Cooperating to bridge the digital divide and incorporate the public into the information society

The present article is aimed at reporting the activities of the Working Group on Connectivity in the Americas, especially the Regional Project adopted at the last meeting of COM/CITEL held in December 2006 in San José de Costa Rica.

2. WORKING GROUP ON CONNECTIVITY IN THE AMERICAS

The Working Group on Connectivity in the Americas has the following terms of reference:

By statute, the Chair of COM/CITEL, which is currently held by Costa Rica, presides over this working group. Therefore, Costa Rica is at the head of the Working Group and submitted the initiative to implement a Framework Regional Project to help countries in the efforts they have already made to bridge the digital divide and to incorporate the public into the Information Society, which is a Project that will be commented on below.

The proposal is consistent with the work that was done when CITEL’s Agenda for Connectivity and the so-called Plan of Action of Quito for its implementation were established and adopted, and it is in line with the previous terms of reference of the Working Group on Connectivity in the Americas.

In compliance with the commitment stemming from the Summit, CITEL drew up the Agenda for Connectivity, which is the conceptual framework that can be viewed as the national, regional, or subregional strategy to speed up the transformation of the hemisphere’s countries into a knowledge-based society.

Furthermore, the Plan of Action, in its first phase, submitted a basic three-step process to the countries willing to formulate and put into practice a connectivity strategy, namely: evaluation and planning, implementation, and valuation. 

At the last CITEL General Assembly, held in February 2006, when Costa Rica took over the Chair of COM/CITEL, it was considered that this first phase had been completed and the second phase of this Plan of Action, consisting of identifying concrete objectives in keeping with the commitments of the States in the Millennium Declaration, the Plans of Action of the WSIS, the Rio Commitments, and the subregional policy documents, was adopted, for which purpose a Working Plan was suggested and drawn up.

When Costa Rica took over the chair of this Working Group, it was decided that a concrete project would be submitted, one that corresponds to this second phase of the Quito Plan of Action; the project was called Support for Reducing the Digital Divide and Advancing the Information Society in the Americas, which is mentioned in the present article as a challenge that has to be addressed.

3. REGIONAL PROJECT: SUPPORT FOR REDUCING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE AND ADVANCING THE INFORMATION SOCIETY IN THE AMERICAS

All the member countries of CITEL are making efforts to bridge their internal digital divide and promote a digital culture among their citizens.  Better use is obviously made of the resources and talents involved in these efforts when they are channeled jointly to avoid duplication and scale advantages are gained in the countries. 

ITU and CITEL intervention would facilitate the participation of various players of the public and private sectors, who could contribute to a coordinated effort, whether funding or technical expertise, contributions of equipment or other forms of cooperation such as training, which is crucial in this case.

The project is an initiative aimed at addressing one of the mandates of the Working Group on Connectivity in the Americas, that is:  “To identify those projects whose outcomes comply with the requirement of satisfying the common needs of all the countries in the Region or a significant number of them, and that the project ensures the identification and recognition of the best practices all over the world, and in particular, in the Region where it will be implemented, aiming at promoting its replication and adaptation.”

Therefore, the Regional Project was adopted as framework of reference, in which national or subregional projects shall be identified.  By implementing the latter, the Framework Regional Project shall be implemented on the basis of the following goals:

In general terms the following actions are foreseen:

1.             In 2007:

• Signing of the ITU-CITEL agreement.

• Definition of at least 3 pilot projects

• Preparation of the feasibility studies and master plans for these pilot projects.

• Start of implementation

• Initiation of identification of other projects in interested countries.

2.             In 2008:

• Implementation of the three pilot projects defined and initiated in 2007.

• Follow-up of the projects to identify best practices, mistakes to avoid, difficulties encountered, etc. to capitalize on experience.

• Selection of at least three other interested countries and definition of their projects, with the initiation of feasibility studies and the preparation of master plans.

• If possible, initiation of project implementation.

3.             In 2009 and 2010:

• Complete implementation of all defined projects (three pilot projects and the three identified in the previous point).

• If possible, identify, organize and start other projects in different CITEL member countries and/or regions in those countries.

• Evaluate results, identify best practices, identify errors to avoid, and prepare a report or White Book to serve as reference for the rest of CITEL member countries, as well as other interested ITU member countries in other regions of the World.

4.  PARTNERSHIPS NEEDED TO IMPLEMENT THE PROJECT

On the basis of the decisions of the World Summits of the Information Society, the drafting of the Millennium Goals, the agreements drawn up at the Summits of Presidents, etc., almost all  international organizations include, in their work plans, assistance to countries to bridge their digital divide and incorporate their citizens into the Information Society.

Because of this, it is necessary to join efforts and available resources to avoid the duplication of efforts in a disorderly fashion and to take advantage of existing experiences and best practices that have been built up by various organizations.

The International Telecommunication Union, which promoted and organized the World Summits on Information Society in Geneva and Tunis, includes in its programs specific actions and some resources allocated to this area.

At the World Telecommunication Development Conference (WTDC-06), by means of Resolution 17, ITU adopted the various regional initiatives and, for the Americas Region in particular, four initiatives:

Regional Initiative: Support for the Development of Rural Connectivity in the Americas Region.

Countries: Peru, Mexico, Canada, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Bolivia, and Chile.

Regional Initiative: Interconnection of information networks to prevent disasters.

Countries: Trinidad and Tobago, Canada, Grenada, and Cuba

Regional Initiative: Support to the Administrations to draw up and implement policies and programs for the mass development of broadband access to reach national goals of ensuring universal service.

Countries: Canada, Argentina, Mexico, Venezuela, Peru, Guatemala, Chile, and United States

Regional Initiative: Establishment of a Caribbean Task Force on Spectrum Management, for the purpose of improving spectrum management in the Caribbean States and developing harmonious approaches for the subregion.

Countries: Cuba, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Canada, United States, Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Suriname.

As observed, CITEL’s Agenda for Connectivity and two of the four initiatives adopted by ITU have the following in common:

a)    Development of connectivity in broadband for universal access, which is the platform on the basis of which the digital divide can be bridged, which is what the regional project indicated above is aimed at achieving, and which is what shall enable the establishment of digital government in rural municipalities.

b)   Development of rural connectivity in the Americas Region, which is what would permit or shall permit the installation and operation of community telecenters.

Because of this, both CITEL and ITU agree to standardize their official positions, draw up a cooperation agreement that would enable them both to fulfill their mandates and work jointly as the promoters of actions both to help the countries technically whenever necessary and to help them look for partners from the public sector, the private sector and international banks.

This specific agreement for the present case has already been drafted and is being negotiated. At the time of writing the present article (May 3, 2007), the document had been approved by the OAS Legal Department, and at present it is with ITU’s Legal Department for review and so that it can be signed.  The agreement is scheduled to be signed at the CITEL Steering Committee meeting in August in Costa Rica, as the Secretary General of ITU shall be present and shall be inaugurating this meeting.

5. PROGRESS OF ACTIVITIES (December 2006-April 2007)

As approved, in 2007 a series of activities must be carried out; they have already started being implemented and are specified briefly below: 

-     Formalization of the ITU-CITEL agreement:

As indicated earlier, the agreement has already been drafted and approved by the Legal Department of the OAS and it  is now with the Legal Department of ITU. It is scheduled to be signed at the CITEL Steering Committee meeting that shall be inaugurated by the Secretary General of ITU, Mr. Hamadoun I. Touré, who shall take advantage of his visit to sign this agreement (August 27-30, 2007).

-     Defining at least three pilot projects:

It was possible to identify three countries with a real interest in preparing these national projects: Ecuador, Uruguay, and Costa Rica.  The goals and scope of each project are in the process of being drawn up with the contact persons in charge in each country.  The case of Costa Rica shall be described briefly below, as progress has been made.  Negotiations are under way to have Haiti become a national pilot project, because it would be first representative of the Caribbean that would become part of the Framework Regional Project and, in addition, both OAS and ITU consider it is a priority country for the support it needs.

-     Implementing the feasibility studies and the master plans of these pilot projects:

This is precisely the phase in which we are now, and we expect to make sufficient progress for implementation to start up this year.

-     Start-up of project implementation:

As indicated earlier, this activity has not as yet started up.

-       Start-up of identification of other projects in interested countries:

As for the previous case, this activity has not started up.  The idea is to identify possible projects to implement them in 2008.

6. EXAMPLE OF THE NATIONAL PROJECT OF COSTA RICA

The current government of the Republic of Costa Rica has given very high priority to developing central digital government and incorporating Costa Ricans into the Information Society.

Responsibilities for this program have been distributed.  The Office of the Deputy Vice-President is in charge of the program and the development of online applications.  The Ministry of Education is in charge of training children and young people so that they can learn how to use ICTs and get an education using them, and introducing the country’s young people to the digital culture.  The Ministry of Science and Technology is responsible for training adults and the current labor force.

On the basis of this general orientation, the project that is being developed in the framework of CITEL’s Regional Project, is aimed at supplementing the Digital Government development efforts being made by the Office of the Deputy Vice-President of the Republic by developing a municipality using a consistent and integral approach.  This project intends to be used as an example and can be replicated in other municipalities of the country.

The project, oriented by national policies, would be implementing three of the four immediate goals approved in the Framework Regional Project in the geographical area covered by the municipality, namely:

This project should be implemented in 2006-2010, which is Costa Rica’s term of office as chair of COM/CITEL.

General purpose of the Costa Rica project:

Contributing to helping the transformation of municipalities xxxx, yyy, and zzz into digital municipalities, introducing digital culture to their citizens, and integrating them into the Information Society so they can take advantage of the opportunities offered by this Society, in line with the principles stemming from the World Summit on Information Society, the Americas Summits, the mandates of the OAS and the Millennium Goals.

COMMENTS: The wording is in line with the framework purpose adopted by COM/CITEL for the Regional Project and it is realistic with respect to what is expected to be done in Costa Rica, regardless of the selected municipality or municipalities.

Specific goals:

Provide technical assistance to municipalities in:

• Designing and drafting plans for the development of electronic municipal government, supplemented by actions for tele-education, telemedicine, e-commerce, the development of SMEs and Micro-SMEs, etc., in line with the needs of each municipality, with the idea of evolving toward a future “municipal m-government” (mobile municipal government).

• Designing and drafting plans for the development and installation of community telecenters, where basic telephony and data transmission facilities with Internet access are available and where traditional e-mail, chat, and information search services are supplemented by citizen education and training programs not only on the use of ICTs but also in areas associated to the productive activities of interested communities. Access would be given to all the programs developed and coordinated by municipal e-government, including its own services and other applications such as telehealth, tele-education, e-commerce, telecommuting possibilities, etc.

• Designing and drafting training programs for both government officials and the general public so that they can assimilate digital culture and use ICTs intelligently, taking advantage of the programs mentioned in the previous goals and, as a result, improving their living conditions.

Municipalities involved:

Various possibilities have been examined, among which there are three that seem to be prepared for a Project as the one described. They are listed below:

1. Cartago: Municipality 20 km from San José and former capital of Costa Rica.

2. Heredia: Municipality 18 km from San José and whose current mayor is a former officer of the ICE who would be able to give much support to the project.

3. Zona Los Santos, 70 km from San José, involving three small municipalities: San Marcos de Tarrazú, Santa María de Dota, and San Pablo de León Cortés.

To achieve the goal of helping to bridge the digital divide, we are inclined to go for the third option, as it is much more rural than the other two, which are head towns of the province. This decision shall be taken in May to comply with the timetable that was drawn up for this project, which is as follows:

7. CITEL’S ADDITIONAL MANDATE: DEVELOPMENT OF A MODEL FOR DRAWING UP AND IMPLEMENTING PROJECTS WITH ICTs

At the last meeting of COM/CITEL, where the framework Regional Project was adopted as a priority action for the implementation of the second phase of the Plan of Action of Quito for the Agenda for Connectivity in the Americas, the implementation of the model that was mentioned was also adopted.

The model must serve as a guide so that many members can draw up and present their own projects to meet all the requirements of international organizations to look for funding and participants who can help implement them.

It was established that the Working Group on Connectivity in the Americas, headed by its Chair, Costa Rica, and the Executive Secretariat of CITEL, would be in charge of this development, which should take the following into account:

• The documents that shall be provided by the Administrations of Canada, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico at the upcoming PPC.I to be held in Buenos Aires on March 20-23, 2007.

• The studies of REGULATEL and ECLAC (e-LAC) for which the CITEL Secretariat shall draw up the relevant agreements with these entities.

• The requirements stipulated by various financial institutions such as IDB, the World Bank, international cooperation agencies with experience in project implementation such as UNDP, ITU, USAID, CIDA of Canada, etc., for which the CITEL Secretariat shall help to obtain information.

The work is being planned harmonizing the previous information, drafting the model for conceiving and implementing CITEL projects, and drawing up first the document’s structure and table of contents; once approved by the CITEL Secretariat, this model shall be used to produce the complete document, which shall be subject to approval by CITEL authorities.

We hope that this subproduct shall be highly useful for all those interested in drawing up and implementing projects that use ICTs.

CONCLUSIONS

Although it is true we are just taking the first steps, the course we must take and the difficulties we shall have to overcome are very clear to us. CITEL has been able to inspire teamwork and is tackling the interesting challenge of bringing together international, public and private organizations, along with the industrial sector and local authorities from one or various countries, for the purpose of implementing concrete actions aimed at bridging the digital divide and incorporating citizens into the Information Society to ultimately improve their living conditions.

Also noteworthy are the cooperation agreements that the Latin American Association of Telecommunication Research Centers and Companies (Asociación Hispanoamericana de Centros de Investigación y Empresas de Telecomunicaciones—AHCIET) has entered into with ITU and CITEL, enabling it to participate actively in this Regional Project, thanks to the important role played by AHCIET, giving its support to the development of digital cities in Latin America and with the establishment of a High-Level Committee of which the author of the present article is a member, which advises and provides suggestions and counseling to AHCIET to continue implementing this activity.

The two leading official telecommunication organizations, CITEL of OAS for the Americas region and ITU for the entire world, are joining efforts and shall be the driving force behind this Project so that it can be implemented.

Jaime Herrera
Chair
Working Group on Connectivity in the Americas