These data were important for analysing detailed case study information about the performance of telecenters and about whether the outcomes matched the actual experiences of stakeholders and why this was so. To understand these issues the study formulated three sets of questions:

1) What were the expectations of the government, implementing agencies, local

managing groups and user groups on telecenter implementation and to what

extent were the expectations achieved?

2) What were the facilitating or the inhibiting factors that led to varying outcomes?

3) Should telecenters be considered a contributing component of a Nepalese

National Innovation System (NIS)?

Chapter two reviewed the current literature and discussed the implications of previous research for the present study. Five main themes dominate the literature. These were:

ICT as an enabling technology for driving innovation; the digital divide and the concept of ICTD4; The internet as a social process; the diffusion and use of the internet in developing countries; and research into the social consequences of the internet. From these studies a set of concepts were used to create a theoretical framework to explore the data collected through the present study and offer an explanation for the study’s findings. These concepts included: social capital; trust; openness; absorptive capacity; and innovation systems theory. These analytical tools were used to generate deeper

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CHAPTER 8: Innovative Role of Telecenters understanding of the social dynamics operating through the delivery, access and use of telecenters.

Chapter two revealed a rich research literature on ICT and economic growth but one which is in large part only useful in understanding developed economies in which a quantitative analysis had been used. The abundant literature on telecenter implementation in developing countries mainly focuses on the nature of the technology and its impact. There is less research for explaining outcomes of the internet or the impact of telecenters in terms of the social processes, particularly in least developed countries.

The analysis of the literature led to five key observations. First, the technology is global and enabling but there are different outcomes in different places. It was noted that while

ICTs have contributed to increased output, capital, labour productivity, and economic growth in developed economies this is not always the case among the developing economies. This is mainly due to a lack of resources, complementary investments in creative technical and scientific workforce and easy access to education and digital literacy (Baliamoune-Lutz 2003, Pick and Azari 2008; Warschauer 2003; Pilat 2004; Ark et al 2003; Indijkan and Siegel 2005; Seo et al 2009; Schreyer 2000). Second, the technology had been delivered into some remote regions in different ways such as through telecenters to overcome limitations in human and economic resources. These have increased rural access to information technology but due to inadequate education and skills and long established traditional access to information, have not always led to productive use (Hanna 2010; Duncombe 2006; Pick and Gollakota 2010; Tiwari and

Sharmistha 2008; Bowonder and Boddu 2005).

Third, the literature where these processes have been studied has usually only offered

“snapshots” of the internet and the telecenter experiences. See for example, ‘Drishtee’,

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‘e-Choupal’ in India, telecenters in Jamaica, Peru, Iran, Laos (Goransson 2005; Tiwari and Sharmistha 2008; Kumar 2004; Bailur 2007; Jalali 2006; Heeks and Kanashira 2009).

These studies reported an increased access to information, skills training and in some cases, socio-economic benefits. Except for a few successful practices, many telecenters were reported to be facing challenges such as connectivity; cost; access to human resources; and suitable local language content (Harris 2002, Kurian and Toyama 2007;

Rao 2008, Heeks 2002)). Fourth, most of these studies were concentrated on access to information and technology, some advocated the need to understand the local social context and community characteristics. Most underestimated the level of complexity in the social processes that underpin the diffusion, access, use and application of the internet and other services (Harris 2001; Hana 2010; Heeks 2010). There is, therefore a need to understand more about the social dynamics that operate among users of telecenters and between the users and providers of information through telecenters influenced by local social contexts (Tiwari and Sharmistha 2008; Turpin & Ghimire

2010, Heeks 2010b; Sterns and Adams 2010; Smith & Elder 2010; Bowonder and

Boddu 2005).

Finally, the literature suggests that telecenters can potentially contribute to the delivery and application of new knowledge, learning and innovation in rural areas. Consequently there is the possibility that telecenters should be considered as an enabling component in a national innovation system

Chapter three described the location and socio-political context for this research, Nepal.

This set out to provide the background in which the Telecenter Program was implemented. The country context was important because infrastructure, political process and culture influence the way technology is diffused and used. The literature reviewed in chapter two called for place based observations, local social context;

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CHAPTER 8: Innovative Role of Telecenters domestic economic factors to understand the social process of the internet use, its diffusion and country level variations in digital divide. The socio-political environment in Nepal is dominated by the Maoist insurgency in last decade and this had a significant impact on development in Nepal, including the use and expansion of ICT. The local context revealed an ambiguous environment: political instability; slow economic growth and income inequality; diverse geographic conditions; dominance of certain caste and language; telecommunications and ICT scenario and finally, the introduction of telecenters. The further ambiguity in the Telecenter Program was the range of interests behind the users in different regions, the funds and owners that established the centres and uncoordinated efforts of organizations responsible for developing and managing digital content.

Chapter four outlined the research approach and data collection methods to answer the research questions for the study of 25 telecenters across four topographical regions: mountains; valleys; terai; and hills. The research approach comprised two levels of analysis: ex-ante and ex-post. The ex-ante analysis of the Telecenter Program was based on a documentary analysis of reports and meeting notes to reveal the objectives underlying the telecenter initiative and the expectations of telecenter management committee members, managers and community stakeholders. The ex-post analysis was based on interviews with program owners, telecenter management committees, telecenter managers and users across 25 telecenters. The interview topics covered ex- ante expectation, ex-post outcomes, use of telecenters, information need, socio- economic impact, financial sustainability, technical issues, Information sharing, participation and operational problems.

A total of 144 face to face semi-structured interviews were carried out among all stakeholders of telecenter implementation program owners, telecenter managers,

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CHAPTER 8: Innovative Role of Telecenters management committee members and users across 25 telecenters. The participant observations and visits to these different places in different regions allowed for a deeper understanding of the social dynamics in play at each telecenter. The field visits were carried in two phases. The first phase included interviews with four program owners, twenty managers, twenty management committee members and seventy four users including participant observation at twenty telecenters dispersed over five development regions of Nepal. The second phase included additional field observation of five telecenters, ten additional interviews with managers and management committee members and sixteen new user interviews. The second phase also included a follow up revisit at six telecenters, discussion with 16 interviewees at these six revisited telecenters.

A group discussion was held in Pokhara (Nepal’s second largest city) and a stakeholders’ workshop was held in Kathmandu (the capital) to review the preliminary findings and gain further insights. The chapter also described selections of respondents, interview schedule design, data management and ethical considerations.

Chapter five presented the data collected from twenty five case study telecenters from mountains, hills and valleys of the different regions of Nepal. For the purpose of analysis, these 25 telecenters were classified into in three clusters: better performing; average performing; and limited performing. The purpose of this was to provide three case-study groups through which to explore differences in ex-ante expectations and ex- post outcomes based on the experiences of program owners, management committee members, managers and users. These were collected and recorded through interview results, group meetings and a stakeholder workshop. The seven criteria to determine the grouping of these telecenters was based on: community access; the levels and breadth of community participation; income and profitability; technical performance; information demand; and availability of services; effectiveness and attitude.

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Chapter six extended the discussion of the research results presented in chapter five by investigating the social dynamics observed among stakeholders associated with each of the three cluster groups presented in chapter five. The analysis explored the social process and unintended outcomes as telecenters evolved. It was argued that outliers relied not just on access to and the diffusion of information, communication or knowledge but the use and applications combined with collective learning.

Chapter seven sought to explain the underlying structural features of the process through which telecenters could realise potential for change through a collective learning and sharing process. This chapter also explained how users and their local networks extended access to two forms of social capital. Bridging social capital through extended networks and bonding social capital through collective learning in society. The concepts of absorptive capacity were revealed in terms of the community’s ability to make use of the information in innovative ways, particularly in better performing telecenters. Openness was evident with the denser and regular information flows and sharing of information. Trust was essential for the conveyed information, sources of information and accessing the internet on behalf of others. Also trust in the telecenter as an institution was used to explain why some telecenters were better performing, in terms of expectations and others less so. Chapter seven also discussed the ways that information and knowledge in the telecenter system should be understood in terms of horizontal and vertical information flows and feedback.

8.2.1 Revisiting Expectations

Program owners expected telecenters to provide access to information and knowledge.

NITC and HLCIT expected telecenters would provide useful content in the Nepali language. In order to contribute to socio-economic development in rural areas, access to information in six thematic areas: agriculture; health; education; productive economic

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CHAPTER 8: Innovative Role of Telecenters activities; environment; and disaster mitigation, was planned to develop a Nepali language information hub. NWP expected that these telecenters mainly connected to schools and health posts would contribute to effective distance learning and the delivery of telemedicine. READ libraries and resource centres aimed to provide information and knowledge through books, access to technology and employment. Initial expectations were high in terms of communication capability, information delivery for improved productive practices, education and employment opportunities. Communities expected improvements in agriculture and tourism through price information and market access for products and services. They anticipated upgrading skill levels and education, increased employment opportunities and affordable communication channels through the availability of the internet. There was a diverse range of expectations from community users and local institutions and groups. Local operation groups, management committees and managers, expected higher numbers of users, strong information flows and service provisions that had been explained previously in community meetings. Program owners expected financially sustainable operation at the local level.

8.2.2 Reflections on Outcomes

Most of the expected outcomes from the Telecenter Program were achieved but on a more limited scale than had been hoped. Program owners accepted that their original expectations were not met, but telecenters had provided access to information and internet communication capability to rural communities. Program owners knew that some telecenters performed better but they had not fully understood why. In trying to understand the forces that had given such differing results they focussed on technology and operational issues and less on content, opportunities for information flows and feedback. They tended to overlook the social nature of telecenters. Better performing

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CHAPTER 8: Innovative Role of Telecenters telecenters contributed to some improved productive practices, but most importantly, local communities in these telecenters were able to make use of information in innovative ways. A sound level of trust appeared to lead to more social interaction and greater openness in the sharing of information and learning from each other. In these cases, communities were engaged in a process that contributed bridging and bonding social capital for potential socio-economic benefit. Even in the lesser performing groups of telecenters local stakeholders felt that telecenters brought some positive effects. This included enhanced communication capabilities, increased skill levels and increased social interactions. But there were differences in the range of benefits and the extent to which social benefits were diffused locally.

8.2.2.1 Accessibility

Some of the limited performing telecenters had location problems but contributed to skills development and efforts were made to be inclusive of the poor and marginalized.

Average performing telecenters made efforts at providing equitable access but a lack of enabling factors such as political will, meant they could not expand the access as they had expected or hoped. Among the better performing telecenters, central locations were chosen, usually in a commercial location. In order to promote greater access and use some established programs to raise local literacy levels and skills to use the internet.

Among these telecenters there was considerable sharing of information and community consultation. Restricted access due to income limitation was a common complaint among rural users in the limited performing telecenters. These comments were rare among the better performing group. The collective use of the internet with one user paying for telecenter use and services and a broader family or extended social network transmitting the relevant information received through the internet to others helped

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CHAPTER 8: Innovative Role of Telecenters overcome the “cost barrier”. Thus bonding social capital served to increase collective access to bridging social capital.

8.2.2.2 Technical performance

Technical issues were important in providing access to information. Technology refers to a sufficient number of updated computers, a reliable and reasonable speed of internet connection as well as sufficiently skilled local human capacity to maintain equipment, all these issues were found to be important in ensuring the success or otherwise of the telecenters. Weaknesses in the Nepali electricity infrastructure presented problems for all three categories of telecenters. Neither program owners nor users anticipated technical problems, such as intermittent wireless connection, power outages, and telephone lines being unavailable. The better performing telecenters were able to minimize technological threats and concentrate more on the social dynamics that underpin the use of telecenters.

8.2.2.3 Operational Knowledge and Community Skills

Local managing groups, management committees and telecenter managers were found to be central to the effective operation of telecenters but the strategies they employed varied across the case study telecenters. Organizational practices among better performing telecenters included regular interactions between managers and management committee members, responses to user feed-back, committee decisions based on manager feedback. In contrast, limited performing telecenters often made little use of feedback and had a less inclusive management approach.

The role of education training, literacy and digital skills were widely recognised as key development issues for sustainable telecenter operation. Further, a lack of further training for competence and career development clearly undermined the level of

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CHAPTER 8: Innovative Role of Telecenters enthusiasm demonstrated by managers. Such enthusiasm was essential if telecenter managers were to assist those users with limited skills to find information. Better performing telecenters offered greater opportunities for these sorts of collective learning approaches.

8.2.2.4 Using the Information and Communication Capacity for

Socio-Economic Change

Among the better performing telecenters in particular, there was evidence of new information, knowledge and communication being applied to improve productive practices. This included education, business development, employment and agriculture.

Farmers used information found on the internet, for example, at Basamadhi for organic vegetable farming, at Godak for tea and at Charikot for potato production. Telecenters at Nangi, Dhara and Ramche used the internet for improving community learning and teaching at schools. Telecenters at Puthang, Jomsom, Marpha, Dhara and Godak claimed to have improved earnings from tourism, as they were able to reach prospective customers, confirm bookings and arrange travel logistics. Telecenters at Khibang,

Dhara, Triphala, Inaruwa and many other places were supporting unemployed youth in finding employment opportunities including the provision of an unskilled labour force to the Middle-east, Malaysia and South Korea.

8.2.2.5 Content, Language and Local Context

It was claimed that information that related to the content themes of agriculture, employment, education and tourism was important across all telecenters. According to most managers the primary content search among users was for educational material and for educational purposes. Nepali language was the de facto local language although mother tongue language varied across telecenters. Nepali newspapers were often widely accessed for Nepali language content and closely followed by agriculture price

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CHAPTER 8: Innovative Role of Telecenters information. The inability of program owners to deliver information in the Nepali language from a central hub was a limiting factor in performance although some among the better performing group were able to generate some local content with initiatives in translating the most sought after information from English into Nepali and posting it on bulletin boards. This bulletin board approach also contributed to more social interaction at these telecenters. The research results showed that when information flows both horizontally in this way as well as vertically, it served to strengthen local community networks.

8.2.2.6 Capacity to Manage Challenges

Financial sustainability was one of the enduring challenges for owners and managers.

Affordability among users was often quite limited and so program owners relied on external support to cover the cost of connectivity and other on-going operational expenses. For many telecenters costs exceeded direct revenue from user payments services posing threats to organizational sustainability, but as noted in the comments from user code 26 (see section 6.3.2.1), telecenters have enabled collective social savings by reducing spending on travel costs and this cost saving is not calculated on any

Telecenter financial balance sheet. The research findings from this study strongly support the proposition that any cost/benefit analysis of telecenters should take into account intrinsic social benefit as well as cash flow measures. This will be discussed later in the chapter.

8.2.3 Unintended Outcomes

It was found through this study that communication enabled through telecenters served to extend social networks and social interactions at telecenters. From the social capital perspective, these extended family and social networks generated both bridging and bonding social capital. This was particularly evident among the better performing group

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CHAPTER 8: Innovative Role of Telecenters telecenters. Telecenter owners had not anticipated these “symbiotic” local-global social dynamics. Similarly, implementers had not anticipated the power of the internet and these networks to be such effective tools for individual and collective freedom.

The research also found some unintended negative consequences of Telecenters in reports regarding pornography and the use of the scarce resources of poor families for unproductive chatting. However, the open public access and collective use and supervision by the telecenter staff serve to reduce some of these negative consequences

(Rauniyar 2008; Blythe 2008). ‘Current unproductive use’ could be viewed as an investment for the future because such use also helped to develop user skills for subsequent productive interaction and learning (Chen et al. 2008; Ang et al.2011).

8.2.4 Explanations for Outcomes: Facilitating and Inhibiting

Factors

The first community meeting to discuss the potential establishment of a telecenter generally generated considerable enthusiasm and great expectations among local communities. Such a meeting was the starting point of a collaborative social process that is still ongoing at many telecenters. Improving infrastructure conditions, increased mobile penetration, wireless replacing dial up connections and increased skill efficiencies, are all technological facilitative factors. A proactive management committee, with regular interactions with all stakeholders and community consultations, was also a facilitating factor for telecenter performance. An interactive management approach built a stronger social network which contributed to social trust, shared goals and social networks - three important factors of social capital.

The skill levels of users in terms of prior education, literacy and numeracy and knowledge base was an inhibiting factor in terms of meeting expectations. The lack of

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CHAPTER 8: Innovative Role of Telecenters integrated activities from different institutional agencies and ongoing institutional support from program owners seems to have been one of the factors that restricted horizontal flows of information. Similarly, weaknesses in networking across telecenters limited the capacity to learn from the successes and failures in different localities.

As argued throughout this thesis, social issues associated with trust, absorptive capacity, access to bonding and bridging social capital and open flows of information and feedback are key strategies for generating local benefit from telecenters. Program owners seem to have been primarily concerned with simply delivering technology and information rather than building a program on the basis of these social processes.

The analysis suggested that the internet through which access was enabled via telecenters provided access to new knowledge networks. The technology was therefore a tool. But it was the social interaction at telecenters (and beyond) that enabled local gains from such new networks.

The sharing of information and knowledge between different social groups, especially in better performing telecenters, revealed considerable levels of trust about the value of knowledge and particularly of new knowledge. Information flows, in particular, horizontal information flows at the local level, promoted a higher level of information sharing, while vertical two-way flows of information between providers, telecenters and users, generated a greater level of trust in the sources and ‘value’ of information.

Absorptive capacity was very much a product of openness, trust and collective views about the value and use of the new communication technology. Greater absorptive capacity enabled transfer and use of information and knowledge in a local context and in their own innovative ways despite thinner level of content flows and skill deficiencies.

Extended openness and absorptive capacity facilitated social interaction, thus promoting social inclusion and greater participation in exploiting external knowledge and

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CHAPTER 8: Innovative Role of Telecenters interactive learning. These processes generated demands for more information and sometimes information and communication–improving, multi-dimensional information flows. The nature of this ‘evolutionary’ process was clearly evident among the better performing telecenters.

8.2.5 Overall Argument and Innovative role of Telecenters

Chapter seven described the collaborative effort around telecenters between government, program owned institutions, local level institutions and enterprises and community networks. The horizontal sharing of information between different social groups, the intensity of interactions through extended family network and social networks, proved to be the best way to use bridging social capital. In some cases, telecenters have had an intermediary role in the innovation process, enhancing communication and learning among users and between users and producers and establishing linkages between rural enterprises and enterprises at the national level.

Telecenters in Nepal are equipped not simply with technological capital, but with knowledge capital and its use in improving organizational practices for cooperation and collaboration in community development. This program also extends the learning activities at telecenters through guided training, discussions and interactions, and this whole social process leads to bridging social capital and increased absorptive capacity thus positioning telecenters as a critical part of the emerging national innovation system of Nepal.

The overall argument of this thesis is that telecenters, as studied in Nepal, have the capacity to provide access to bridging social capital through extended social networks, learning and knowledge. However, for effective use of these extended knowledge networks it was found that there was a complementary need for bonding social capital.

Where there was a symbiotic relationship between these two forms of social capital,

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CHAPTER 8: Innovative Role of Telecenters there was a greater degree of trust and absorptive capacity. The increased absorptive capacity through a transfer of explicit knowledge and public interactions laid the groundwork for integration with tacit local knowledge and potential innovation. Thus this thesis has argued that telecenters should be considered as a component in the national innovation system of Nepal.

8.3 Implications of the Research Findings

8.3.1 Practical Implications

The research results carry some practical implications for the management of Telecenter strategies in rural remote areas of developing countries. These are summarized below.

8.3.1.1 Usage and Effectiveness

The research results show that the Program was particularly effective in developing information related to agriculture and education. In the case of the Basamadhi telecenter, organic farming information changed the productive activities of most farmers in the village. However, access to the internet alone is not a sufficient condition for the improvement of living conditions of rural people in general. The skills deficiencies – general literacy, information literacy, and language barriers - undermined the potential impacts that access and use of information might have in rural areas. The absorptive capacity of the community needs to be increased so that the general notion among rural residents about the value and practicability of technology, such as

“Computers are collectively shared”. Awareness, education, exposure to the technology and information and the benefits from application can serve to increase absorptive capacity and remove resistance to change. Therefore, any telecenter programs in rural areas should integrate skills development packages such as an awareness program on the use of information, adult literacy programs, and training in the operation of the

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CHAPTER 8: Innovative Role of Telecenters computer and advanced digital literacy classes for general users to search, retrieve and synthesize information from the web for communities. The other important skill that needs to be developed is the local capability for maintenance of equipment and website design and management. These advanced-level skills will come to be there in the longer- term with a better educated young generation, but for the present time these skills could be imparted to existing telecenter staff through competence development programs.

This is very important for any information network to be effective and productive.

8.3.1.2 Networks and Partnership

Networking and partnerships were two critical elements for success. The management heads network at Basamadhi, the association with NITC, UNDP, the Institute of

Engineering and the partnership with the local school at the Bungmati telecenter, and the partnerships between the local community, mothers group, READ and NWP at

Puthang telecenter were some examples of networks and partnerships that contributed to the effectiveness of those centres. Such partnerships enhance the organisational capacity of telecenters. In some cases, an intermediary institution was able to network with other communities and organizations. In addition to these connections, regular vertical and horizontal information flows providing feedback will help program owners to identify likely partnership opportunities and make more informed decisions.

8.3.1.3 Content, Language and Localization

Though social interactions at the community level helped overcome linguistic limitations of users in receiving the information and knowledge, language was still important. Firstly, local language content helped preserve local knowledge and its dissemination more broadly through the community. Initiatives for the promotion of open content would help overcome barriers between knowledge generated and the scientific community and local knowledge in communities. In a sense, this is making

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CHAPTER 8: Innovative Role of Telecenters information more accessible and increasing the strategic and operational value of information.

The content in Nepali language, such as the provision of postings of potential urban employers for low skilled job opportunities for rural workers was found to have a direct impact on the income of many families. Therefore, a procedure to develop content according to community demands should be integrated while designing such programs, ensuring suitable content is developed, delivered in time and improved through feedback mechanisms. Periodic evaluation of information flows should be put in place from the initial implementation phase.

Specific programs designed for the local context such as a playroom for kids at Puthang with education materials, or audio-video room at Arghauli telecenter addressed local needs. Before introducing telecenters in any rural locations, it is essential to have base line studies of communities to appreciate local needs and priorities, to understand social hierarchies and socio-economic variations. It is also necessary to ensure expectations of local people are not unrealistic and that there is a local capacity for leadership and sustainability.

8.3.1.4 Financial Sustainability and Managing Challenges

Research results indicate that one of the factors for enhancing or limiting access to information via the internet is financial. Affordability was an important issue, often noted, although in some cases sharing of resources helped to overcome the financial burden. From a government perspective, the cost of using the internet should be viewed as an investment rather than a service. While operational costs may not be met by user payments the financial gap may be far less than the value of overall social gain.

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8.3.1.5 Technical Issue and Capabilities

Technical issues were important and these should be considered when deploying telecenters in rural areas. The analysis presented in chapter six indicated that higher numbers of updated computers and reliable internet connectivity were positive factors for better performing telecenters. The number of computers however, was not the main issue. Rather, it was how they were used and how they facilitated social networking. For effective social networking the present study found that sufficient number of computers at each telecenter was necessary to generate on-going social interaction and collective learning. Higher speed connectivity such as broadband enables broader social networking through Facebook and Skype, both of which require image transmissions.

For example, technical issues in terms of speed and type of internet connectivity, number and status of computers and technical capabilities to navigate, synthesize and translate information to rural users were critical factors for effectiveness of the better performance of telecenters.

8.3.1.6 Information flows, Interactions and Extended Networks

Interaction was a pre-condition for cooperative behaviour at the individual and societal level. It was found that the multidimensional flow of information between stakeholder groups was a critical factor for effective access, use and diffusion of information. In some telecenters, a disjuncture in the flow of information was found to be isolating them from the information value chain. Therefore, there is a need to facilitate both forms of information flows and information delivery with appropriate feedback mechanisms. The extended family network through the use of the internet and interactions at telecenters contributed to social capital and especially to integrating and bonding family relationship. The public interactions and use of a social network positively impacted the overall societal relationship.

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8.4 Theoretical Implications

The study explored the relationships between expectations and change outcomes across a geographic cross-section of telecenters in rural Nepal. Theoretical perspectives reviewed through the literature in chapter two suggested that social capital, openness, trust and absorptive capacity would be key concepts for understanding the social dynamics underpinning the use of telecenters. However, these concepts have generally been discussed in isolation from each other. Moreover, the concepts have generally been used in analyzing the way telecenters are being used at a particular point in time. In contrast, this thesis has developed a conceptual framework that shows how these concepts, together, provide for a better understanding of the social dynamics in (a) gaining access to new knowledge, new communication practices, and new information; and, (b) absorbing and making use of these new processes. Further, because the present study has focused on the expectations and experiences of stakeholders through the planning, implementation and on-going management of telecenters it has allowed for an evolutionary perspective of the underlying social dynamics.

From a theoretical perspective, the planning and implementation of telecenters certainly sought to involve communities (as potential users) in early decisions about management and organisaional issues. To some extent this was a social process. However, the prime objective of government and telecenter owners was to create an information hub and deliver information through communication technology. As shown throughout this thesis, accessing and using information, new knowledge and making use of new communication technology is very much a social process. It is in this social domain that absorptive capacity is developed. Openness, trust and bonding social capital are mutually reinforcing processes. An important theoretical insight reveals that in the

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CHAPTER 8: Innovative Role of Telecenters better performing telecenters the symbiotic relationship between openness, trust and collective learning was very much evident. Further, in these cases innovative use of new knowledge and communication systems (such as through Skype, e-mail and Facebook) was also very much evident. The interactive nature of these concepts in the social domain is illustrated in Figure 8.1. The theoretical argument here is that disruptions or tensions in the social domain are likely to undermine the value of new knowledge and information accessed through the ICT domain.

Figure 8.1

Information, Technology and Social Domain Communication Domain (Generation of absorptive capacity) Communication domain

Openness

Open access, open feedback; - vertical and horizontal information flows (local & centrally)

Bridging Social Capital

Inc. Internet based knowledge networks Bonding Social Capital (through skype, facebook, web sites, email). Information and advice from Shared learning experiences; normative national agencies (agricultural market, debates; intergenerational learning; education and health information or Telecenter communication with family overseas services). Communication with other Management (army and domestic workers) Nepalese production groups (tourism Communication between SME and groups; animal husbandry and system family based enterprises. horticulture).

Trust

In: government information; Telecenter management system and managers; other users validity of information; sources of information.

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The sharing of information and knowledge between different social groups demands certain levels of trust. Regardless of the performance classification of a telecenter, trust is important in enabling access to bridging social capital. Trust is also central to bonding.

Additionally, the level of trust in the sources of conveyed information is important for determining whether such information might be used or not.

Openness is important for two reasons. Firstly, it ensures the effective flow of information both horizontally among stakeholder groups and vertically between stakeholder groups. Secondly, it is important for ensuring feedback about the use of telecenters and the information and the communication possibilities that they enable.

The study exposes how regular open feedback promotes a higher level of information sharing in better performing telecenters. In contrast, limited levels of openness and feedback mechanisms are some of the weaknesses in other less well performing telecenter operations. Openness also facilitates trust generated from regular social interaction and open feedback.

Absorptive capacity enables the transfer and use of information and knowledge in a local context. Absorptive capacity is a product of social interaction promoting the exploitation of new external knowledge through interactive learning. Telecenters provide a context for learning. Face to face interactions at telecenters and beyond lead to information sharing and collaboration. Thus absorptive capacity is a product of trust, openness and collective access to bonding social capital.

Using the internet at a telecenter is a social activity. Telecenters in this sense play the role of an intermediary organization in socio-economic practices in the village in which they are located. In theoretical terms they are located at the intersection between external information and communication via the internet and the local communities that use the telecenters. The extent to which they are successful in this role depends very 302

CHAPTER 8: Innovative Role of Telecenters much on the ways they are managed; in particular, it depends on the levels of trust and openness, opportunities for collective learning and local business development. Finally, because of the potential role of telecenters to contribute to learning and development, it is proposed here that telecenters have an important role to play in the national innovation effort in Nepal.

8.5 Methodological Contributions

This research adopted a qualitative approach to assess the relationship between expectations and outcomes from the perspective of the four stakeholder groups. Most of the telecenters reviewed in chapter two was through either a user perspective or an owner perspective. This thesis incorporated the experiences of a cross section of stakeholder groups: program owners, local management committees, telecenter managers and users. This enabled an analysis along the information and communication value chain.

Field observation at 25 telecenters allowed for greater reflexivity on the part of researcher as well as providing a richer source of material for analysis (Brannen 2005;

Chamberlin et al. 2011).

The methodology allowed for an evolutionary analysis of the telecenter life cycle- process. It did this through two levels of analysis: ex-ante and ex-post. This ex-ante analysis was achieved through access to village meeting minutes prior to the telecenter establishment, telecenter planning documents and interactions with some of the early adopters in villages who had contributed to bringing this concept to their villages. The ex-post analysis was based on interviews with program owners, telecenter management committees, telecenter managers and users and included group meetings and a national workshop to collect and record their experiences after implementation.

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This methodological approach enabled data to be collected and analysed from a range of interest groups’ perspectives over the period from the introduction of the first telecenters to some that had been operating for over nine years. Although much of the ex-ante analysis was based on retrospective responses and village minutes, these allowed the differences between the different interest groups to emerge. By analysing the data along a time dimension (ex-ante and ex-post) and from the point of view of the four stakeholder groups, it became clear that the concept of social capital, trust, openness and absorptive capacity were complementary but separate elements of the social process occurring through telecenter use. An important insight from this approach was an understanding of how these concepts, if used together, provide a better understanding of the social dynamics that underpin the telecenter communication system.

8.6 Limitations of the Study

The research underpinning this study is primarily qualitative. It has sought to explain the relationships between expectation and outcomes of telecenters in rural areas from the point of view of four sets of stakeholders. The study focussed on 25 telecenters selected to offer a cross section of national experiences and social process. The study could not cover all topographical zones due to time, resources and the security situation in the field. Further, because the study was essentially concept and theory building it did not test the theory, but rather offers a conceptual way forward for a more comparative empirical analysis involving telecenters in different national contexts.

8.7 Further Research

This study has argued that because telecenters can provide access to social capital, a learning environment and support for rural based enterprises they should be considered an important component of the Nepalese national innovation system. The present study was a theory building exercise about the social dynamics in telecenters. Future research 304

CHAPTER 8: Innovative Role of Telecenters could test this proposition with variables for bonding and bridging social capital, trust variables, openness variables and absorptive capacity variables and using longitudinal data empirically, analyse the social process of telecenter deployment in rural areas in developing economies. The study could examine how these variables intersect and influence the outcomes of use and application of the internet through longitudinal analyses.

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APPENDIX I ICT Development Milestones

Year Event

1930 Programmable Computer 1950 High Level Programming Language (FORTRAN) 1956 Artificial Intelligence

1969 Internet 1973 First Mobile call (between Cooper of Motorola and Engel of Bells Lab) 1979 First Cellular Network (NTT, Japan)

1981 IBM Personal Computer 1985 Microsoft Windows 1991 GSM Network, 2G (Finland)

1991 World Wide Web 1993 First Graphical Browser (MOSAIC) 2001 3G Network (NTT DoCoMo, Japan)

Source: http://www.ballaratict.com.au

http://en.wikipedia.org

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APPENDIX II Telecenter Literature TELECENTER STUDIES Aspect of Country Methodology Authors Results Telecenter study User generated India Ethnography Study Agrawal et al, Voice based content creation A powerful interaction modality, content for rural 2010 they developed a voice based information Kiosk system- areas- Voice VoiKiosk- to create and access locally relevant content in their based Kiosk own language. The system could be accessed by a phone and Solutions could be used by less literate rural people. In 9 months it had 6500 users and 100,000 calls showing the project success. 340 Social Jamaica Qualitative Bailey, 2009 The study found five themes, education, skills training,

Sustainability employment/entrepreneurship, social networks and socio- economic issues important for telecenter users leaving positive impacts and suggested the social context of telecenter use, participatory methods and knowledge sharing and continued development of core capabilities of the telecenter to have social sustainability. Stakeholders India Qualitative: Stakeholder Bailur , 2007 The study found stakeholder approach important to find who is analysis- Analysis key in the ICT initiatives, examined Gyandoot initiative of Gyandoot stakeholder involvement in different project cycles. The research Program states that stakeholder exists and matters for the success or failure of telecenter due to their influence. Understanding not only who is stakeholder but also if their behaviour is important and could be used as best practice and a research tool.

e-Choupals- India Qualitative Kumar, 2005 ICTs in rural areas could only be financially sustainable when Financial technology is used to facilitate information exchange which sustainability enables efficiencies in existing or new business settings. E- Choupals is successful not because of infrastructure, rather enabling efficiencies in agriculture by exchange of information and creation of alternative market structure. Sustainability India Qualitative- Case studies Best & SARI Internet Kiosks were failures as 32 of 36 centres were Failures (Sari Kumar, 2008 closed in 3 and half years. Main failure reason was financial but Project inadequate institutional and technical support, inability to develop relevant content and offer new services were other reasons. In contrast, other NGOs had established 42 centres with better institutional support and content. Reducing digital India Qualitative Bowonder & Examination of large number of village internet kiosks revealed divide Boddu, 2005 that systematic skill development programs diffused ICT

341 platform easily, creation of entrepreneurs, the infrastructure and

building trust among the rural community sustained the operation to use innovative applications. The research suggests institutional arrangement of private-public sector to have large scale operation. Memo to General Qualitative ; Keynote Colle , 2005 Author provided some successful ICT initiatives from telecenters Telecenter around the world, stating that too much focus has been on the Planners connectivity side and drew the attention of planners to citizen centric applications and measures to improve digital skills and demand side of rural users for the success. Use of Livelihood General Livelihood Framework Duncombe, Framework identifies ICT as a part of broader development framework: Theorizing 2006 picture and shows how engagement of poor can occur. Poverty reduction ICT

Public access of 25 Qualitative- Access, Capacity Gomez, 2010 The study clustered results in five success factors: Understanding the Internet developing and Environment local needs, building alliances, collaborating with community countries Framework services, strengthening sustainability and training infomediaries including and users and argued that these are critical for designing policy or Nepal program.

User perceptions 25 Qualitative- shared research Gomez & The study found four dimensions of trust, safety, relevance, of trust in Public developing design- ACE framework Gould 2010 reputation and cool and perceptions about telecenters were access countries average among other two public access venues libraries and including cybercafés. Nepal 342

Impacts on policy Laos Qualitative-Case studies, Goransson, The study reports that benefits documented in other grassroots and development Poverty Alleviation 2005 ICT initiative around the globe cannot be replicated. The case Framework studies showed their inability to overcome fundamental obstacles such as lack of local language, relevant application and content, lack of technical and language skills. Towards success Malaysia, Qualitative: Poverty Harris, 2001 Research results indicate promise in understanding of leading model India, Alleviation and Telecenter factor as community characteristics variables the most potent in Philippines characteristics framework predicting telecenter success and these variables point to the and concept of social capital thus suggesting further research to Mongolia understand the relationship between community telecenters and social capital.

Integrating Nepal Qualitative Harris et al, The study advocates the infomobilisation methodology, initiative national policy 2003 started in Nepal which provides a link between larger-scale with grassroots resource rich national programs and grassroots initiatives, such as telecenters - that lack a scaling trajectory capable of carrying their benefits to a wider audience and stresses the interaction between implementers and local community. Successes and General- Qualitative: New Model and Heeks, 2002 The Research model draws on contingency theory in order to Failures developing Contingency Theory advance the notion of design-actuality gaps: the match or country mismatch between IS designs and local user actuality. Illustrating examples of success and failure, the study concludes that it helps to understand the complex interplay of action and context in developing countries that underlies all organizational change. ICT4D 2.0 General Qualitative- Discussion, Heeks, 2008 Theorises the development process that ICT4D 1.0 was designed Theorizing Theorizing for the poor to adapt and ICT4D 2.0 designs around poor

343 next phase of resources and capacities, v 1.o was a development tool and v2.0

ICT4D will be platforms for development and change from supply- driven focus to demand driven focus.

Development 2.0 General Qualitative - viewpoint Heeks, 2010 Theorizes that development 2.0 is emerging putting tools for a Theorizing digital economy in the hands of the poor with examples of next phase of business innovations such as Kenya's M-Pesa, Movirtu's device- ICT4D independent mobile services and India’s social outsourcing by unemployed women living below the poverty line.

Remoteness and Peru Qualitative: Resource Heeks & The research found telecenters enabling teenaged students and Exclusion Movement Framework and Kanashiro, young farmers with new and positive resource flows but where Information Chain 2009 information chain resources were lacking, telecenters were ineffective. Some positive impacts on remoteness were found offering access to information for previously excluded remote residents but does not address systematic exclusion of mountain communities and appears to be a technology of inequality. Digital Literacy Mexico Qualitative - Exploratory Huerta and The study found that digital literacy skills - identified branching, study Sandoval- recreation and information abilities - were inhibiting factors for Almazan, the internet use at telecenters. The findings included the 2007 interesting fact that unwritten policy was evidenced discouraging users to chat, possibly decreasing social capital which was not looked at.

344 Socio-economic Iran Quantitative Jalali, 2006 Youth and women were empowered by the telecenter improving

impacts: youth & education and information, health issues and cultural Women acceptability, positive social outcomes. Economically, there were positive results for job creation and employment but little impact in raising income. Access General Qualitative James, 2010 The study emphasized the low cost asynchronous internet Mechanism Theorizing connectivity for access in rural areas and suggested two major next phase of modes indirect access at distance (internet blending) and when ICT4D close (operated by intermediaries). Communal sharing institutions and technical sharing devices were suggested to lessen the constraint of user capabilities.

Financial India Qualitative, formal informal Kumar, 2004 Research shows that ICT projects could be financially sustained Sustainability of interviews, site visits, group if the information conveyed generates higher efficiencies in e-choupals- discussions existing business or new business setting which could recover its entrepreneurship investment and return to profitability. model

Review of India, Ghana, Qualitative and quantitative, Kuriyan & Telecenters performed better in towns and better in villages, with Research in Kenya surveys of 300 Kiosk, 1000 Tomaya entrepreneur operators who are motivated to market the internet Telecenters Kiosk customers and non (2007) for the community, using casual social interaction and meeting users, 100 interviews, site business needs but found difficulty to sustain with economic, visits and participant social and educational barriers. observation, relevant literature review Examination of India Ethnographic Method- Kuriyan et al The poor, the bottom of the pyramid population, are not users

345 entrepreneurship Open-ended interviews (141) (2008) of the telecenter; entrepreneurs tailor services to middle classes

model and participant observations for financial viability. The interventionist role of the government for meeting social goals together with the needs of the entrepreneur in meeting financial viability, were contradictory in achieving broader rural development through the internet. Financial India Qualitative, formal informal Kumar, 2004 Research shows that ICT projects could be financially sustained Sustainability of interviews, site visits, group if the information conveyed through the technology generates e-choupals- discussions higher efficiencies in existing business or new business setting entrepreneurship which could recover its investment and returns to profitability. model

Investment Nepal Quantitative Lee et al, The study found well prepared human resource with higher level design 2007 investment in education, strong sense for information, Framework Underdeveloped mode of communication, inefficient public service provision but high willingness to pay for effective transaction and suggests appropriate deployment of telecenter potentially makes community innovative. Instutionalization Brazil, India Qualitative: Case Studies Madon et al, The study found four key processes: getting acceptance by the process and South 2009 community; stimulating valuable social activity in the relevant Africa social groups, generating linkages to viable revenue streams and enrolling government. The study suggests that instead of focusing on impact, understanding institutional processes over time and documenting them is necessary to understand benefits and problems of the internet in rural areas. Women South Africa qualitative study Pade et al, Found barriers that limited the potential use of ICT by rural

346 agricultural user 2009 women engaged in agriculture to enhance economic and social

perspective and outcomes. poverty alleviation Evaluation of South Africa Qualitative: A logic model of Pather and Presented the logic model for evaluation of telecenters including ICT outcomes evaluation based on MDGs Uys (2010) multiple case study and interview protocols suggesting it is not measuring outputs but outcomes that depict socio-economic change in lives of the people. Use and India Qualitative - exploratory Pick & The study found that lack of awareness, perceived higher level of Sustainability study Gollakota, skills, pre-assumption about the cost were the reasons for non 2010 use but users found it beneficial, and social network was an important aspect for the diffusion and sustainability of the telecenter.

Telecenters for Columbia Livelihood analysis, Parkinson & Telecenter were not able to improve local social equity from the local social equity Qualitative; Input measures, Lauzon 2008 use of the internet formative and summative evaluation methods Trust in India Qualitative Rajalekshmi, The personal trust between the people and the intermediary was Telecenters - 2007 an important factor, in particular, the institutional trust in "Akshya" government. A local intermediary led to increased trust in the Telecenters services of the telecenters. However, she argues that e- government services would be more appropriately used within existing institutions like hospitals and agriculture offices. Differences in India Qualitative- Interviews; Rangaswamy, Internet cafes bring sustainable ICT access to poor Telecenters & Contextual study 2008 neighborhoods, being organic, market driven and self sustaining Internet Cafes spaces, expanding literacy and ICT skills and its adoption. The

347 study argues better delivery by cafes and support from government without forcing development agenda.

Evaluation: Asia Malaysia & Qualitative- Comparative Reilly & Results indicated that Malaysian telecenter focused on individuals & Latin America Ecuador case study Gomez 2001 and people making it participatory, socially inclusive, locally grounded and sensitive to gender concerns while Ecuador example focused on developing for collective processes for increasing capacity and sustainability. Telecenter General- Qualitative: Conceptual Roman, 2004 Uses diffusion theory to provide conceptual framework for Research - Theorizing Theory telecenter research and practice and concludes with three aspects Diffusion Theory of diffusion the perceived attributes of innovations, the communication aspects of the diffusion process and the consequences of innovation adoption.

Assessment & General Qualitative Rothenberg- Suggest the telecenter evaluation methodology using both Evaluation Theorizing Aalami & Pal, qualitative and quantitative techniques with both pre and post (2005), evaluation, the methodology was tested in India and Brazil and modified for further use by researchers.

Impact in rural China Rural livelihoods framework Soranio, 2007 Telecenters potentially reduce poverty by enhancing the areas Analysis economic aspects of rural livelihoods such as increasing income in agriculture; and in the human aspects such as e-literacy and social aspect such as the venue for community information sharing. Rural ICT- India Qualitative- Evaluation Thadaboina, The study found that Warana Wired Village project delivered Warana Project method 2009 benefits to rural people with effective public services, improved agricultural productivity and quality of life of rural residents. 348 ICT, Social Nepal Qualitative Thapa & Sein, ICT is enabling villagers to create, maintain and extend their capital & 2010 bonding, bridging and linking social capital. development ICTs and Poverty India Qualitative, user perspective Tiwari, 2011 ICT introduction such as Gyandoot, could only show potentials Reduction- User as outcomes were limited by market imperfections and perspective information asymmetries in rural India. Rural ICT- India Qualitative Tiwari & The state led Gyandoot and NGO led Drishtee rural project Gnyandoot and Sharmistha, analysis show partial success, first for noticeable success in Drishtee Case 2008 distributing physical land certificate distribution and second for digital photography and training. Research suggests including demand side factors of rural population in ICT projects.

ICT4D- Design General Qualitative Tongia & Arguing current model ill structured, proposed a model of Challenge Subrahmanian product and service identification and development design and (2006) further proposed to test the effectiveness of the design.

Conceptualization Mozambique, Qualitative, Preliminary field Turpin & The paper extended the conceptual analysis of openness through of Openness in Nepal results and relevant literature Ghimire, extended feedback and absorptive capacity. For Open ICT4D to Telecenter Review 2010 be critical they argued structural arrangement for open system of both, technology and information thus bridging social capital that can potentially be enhanced through extended social networks as a part of National innovation System. Information Many Qualitative, Examined Walsham & The study finds maturity in IS research in developing countries Systems research developing journal articles published Sahay (2005) especially on methodological and theoretical grounds and

349 Literature in countries from January 2000 to may suggests action research on scalability, sustainability and

developing 2004 related to IS in development. countries developing countries surveying 13 Journals including 2 IFIP conference proceedings

APPENDIX III Brief Political Background

From 1846 to 1951, Rana rulers made Shahs ceremonial king with limited ruling power and ruled for 104 years. King Tribhuvan sided with the people during people’s struggle led by Nepali Congress (NC), the oldest and the most important of political parties of Nepal, against Rana rulers in 1951. This led to a compromise between the King, the Ranas and the NC party in New Delhi, India to establish democratic polity. But King Tribhuvan’s promise for an election for constitutional assembly was never realized. His son King Mahendra ascended to the throne when he passed away in 1955. After 4 years of frequent changes in government King Mahendra held general elections in 1959, in which, NC led by B. P. Koirala (BP), who ‘had given his life to democratic cause’ (Crosette 2006), won convincingly. King Mahendra dissolved parliament, arrested the first elected prime minister of Nepal through a coup in 1960 and introduced a partyless Panchayat system. He held royal absolutism having all legislative, executive and judicial power. This system continued even after his death in 1972 when King Birendra, who was educated abroad and considered liberal, ascended to the throne. The struggle for democracy continued and in 1980 a referendum was held to choose between multiparty system and an improved partyless Panchayat system. With the partyless system winning marginally amid allegations of election rigging, improvisation and amendment in the constitution was not enough for political parties that were banned. A powerful democracy movement in 1990 introduced a multiparty system of polity and forced the King to be ceremonial. Six years of multiparty polity was not able to satisfy the expectations of Nepalese people with political parties’ concentrating on keeping hold on power. A section of the communist party launched a protest and went underground with the aim of bringing social and economic justice to the larger proportion of the population that were poor and marginalized. In the year 2001, Nepal witnessed the assassination of its popular King Birendra along with his whole family. The King’s only surviving brother Gyanendra ascended to the throne in June 2001. He preferred to be an active monarch like his father king Mahendra by dismissing elected prime minister in 2002 on charges of ‘ineptness’, thus appointing his own prime minister ignoring political parties’ recommendations (Parajulee 2010). He dismissed his own appointed prime minister and assumed a direct power in what The Economist (2005, p 57) described as “an old fashioned coup” in 2005. BP’s heirs from the Nepali Congress, who governed after 1990, could not keep his or his party’s legacy and principles. He envisaged the Nepali Congress to be a pro-poor democratic socialist party with internal elections for party positions ensuring women and youth participation but it became a party of centre-right, prescribing liberal economy with a rigid party structure and a reluctance to share power internally (Sharma et al. 2008). NC, which ruled 12 out of 17 years under multiparty system, was inept in practicing democratic values and delivering development. In a decade and half since the exhilarating democracy movement realigned political forces in Nepal, NC politicians and their opposition counterparts have let the country down, comprehensively. Show-stopping parliamentary spats, legislative deadlocks, myopic infighting, name calling

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and pervasive corruption seemed all that NC leaders could produce when the country finally got its best chance to institutionalize democracy. The mainstream, United Marxist-Leninist, political opposition, did not do much better in or out of power. (Crosette 2006, p 69) The newly born democracy did not address expected issues of good governance; rural development, gender equality, caste and ethnic power. Some examples are social injustice and distributive inequalities of women through male dominant social status, the rule and extensive role of resource dominant elite caste of Bahun, Chhetri and Thakuris. The political instability due to frequent changes in government, lack of transparency and accountability, and a growing number of dissatisfied poor rural youth aspiring to white- collar employment but demonstrating an inability to produce meaningful change in their lives, failed to keep the momentum of core virtues of democracy (Routledge 2010; Parajulee 2010; Cottle and Keys 2007). The other crucial factor for the failure of democracy and development was due to the lack of qualitative and visionary leadership. Baral (2006) stated ‘It is very hard to find statesmanship in any of the current political leaders in Nepal’.

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APPENDIX IV ICT Development History of Nepal

Year Events Owner Aims / Characteristics Progress Indicators 1968 First computer IBM Dept of Statistics To perform Census in 1971 Census Data Processed, Few Nepalese Trained in 1401 Computer Systems and programming 1974 National Computer NPC, HMG To Develop Procurement of mainframe computers ICL in 1981 and Centre Computerization established Data Mini in 1988, Data Processing work for Govt, in govt sector training, software development

352 1981 - 1990 ICT Private sector firms

Established DSI Software for Export Trained 100 Nepalese and software contract in USA Mercantile Training, Hardware and Banking software, fax, printers computers, training Software Otard Hardware Retail computer sale from shop PCS Software Software programs at Nepalese offices Beltronix Hardware UPS, computers printers CSIT Hardware, Software, Expansion of inexpensive automation Training 1990 Multiparty Political Nepal Elected Government Liberal economic Policies, Privatization, initiation for system deregulation 1992 Computer Association Nepalese Private Promote ICT Industry Lobbying Govt for policy, start of Computer exhibition of Nepal Sector and ICT conference, expansion of Industry

1993 Committee on High RONAST, NCC, Suggest policy regime for IT Report Submitted to National Planning Commission in Level Informatics Private sector Park and Pvt. Sector 1994 development Development 1994 Internet starts Mercantile Private sector company Users had excitement and paid the price for company to commercially Communication started limited email and expand internet in Kathmandu valley internet with fees 1996 Formation of Ministry Govt of Nepal To Promote Science and Formation was after dissolving NCC, govt corporation, of Science and Technology including office, manpower strategy issues Technology Information technology 1998 Beginning of ICT Tribhuvan Computer engineering and Started providing affiliation to private ICT colleges, Education University Science bachelor level increased annual in-take capacity from 96 student a year to 1500 by 2000 Kathmandu Computer Eng. and 353 University Science Bachelor 1999 Working Committee for Ministry of Science To formulate Strategy and Produced Strategy papers and IT Policy IT Development and Technology Policy on ICT 2000 IT Policy Govt of Nepal Ministry of Sc. and Tech to Policy was not backed by required legal provisions and implement action plan was not detail 2001 Royal Massacre Nepal Kings’ brother assumes kingship , dissolves parliament in 2003 and rules 2002 Formation of National Ministry of Science Institutional setting as per IT Size of the institute, budget and authority to implement Information and Technology Policy with work area listed IT Policy was Inadequate, UNDP assistance for Pilot Technology Centre in the policy Telecenter

2003 Formation of High Under Prime To implement Policy, plan, Construction of IT Park was completed (2005) and Level Commission for Minister IT Park and Promote ICT signed agreement with Dutch company to be occupant, ICT policy was revised with integrated action and submitted to cabinet for approval, Telecenters established, 2004 ICT Initiatives HLCIT Key Application Government Accounting system, Citizen Identification Development System, Driving Licence automation system, Passport Control System 2005 Electronic Transaction Government of To legalize electronic Provision of Certification Authority and ICT Court Act Nepal transaction and control cyber crime 2006 Bilateral and Donor HLCIT, KIPA To roadmap E-government Reports submitted to Government 2007 Support Govt Agency South Korea and

354 ADB 2007 Political Transition Nepal To bring Maoist in Restoration of dissolved Parliament, End of Kingship,

mainstream politics, United Nations In peace process, election process for establish peace in conflict constituent assembly strike Nepal 2008 Constituent Assembly Nepal To frame New Constitution Maoist Party becomes largest single party in assembly Election for republic Nepal and form election and forms the Government new elected government 2010 Revision of IT Policy MOST To accommodate new The revision was compelled by time not achievements operating environment

APPENDIX V Map of Nepal

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APPENDIX VI Description of Telecenters

Easter Development Region DURGAPUR TELECENTER (ED1) Durgapur telecenter lies in the eastern development region, Jhapa district, terai area. The east-west highway crosses through this village and as such has easy transportation access. The community requested HLCIT for the establishment of a telecenter, HLCIT team visited the site and consulted with a community group and the application was approved resulting in the establishment of this telecenter. The local community building in the market place was designated for the telecenter. Because of the convenient location many visitors came to the telecenter. Users had to queue or register their name for the use as there was limited equipment and a higher number of users than there was equipment at the time of the visit. Managers and assistants both were busy explaining, arranging and assisting users and answering their queries. The manager arranged the time for the interview. The telecenter building also had a meeting room across the computer room, where villagers were having conversations while waiting for their turn to use the computers. The internet connection was from Nepal telecom. The photocopy machine was down for a week technician visits from Biratnagar, the nearest town, had been requested so they were managing with a page or two copying from printer/fax machine. The committee looked very proactive. Users were using various services eg internet phone, photocopy, internet. They had long opening hours, two staff were present during observation. Equipment was in good condition TRIPHALA TELECENTER (ED2)

This telecenter was located in Jhapa district, it was five minutes’ walk from east-west highway. The telecenter was locally managed by the community library, which was established in 1994. This library was not assisted by READ like others in Chitwan or western development region. The telecenter was established by HLCIT, government agency. The internet was a dial-up link from Nepal telecom and at the time of the interview they were disconnected as the support from HLCIT was no longer available. The only one computer was connected to the electricity and the other was packed in its box. No one was using the computer, though there were a few readers in the library. The committee wanted everything from the government; they did not appreciate what was provided to them on demand. Despite having their own building and a large reader base they were not using it effectively. There were a few readers in the library only one was using computers; internet connectivity was broken at the time of visit. MADHUMALLA TELECENTER (ED3) This telecenter was in Morang district, a terai area, and a two hour drive from district headquarters in Biratnagar. This telecenter was also managed by local library established in 1983, running well for 40 years. This was a community meeting point even before the

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Telecenter. Telecenter services were added to cater to the need for communication. The library was located in the first floor and telecenter was on the ground floor with a separate room for training. The internet connection was wireless through UTL and was unreliable. It was in the center of the rural market place, a convenient location that drew large numbers of visitors. The library had an information center management. The committee had experience running a library at a community level raising the funds from local users/readers, so it has worked for Telecenters as well. Researcher found much more enthusiasm among users, committee members and manager. GODAK TELECENTER (ED4) This is in the hills of Ilam district; a rural market place and junction to go to district headquarter Ilam, Darjeeling in India and Birtamod in Jhapa. Tea farming is the major cash crop followed by food grains. Users at this center benefited from the internet to contract Tea price before harvesting. Management committee seemed enthusiastic. There were a few visitors at the telecenter. Users were interacting with social mobilizer staff, as there were only 3 computers some users were waiting for their turn. INARUWA TELECENTER (ED5) This telecenter is in Sunsari District in the main market. As the telecenter was at the center of the market, committee people used to visit often even if there was no scheduled meeting. The community was happy with the telecenter establishment, though they have now alternatives for internet phone in other cyber cafes in the market. The telecenter location was good but presentation and management of available equipment and services was not attractive. The management committee as reported by the manager was not very keen on it being developed. It was reported that if they had more useful information on agricultural productive areas in Nepali, more people would have used it. Central Development Region PANAUTI TELECENTER (CD1) Panauti is one of the oldest village markets, 32 KM south east from Kathmandu. Newars are the major caste residing in the market but other castes are mainly Chettris. This is situated at the confluence of two water streams Roshi Khola and Punyamati Khola which are also religious sites, every 12 years a big festival is celebrated here and people from around the country come for a holy bath in those streams. There are also Hindu and Buddhists temples in Panauti. Besides agriculture, tourism is the main business activity, promoting rural urban tourism with development of picnic spots, a cultural heritage museum and adventure-tourism such as Rock climbing and bungey jumping. A lot of foreign tourists also visit due to archaeological sites, cultural interest and eco-circuit treks. This was the nearest telecenter to Kathmandu city in Kavrepalanchowk District. This was one of the first telecenters established in 2002 in the vicinity of IT Park and Kathmandu University. Some faculty members from Kathmandu University and, FIT a NGO had helped to run a few computer courses at these telecenters at nominal charges to communities with students taking courses to raise funds for the telecenter.

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The Management committee was not very active, researcher found less interest during the interview. It was found that there was conflict in the committee regarding the location and contribution from the community. JHUWANI TELECENTER (CD2) Jhuwani Telecenter is in Bachhauli Village development committee in Chitwan, Terai. READ assisted library building and books and its Telecenter is well equipped with eight personal computers and other ICT products like scanners, fax, laminator, printers. This specially helps women and children. There are about 500 households served by this Telecenter. This Telecenter was located in a huge two storey building along with the library. The management chairman was an active social worker with his own NGO dealing with other rural issues. The READ had supported building construction with some local participation. This Telecenter had enough infrastructure for library, reading room, childcare, training, conference hall etc. They generated some resources by renting these facilities locally. KAMANE TELECENTER (CD3) This Telecenter was in Makawanpur district, central development region about one hour from the main Hetauda market. Available equipment were not connected except one computer. They recently had to move from previous location. There was not much activity around Telecenters. Managers and management committee chairman were available for interview. The researcher had to wait for users to visit the telecenter. The management committee was frustrated because they could not manage it properly. The problem of internet connectivity was the main problem and due to this they could not run well and had to leave popular location. Now they are trying for Internet from Nepal wireless and then they feel that it would be in good operation. They see the potential. BASMADHI TELECENTER (CD4) This telecenter was in Makawanpur, adjacent to the Highway to Hetaura districts headquarters. It was a convenient location for local villagers and nearby was the huge compound of multinational Unilever Company, which had its factories, offices and staff residential complexes. The chairman of the committee was university associate professor, so he had vision for the Telecenter. Because of the chairman and very active Telecenter manager since establishment they had a very good operation, owning their own land from their income. Farmers were active users as they benefitted from it. But after the first manager left and competition started locally they were having a bit of difficulty. Again internet connectivity and cost has been the main issue for them. DOLAKHA TELECENTER (CD5) This Telecenter was in the Dolakha, a hill district, east of Kathmandu. This Telecenter had good potential as there were lots of domestic tourists and it was also route for international trekkers to base camp of Mount Everest. As it was in the market place it was a popular and convenient place for locals to visit. As the Telecenter was a rented place they had limited space for the community people. 358

There were many young users using the internet when the researcher visited. A nearby Hospital also had Telemedicine services through the same internet connection from NWP. The manager reported that they had not been able to utilize it to its full potential but the participation of the community and discussion to make it more meaningful is encouraging. One important activity for farmers was to check potato prices from agricultural price information sites and they made informed decisions - Potato was major product in this area. SANKHU TELECENTER (CD6) Sankhu is at northeast of Kathmandu 20 kilometers from main city. It is ancient Newar township, the name means ‘close to Tibet’ and it was major trading station between Nepal and Tibet in the past. Many traditional aspects of Newari life continue here, the most persuasive reason to visit is the beautiful Vajrayogini Temple complex in this village. This Telecenter was one of the earliest established Telecenters and is running well. The Telecenter manager and two other staff were women. It was reported that due to this fact there are more women users in this telecenter. The management committee was proactive and the Telecenter manager had good support from the committee. They believe that it would be sustainable in the long run and they plan to localize the Telecenter with local information and e-commerce. BUNGMATI TELECENTER (CD7) The Bungmati is another traditional village in Lalitpur district 10 kilometres from the city in south. Craftwork is the main occupation here and it is famous for expertise in wood carving for exports overseas. The religious attractions are the karya binayak temple and the Rato Machhendranath temple. This Telecenter was established by the local community with equipment help from NITC. It was inside the local community school. The school was responsible for its operation; there were separate sections for students and community people. The chairman of the management committee was an associate professor at an engineering college at Kathmandu and used his network to support the telecenter activities. The manager reported that as she is employed by the school since the establishment of the Telecenter in 2003. She reported that it was running very well but recently due to cybercafé, this Telecenter has fewer users, especially youth groups. THECHO TELECENTER (CD8) Thecho is a typical Newari village in Lalitpur district, in the south of Kathmandu. Exploring this village is a great way to feel about real traditional village life as this 16th century village maintains its traditional cultural, social life style and visitors simply feel the vibe of century’s old-traditions near to the city. This Telecenter, was established by Synergy Nepal, an NGO, with equipment, training. It had five sets of computer and other peripherals that were newer. The management committee chairman was a lecturer at University and had good networks for strengthening Telecenter activities. There were many users, some in queue for their turn. Major users were students, but the manager said that they also have other users such as farmers, local trades people.

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Western Development Region PUTHANG (JOMSOM) TELECENTER – READ (WD1) Jomsom is the district headquarters of Mustang a Mountainous District, in the Western Region of Nepal. This is at an altitude of 2800 meters above sea level. It is situated at both Kali Gandaki and Dhaulagiri rivers and the Nilgiri Himalayas form a backdrop. Local residents are known as ‘Thakali’, following the culture mixture of Tibetan Buddhism and Hindu. Tourism, trade, animal husbandry and apple farming are the main occupations. It had one of the earliest Airports in Nepal opened in 1962 and tourism started in 1970, though travelling to upper Mustang was totally restricted until 1991. Since then it has been regulated with permits and fees. Until 2010 it had no road access, though the road construction was started in 2009. This was organized and operated by women. This tourist place had a lot of tourists as users and they had no problem in meeting expenses of the Telecenters. The main inhabitants were Thalkali tribes, known for hotel businesses, goods transportation using horses and apple growing. Women were superior at home as they had more power in decision making. Their library was also running well and they had rental income from the building so they had no financial problems. MARPHA TELECENTER (WD2) This is a large Thakali village in Mustang district, it lies on the main tourist trail to Jomsom, one hour trekking. Many tourists prefer this place than Jomsom to stay due to very good hotels with attached bathroom, gas-heated showers and drying plant facility that processes apples, apricots and vegetables This touristic place Telecenter was not as lively as other places Jomsom in the same district. There were only a few users at the Telecenter. The management committee had expected more localized information content from the center to support them. They have no e-commerce activity, but believed they will make this Telecenter sustainable. They were critical of government as they first established but did not care afterwards. GHARA TELECENTER (WD3) This village is above 1800 meters high from sea level and takes about two and half hours steep trek from base Tatopani. The high school manages the Telecenter for the community and the same is computer lab for students during the day. This was in good operation. The school was determined to make it more effective, there was more enthusiasm among students. They wanted the center just to provide useful content. KHIBANG TELECENTER (WD4) Khibang village is on the top of Hill from Ghara. This village falls under Ghara Village development council of Myagdi district. Almost all community is made up of one caste Magar. This village has only about 250 people living there. Most of the adults have joined the British, Indian and some in Nepalese Army. United Kingdom residents have formed Khibang village development in UK to help the Telecenter and other developments in the village. There are many retired army personnel and one of them is the chairman of the management committee.

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The chairman was ex Indian Army and was very active in his retired life managing a social network. He had encouraged local users to use the internet sometimes offering free use in a day of the week, so that they will develop internet use skills and habits. The community was very small not enough users to support Telecenter expenses. So they had created alumni of villagers serving in British and Indian army from the village which will support the Telecenter. At the time of visit there were students and women users using the internet. BAGLUNG TELECENTER (WD5) NWP established Burtibang Network in Baglung only in the beginning of 2009. The READ library manages the Telecenters. The main source of the income here is remittance which is demonstrated by five money transfer companies with internet facilities for this purpose. VOIP is the most used service in the Telecenter followed by email. This was a good library and its use was good but information center was not utilized much. Before NWP connection, the problem was internet connectivity and cost, which is currently solved with NWP internet connection. There are two other cybercafés in the market, but due to library and meeting place, most villagers used to come to this Telecenter. It was reported that mostly, youths and students would be using cybercafés. ARGHAULI TELECENTER (WD6) This village lies in terai area in Nawalparasi district. READ established the library first and the Telecenter was established later. The village has local initiatives for Bio- diversity, started by an innovative farmer Mr. Sreeram Prasad Adhikari, who uses the information from the internet and has been using grassroot breeding for high value anadi rice and taro, which has helped other farmers to grow the same, he is conserving different varieties of rices, 10 species of plants and motivates other farmers to conserve at least 10 plant varieties. This marketplace Telecenter has the opportunity of earning more income and being sustainable in the long run. The committee is working well but they said they have limited options as the national and local information on productive or social sectors is at minimum availability. They were pleased with Nepal wireless providing internet connectivity which was much cheaper than others. LEKHNATH TELECENTER (WD7) Lekhnath is a municipality in Kaski, 190 KM west of Kathmandu on the way to Pokhara. The population is mixed caste mostly Hindus. This Telecenter tried to have e-commerce started with a bulletin board and gathering local trades people and farmers. The Internet was bit expensive and due to the lower level of Telecenter income they had difficulty in keeping qualified trained manpower in the Telecenter. NANGI TELECENTER (WD8) Nangi is a mountain village at 7300 feet elevation, in the Western development region with around 1500 population. It took the researcher 10 hours to reach it from the nearest market place Beni. It has a high school now plus two offering education up to

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12th grade, two nursery plants and a health post. The school has its own computer Lab for students and teachers and a separate building for community Telecenters. This place is the main network hub for NWP, connected through Pokhara Network and then from here signals are distributed to other places in the Myagdi and adjoining mountainous villages. Nangi School is centrally located, has a camping ground in the school is well maintained, and providing camping ground for tourists to raise the money for school. Although this is not the popular tourist trail, quite a few groups visit through here on their way to Ghandruk or the Ghorepani main tourist trail for Annapurna base camp or Muktinath. The major caste residing in Nangi is Magar. RAMCHE TELECENTER (WD 9) Ramche Telecenter is located in the school in Myagdi District, about half an hour walk from Nangi Telecenter site. Ramche is village development council is composed of three villages, Ramche, Nangi and Kaphaldanda, and all three villages have Telecenters. This one was established at the school. Students were obviously most common users of the Telecenter. JOMSOM TELECENTER, NITC (WD10) This telecenter was visited in second field visit. It was about 200 meters apart from READ telecenter which was covered in the first phase of field study. Other community characteristics were the same as described for WD1, the only difference was the initial financial package model. This was established by NITC and as such enjoyed two years free internet and one year salaries for two staff at telecenters. Mid-Western Development Region DANG TELECENTER This Telecenter was in Tulsipur municipality of Dang District in the mid-western development region. Even though it was a municipality area, it did not have sound infrastructure - road, educational institution or electricity. The Telecenter location was in Tharu community, a marginalized community. The Telecenter was three years old. The management committee did not look proactive. The community participation was low. The manager reported that there has been some progress in the participation of the community in the Telecenter activities. Far-Western Development Region DHANGADHI TELECENTER This Telecenter was in Kailali district terai area of the far western development region. This was also the municipality. Recently there were a number of cyber cafes established. The management committee is hopeful that they will make it sustainable due to students. They were opening non-school hours for the community but generally was devoted school students for training and education purposes.

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APPENDIX VII List of Personal Communication

Name Designation Institution

Manohar K Bhattarai Vice Chairman HLCIT Juddha Gurung Member Secretary HLCIT Purusottam Ghimire Joint Secretary MOEST

Sharad Saha Scholar Mahabir Pun CEO Nepal Wireless D B Khadka Ex- Member HLCIT

Jiwan Sitaula Under Secretary Dept of Industry Subarna Shakya Executive Director NITC Gaurab Upadhyay Network Specialist Free Lancer

Biplav Man Singh ICT Group Head FNCCI Arun Shrestha Officer FNCCI Suresh Regmi MD Professional Computer System Bhakta Raj Ranjit CEO Synergy Nepal Allen Bailochan Tuladhar MD Unlimited Shikha Shrestha Program Officer Bellanet- Nepal Ramila Shrestha Telecenter Manager

Bibhusan Bista Program Officer SAP - Nepal Binod Dhakal General Secretary Computer Association of Nepal

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APPENDIX VIII List of Participant for Conference

Mr. Purusottam Ghimire, Joint Secretary, MOEST, Government of Nepal Mr. Prakash Pandit, TC Manager, Public ICT Access Service, Dhanding Mr. Suresh K. Regmi, Managing Director, Professional Computer System (P) Ltd. Mr. Janak Tuladhar, Chairman, Bungamati ICT Centre/ Telecenter, Bungmati Mr. Nanda Shyam Maharjan, Coordinator, Public ICT Centre/ Telecenter, Thecho Mr. Bhakta Raj Ranjit, chairperson, Synergy Nepal Mr. Bijendra Shrestha, Director, Pacific Commercial Co. P. Ltd. Mr. Allen Bailochan Tuladhar, CEO, Unlimited NuMedia Pvt. Ltd.Country Manager, Microsoft MDP Nepal / Chairperson, Forum for Information Technology Nepal (FIT Nepal) Mr. Anuj Shrestha, Chairman, Prism International Pvt. Ltd. / Chairman, Nepalese Young Entrepreneurs' Forum Mr. Sanjay Golchha, Managing Director, IT Nepal P. Ltd. / Neoteric Nepal P. Ltd Mr. Shiva Manandhar, Chairman , Mugling Telecenter Mr. Suresh Shrestha, Manager, Dhulikhel Telecenter Mr. Rudra Chhetri, Management Committee Head, Sankhu Telecenter. Mr. Raj Kumar Bhattarai, Vice President, Advertising Association of Nepal Mr. Pawan Kishore Rathi, Executive Committee Member, FNCCI/ President, Courier Service Association of Nepal Mr. Sargat Ananda Vaidya, Co-coordinator, Human Resource Committee, Lalitpur Chamber of Commerce and Industry/ Proprietor, Beltron Traders Mr. Sanjib Lakhe, Management Committee Chairman, Sankhu Telecenter, Kathmandu. Mr. Bijaya Krishna Shrestha, CEO and Chief Engineer, Beltronix Mr. Sugat Ratna Kansakar, Former Managing Director, Nepal Telecom Mr. Lochan Lal Amatya, President, Information Technology Professional Forum, Nepal (ITPF) Mr. Suresh Kumar Karna, President, Computer Association of Nepal Mr. Binod Dhakal, General Secretary, Computer Association of Nepal

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Ms. Shikha Shrestha, Bellanet, Kathmandu Ms. Anuja Shrestha, Telecenter Manager, Panauti, Kabhrepalanchowk. Mr. Biplav Man Singh, Ex-President, Computer Association Nepal Mr. Juddha B. Gurung, Member Secretary, HLCIT, Kathmandu Mr. Bikal Paudel, Deputy Director, NITC, Kathmandu Mr. Sunil Paudel, Computer Engineer, NITC, Kathmandu Mr. Subin Sharma, IT officer, Nepal Bank Limited Ms. Ramila Shrestha, Telecenter Manager, Sankhu, Kathmandu Mr. Arun Shrestha, Program Officer, FNCCI

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APPENDIX IX Questionnaire

Telecenter Study INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR USERS This information will be sought from the existing Rural Telecenter users in rural area to identify effectiveness of a Telecenter and suggestions for their improvement. 1. Background Information 1.1 Sex: M/F ______1.2 Age Group 16-25 26-35 36-50 over 50 1.3 Caste ______1.4 Occupation ______Education ______1.5. Location: (VDC, Municipality/District) ______/______

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS 2. Access 2.1 Do you find it difficult to get to the centre?

 Not at all  A little difficult  Difficult  Very difficult 2.2 How do you get here? ______2.3 When did you first start using the centre? ______2.4 What is your main purpose of using Telecenter? ______2.5 Have you personally contributed to the establishment of the Telecenter? ______3. Participation

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3.1 What is the Telecenter opening hours? Is it convenient for you? ______3.2 How often do you visit Telecenter?

 Daily  2-3 times a week  once in a week or  once in a month 3.3 What is your main purpose visiting Telecenters?

 Business/farming information  Keeping contact with friends/relatives  Education purposes  Health medical purposes  General access to information  Other purposes (please specify) 3.4 Do other members of your family come to the Telecenter?

 If yes, please indicate:  Wife or husband  Children  Parents  Siblings  Other relatives 3.5 Do you require assistance from the operators/managers when you are using the Telecenter?

 Never ______ Occasionally ______ Often ______ Always ______3.6 Are there any restrictions imposed by the committee on the use of Telecenters in relation to gender, caste and other issues?

 Yes  No If yes, please describe ______

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3.7 Do you usually find the information you are looking for at Telecenters?

 Nearly always find exactly what I need ______ Sometimes find what I need ______ Occasionally find what I need ______ Very rarely find exactly what I need ______

3.8 Do you share the information you have collected from the Telecenter?

 Yes  No If Yes, With whom? Type of information

Children  Education  Parents  Business farming  Other family members  Health / medical  Business farming friends  Travel information  Other people in my village  Other general information 

Insert nos for type of information 3.9 For you personally, what do you find is the most valuable use of the Telecenter

4. Finances 4.1 How much do you pay for the use of Telecenter for an hour? Rs ______4.2 Are there any other charges for the information services besides the cost of using internet? ______4.3 Is the cost affordable to you? Would you use the Telecenter more if the cost was reduced? ______

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5. Content/benefits 5.1 Are there any other activities here at Telecenter that you participate besides using internet?

 Meet to talk with friends or relatives  Discuss with other people about business farming activities  Other: (please specify) ______5.2 Has the use of Telecenter changed the way you carry out you work? If yes please describe. ______5.3 Do you think there have been any negative social or economic problems as a result of the establishment of the Telecenter? ______5.4 Has the knowledge of information through the use of Telecenter helped you to increase your income/production/business?

 Yes  No If yes please describe; ______5.5 Has the knowledge of this technology helped you to use other technologies such as Mobile phone Computers? ______Have you used other Telecenters in other locations? If yes, what is the difference? ______Do you have any suggestion on the operation of Telecenter in your village? Please describe. ______

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Telecenter Study INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR TELECENTER PROGRAM OWNERS This information will be sought from the existing Institutions including government, which have established Rural Telecenters and/or have supported them. The key personnel from those institutions will be interviewed.

1. Background Information 1.1. Organization: ______1.2. Organization type:

 Government  International Agency  NGO  Business

2. General questions 2.1. How many Telecenters has your organization established in Nepal? Please specify in geographical locations? ______2.2. When did you first establish a Telecenter in rural village? ______2.3. What was the main purpose on the establishment? ______2.4. How do you select the location? ______2.5. What are the minimum criteria for you to help Telecenter established in village? ______2.6. Do you make your organizational assessment first or you assess after community demand? What were your original expectations about who would use it, and for what purposes? ______

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2.7. Please describe the role of your organization on the management and operations of the Telecenters? ______

3. Form of Assistance 3.1. What form of assistance does your organization provide Telecenters? eg computers, internet cost, training, content etc? ______3.2 Is it one time package assistance or continuing assistance, please describe? ______3.3 Has the request for assistance increased or decreased over the years? ______3.4 If you support on information creation on different sectors, what are they? Are they based on community demand or based on your organizational assessment? ______3.5. What is the cost of one Telecenter establishment in village for your organization? ______3.6. Have you received any assistance from a foreign country and or international agency for the Telecenter? (For non-government organizations only) ______3.7. Are you aware of any government policy on Telecenter? ______3.8. Has it helped you to establish community centres with this policy framework? ______3.9. Are you aware of six thematic content area of the government? Are you developing your own content in these area or some other new ones? Please specify. ______

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4. Effectiveness 4.1 Do you monitor and evaluate the use and impact of these Telecenters? ______4.2 Do you think these Telecenters have open spill-over effect? Is it both at central and local level? ______4.3 Do you pass on information to other Telecenter owners as a result of your monitoring and evaluation? ______4.4 Have you observed willingness to adopt ICT in villages? Do you see ICT impact in adopting other forms of technologies? ______4.5 Have the implementation of Telecenters generated flow of ideas for you on policy issues on ICT? If Yes, Please indicate ______4.6 Have you intended to change productive practices in economic sectors with the flow of information and knowledge? If yes, in what areas? ______4.7 Do you think Telecenters have directly contributed to raise the level of income and their livelihood? ______4.8 Has Telecenter in one region performed better than others? If yes what do you think are the reasons for this? ______4.9 Have you found differences in the performance due to differing economic and socio context? If yes, please describe. ______4.10 What are the problems as an owner of Telecenter program? Please list in priority order. ______372

5. Future perspective Based on your experience, what policy issues are restricting the effective Telecenters in rural area? ______

What are your organization’s best practices of in the field of Telecenters? ______Did or do you find any negative consequences of Telecenters in rural area? ______Do you have future plans to establish more Telecenters in rural area? Please describe annual target and locations? ______Any other comments/remarks you want to make? ______

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Telecenter Study INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR TELECENTER MANAGERS This information will be sought from the existing Rural Telecenter managers to identify effectiveness of a Telecenter and suggestions for their improvement. As the interview is semi-structured there will be additional questions, comments at the time of interview in addition to following questions.

1. Background Information 1.1. Location: (VDC, Municipality/District) ______/______1.2. Established on (year) ______AD

2. General questions 2.1. How long are you with this Telecenter? ______2.2. What is your academic qualification? Where and what kind of ICT training did you receive? ______2.3. Are you happy with the employment in this Telecenter? If not, why? ______2.4. Please describe your role on the management and operations of the Telecenters? ______2.5. Are you invited in management committee? How often do you get instruction from the committee? ______2.6. How do you find this Telecenter different than other Telecenter in other villages? ______2.7. Is this Telecenter community owned? Do you think that ownership matters in the operation of the Telecenters? ______

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3. Participation 3.1 Do you think current location of the Telecenter is popular with people? ______3.2 How many visitors in an average pay visit to the Telecenters per day? ______3.3 Are villagers utilizing the services of the Telecenter? How would you rate the availability of services and its use? Score

 1 = limited availability  2  3  4 = highest availability 3.4 Are there any restrictions imposed by the committee or you on the use of Telecenters in relation to gender, caste and other issues? ______3.5 Is the culture is an issue on the use of Telecenter? ______3.6 Do you keep the log of Telecenter users? ______3.7 Who do you think active users of the Telecenters?

 Students  Farmers,  Business people  Others, please specify ______3.8 Are you aware on the content search/help requested by users? Please describe. ______3.9 Have you received comments from users on the charges for services fixed by the committee? If yes, Please specify them. ______3.10 Do you find users interacting at Telecenters? If yes, among peers or different groups? What are usually topics of interaction? ______

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3.11 What are the factors responsible for current level of participation by users?

 Skill level  Income  Attitude  All of above  Other social factors

4. Finances 4.1 External Support received to cover expenses on (Please say yes or no on following?

Equipments  Yes Electrical power  Yes  No  No

Land  Yes Internet connectivity  Yes  No  No

Work space  Yes Telephone  Yes  No  No

Manpower  Yes Maintenance  Yes  No  No

Others______ Yes  Yes  No  No

4.2 Has government supported your Telecenter? ______4.3 Is internet connectivity cost expensive for your Telecenter? Please specify annual rate of payment for internet connectivity. ______4.5 What is average daily gross income of your Telecenter? ______4.6 Have you and your staff paid salary in time? ______4.7 Do you have operational profit of the Telecenter? Do you think it is sustainable for the long run? If not, what measures you think are needed to make it sustainable? ______

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4.8 What kind of financial resources or what amount do you need to run Telecenter in effective way? ______

5. Technicalities/operations 5.1 How many computers do you have? ______5.2 What are other services provided by your Telecenter besides internet access? Please tick all that apply.

Internet Browsing Distribution Of    Telephone Radio Government   Fax Television Forms   Photocopy VCD Library    Computer Work Information Distance Learning    Computer Training Bulletin Tele-Medicine   E-Mail  Local Content  Disaster Mitigation (Web)  Agricultural Market Development Information

5.3 What is the speed of the Internet? Is it Wi-Fi, leased line, dial up or VSAT connection? ______5.4 Do you get the regular electricity? When electricity is out do you have alternative means to run computer? ______5.5 What time do you open and close the Telecenter? ______5.6 What kind of information content support do you get from government? Are you aware if users using those information? ______5.7 Is any government service available through this Telecenter? Please specify. ______

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5.8 Have you been able to have your own website and local content? ______5.9 Who maintains computer when it has problem? What is average down time per month? ______5.10 Have you worked in other Telecenters?

 Yes  No 5.11 If yes to 5.10, what are the difference between this Telecenters and others you operated? ______6. Problems Encountered ______6.1 What is your main problem in the operation and management of this Telecenter? ______6.2 Please list other 5 important problems ______

7. Operations and Management Remarks 1. Demand of service from community 2. Capability of community to pay 3. Payment of electricity charge 4. Payment of house rent 5. Availability of skilled manpower 6. Payment of telephone charge 7. Payment of internet cost 8. Payment to equipment maintenance expenses 9. Management committee 10. Others:

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Telecenter Study INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE This information will be sought from the existing Rural Telecenter management committee personnel to identify effectiveness of a Telecenter and suggestions for their improvement. As the interview is semi-structured there will be additional questions, comments at the time of interview in addition to following questions.

1. Background Information 1.1. Location: (VDC, Municipality/District) ______/______1.2. Established on (year) ______AD 1.3 Education of Committee Chairperson ______

2. General Questions 2.1 What were your original expectations when the Telecenter was being developed? ______2.2 Who did you think would most use the centre? ______2.3 What did you think they would use it for? ______2.4. Are you happy with the Telecenter in this village? Did the Telecenter meet your expected benefits? ______2.5. How big is your management committee? ______2.6 How many women and men are members?? Women ______Men ______2.7 Do you have the minutes of interaction at the time of establishment? ______

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2.8 Please describe the role of your committee on the management and operations of the Telecenters? ______2.9 How often does your committee meet and what are major discussion agenda? ______2.10 In your view how is this Telecenter different from other Telecenter in other villages? ______2.11 Is this Telecenter community owned? If different who owns it? ______

3. Participation 3.1 Do you think current location of the Telecenter is popular with people?

 Very popular  Quite popular  Fairly popular  Not very popular 3.2 Are villagers utilizing the services of the Telecenter? How would you rate the availability of services and its use? Score

 1 = limited availability  2  3  4 = highest availability 3.3 Cultural Issues a. Is your Telecenter closed on your religious holidays? ______b. Do boys and girls have equal access? ______c. Is there any restriction on the use of information content on the internet? If yes, Please explain ______

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3.4 Are there any restrictions imposed by the committee on the use of Telecenters in relation to gender, caste age and other issues?

 Gender e.g. ______ Caste e.g. ______ Age e.g. ______3.5 Who do you think are the most active users of the Telecenters?

 Students  Farmers  Business People  Others, please specify ______3.6 Are there perhaps other groups that could make more use of the Telecenter and if so who and what would need to change? ______3.7 In your view are the charges for services fixed by the committee affordable to people in your village?

 Yes, affordable  Only just affordable  Too expensive

4. Finances 4.1 External Support received to cover expenses on (Please say yes or no on following?

Equipments  Yes Electrical power  Yes  No  No

Land  Yes Internet connectivity  Yes  No  No

Work space  Yes Telephone  Yes  No  No

Manpower  Yes Maintenance  Yes  No  No

Others______ Yes  Yes  No  No

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4.2 How is your Telecenter financed?

 Government Support ______(%)  Local Village Support ______(%)  International Support ______(%)  User Fees ______(%) 4.3 How do you find internet cost for your Telecenter? [Not sure what this means?] ______4.4 Has the committee been able to keep trained manager and social workers in this Telecenter? ______4.5 Do you have operational profit of the Telecenter? ______4.6 Do you think it is sustainable for the long run? If not, what measures you think are needed to make it sustainable? ______4.7 What kind of financial resources or what amount do you need to run Telecenter in effective way? ______

5. Rural needs 5.1 What is the important economic activity in this village? E.g. agriculture, tourism, forest ______5.2 Do you have the information available through this Telecenter on these major economic activities? ______5.3 In your opinion what are the main information needs in this village? ______5.4 Are you aware of six content area government delivering information through Telecenters? If yes, have people been able to use these resources? ______5.5 Have your Telecenter been able to add local content to those six areas? ______

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5.6 Does your centre have its own website? What was the main purpose for this and has your community benefitted from this? ______

6. Effectiveness 6.1 Do you think that the use of information through the Telecenter has changed the way people work in agriculture or other means of production? Can you specify such changes? ______6.2 Has it helped for increased tourism in your village? ______6.3 Has Telecenter helped to start new activities in the village?

 Yes  No If yes, could you offer some examples? ______6.4 If Telecenter has contributed positively, what are the benefitted sectors from the Telecenters? ______6.5 Do you believe that Telecenter has increased the knowledge? Do you think that it has changed the way of thinking? ______6.6 Do you think that Telecenter has been able to contribute economically to the villagers? ______6.7 Has it contributed to adopt other technologies in the village? If yes, what are they? And, in what way? ______

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6.8 do you think, discussion and interaction among Telecenter users helpful for development? If yes can you provide one example? ______

7. Problems and Suggestions 7.1 In your view what are the main problems in managing this Telecenter?

 Financial ______ Access for users______ Types of information available ______7.2 What support do you receive from government to help manage the centre? ______7.3 Do you have any suggestions for the improvement/expansion on the services of the Telecenters? ______

8. Establishment Remarks 1. Availability of equipments ______2. Meeting equipments cost ______3. Availability of Land and work space ______4. Buying the land and building space ______5. Availability of operating license ______6. Harassments in establishment ______7. Internet connectivity ______8. Telephone connectivity ______9. Availability of electrical powers ______10. Awareness of the community ______11. Others: Please specify ______

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APPENDIX X Table X7.1

FACTORS FOR RANKING OPENNESS

Factors User questions Manager Management questions Committee questions

Cultural Issues 3.6 3.5 3.4 Information 3.8 3.7 3.8 Sharing

Participation 3.2 2.5, 3.2, 3.11 4.6

Interaction 5.1 3.10 6.8 Institutional Interview Interview Interview comments structures comments comments Trust Comments during Comments during Comments during Interview Interview Interview

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APPENDIX XI Table X7.2

RANKING OF OPENNESS IN TELECENTERS

Code Telecenters Cultural Information Participation Interaction Institutional Trust Total Rank Issues Sharing structures score

ED1 Durgapur Telecenter 9 9 9 9 8 8 52 3 ED2 Triphala Telecenter 7 3 4 4 4 4 26 10 386 ED3 Madhumalla Telecenter 8 6 7 6 5 7 39 7

ED4 Godak Telecenter 6 5 6 4 4 7 32 9 ED5 Inaruwa Telecenter 5 5 5 6 5 6 32 9 CD1 Panauti Telecenter 7 3 4 3 4 5 26 10 CD2 Jhuwani library and 8 8 8 7 7 7 45 4 Telecenter CD3 Kamane Telecenter 5 2 5 2 2 4 20 11 CD4 Basamadhi Telecenter 9 9 9 10 8 9 54 2 CD5 Charikot Telecenter 7 6 7 7 6 7 40 6 CD6 Sankhu Telecenter 8 7 8 7 6 8 44 5 CD7 Bungmati Telecenter 9 8 9 8 9 9 52 3 CD8 Thecho Telecenter 7 7 8 7 8 8 45 4

WD1 Puthang Library & 10 8 10 8 9 9 54 2 Telecenter WD2 Marpha Telecenter 6 5 7 6 6 6 36 8 WD3 Ghara Telecenter 8 7 8 7 7 8 45 4 WD4 Khibang Telecenter 6 9 8 7 7 8 45 4 WD5 Arghauli library and 7 6 7 6 5 8 39 7 Telecenter WD6 Baglung Telecenter 6 6 6 6 6 6 36 8 WD7 Lekhnath Telecenter 7 6 7 7 6 7 40 6 WD8 Nangi Telecenter 10 9 10 9 9 10 57 1 WD9 Ramche Telecenter 6 6 7 6 7 7 39 7 WD10 Jomsom Telecenter 7 7 7 7 5 7 40 6 387 (NITC)

MWD Tulsipur Telecenter 7 5 7 6 7 7 39 7 FWD Dhanagadhi telecenter 6 6 7 6 6 8 39 7

APPENDIX XII Table X7.3

FACTORS FOR RANKING ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY

Factors User questions Manager Management questions Committee questions Finding Information 3.7 3.8 3.2 Information Sharing 3.8 3.7 3.8 Skill Level 1.5 2.2 1.3 Interaction 5.1 3.1 6.8 Extended networks Interview Interview Interview comments comments comments Bonding and Comments Comments Comments during Bridging Social during Interview during Interview Interview Capital

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APPENDIX XIII Table X7.4

RANKING OF ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY

Code Telecenters Finding Information Skill Interaction Extended Bonding & Total Rank Information Sharing Level networks Bridging score Social Capital ED1 Durgapur Telecenter 9 9 8 9 8 10 53 2

389 ED2 Triphala Telecenter 4 3 5 4 3 1 20 12

ED3 Madhumalla Telecenter 7 6 8 6 6 7 40 7 ED4 Godak Telecenter 6 5 6 4 7 6 34 10 ED5 Inaruwa Telecenter 5 4 5 5 5 6 30 11 CD1 Panauti Telecenter 4 5 6 5 5 5 30 11 CD2 Jhuwani library and 8 7 5 7 6 7 40 7 Telecenter CD3 Kamane Telecenter 5 2 5 2 2 4 20 12 CD4 Basamadhi Telecenter 9 9 9 10 8 9 54 1 CD5 Charikot Telecenter 7 6 6 7 6 7 39 8 CD6 Sankhu Telecenter 8 7 7 7 6 8 43 6 CD7 Bungmati Ttelecenter 9 7 8 8 9 9 50 3 CD8 Thecho Telecenter 8 7 7 7 7 8 44 5

WD1 Puthang Library & 10 7 10 8 9 9 53 2 Telecenter WD2 Marpha Telecenter 7 6 5 7 6 6 37 9 WD3 Ghara Telecenter 8 7 8 7 7 7 44 5 WD4 Khibang Telecenter 7 8 7 7 8 10 47 4 WD5 Arghauli library and 7 6 6 6 7 8 40 7 Telecenter WD6 Baglung Telecenter 6 5 5 6 6 6 34 10 WD7 Lekhnath Telecenter 7 6 8 7 7 7 42 6 WD8 Nangi Telecenter 10 9 7 9 9 10 54 1 WD9 Ramche Telecenter 7 6 6 6 7 7 39 8 WD10 Jomsom Telecenter 7 7 7 6 7 8 42 6 390 (NITC)

MWD Tulsipur Telecenter 7 5 5 6 7 7 37 9 FWD Dhanagadhi telecenter 7 6 7 6 6 7 39 8

APPENDIX XIV Development Indicators for Five Regions in Nepal

Regions/Indicators Per capita Literacy No of Schools Human Unemployment Mobile Mobile Internet Population income (%) (2) (grade 1 to 10) dev index ( 2001) (4) phones penetration penetration (in Millions) (US$) (1) (3) (2001) (1) (2011) (6) (2011), (6) (2011) (6) (2011) (5) EDR 221 49.4 10955 0.493 3.8 2737100 41.53 NA 6.5 CDR 293 46.5 16087 0.49 4.4 4635210 46 NA 10 WDR 230 61.1 11614 0.491 3.5 2348504 41.9 NA 5.6

391 MWDR 181 49.1 8609 0.354 3.5 930040 25.1 NA 3.7 FWDR 198 47.3 5910 0.364 1.7 952160 35.1 NA 2.7 Total 225 50.7 53175 0.436 3.38 11602814 40.59 10.89 28.5

Sources: (1) Human Development Report 2004, (2) National Living Standard Survey (NLSS) 2004, (3) Economic Survey 2011 part 2 ,(4) CBS-Census 2007 (5) Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) Population Projection Nepal 2001/2021 (6) NTA, MIS Report 2011, telecom companies

APPENDIX XV Difficulty in Accessing Education

Students of Dhansira and Pasgun villages going to Gyachok secondary school Students follow this routine to go to school twice a day to cross the river due to the lack of a bridge.

Source: http://www.mysansar.com/archives/2011/05/id/18942

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