Content Divide: New Challenge for Rural ICT Initiatives

This 6-page article in the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) newsletter focuses on the importance of content that clients can receive through the services of a rural telecentre, and the current issues that are limiting locally applicable and accessible content.
According to the author, Shahid Uddin Akbar, the following are common concerns of clients of ICT telecentres: "...they... care about the cost of
access, whether they can get technical advice on how to connect to and use the Internet, whether the Internet is secure and reliable, and whether there is useful Internet content and services in their native language.”

Shahid Uddin Akbar expresses the importance of content to the successful implementation and sustainability of rural telecentres using this client-centred approach: "Only if the telecenter offers
relevant local information in a convenient delivery format to the end users, will the beneficiary
group be interested in using the service." The author points out that there is a widening gap in the accessibility of web content because 80% of it is in English, and few telecentres are developing relevant local content. Without that, rural users are being lost as clients because they cannot fully benefit from the services due to the content being "alien text and material." This factor, according to the author, may lead to a negative perspective of ICT tools "unless practitioners, policy makers, donors, investors, and activists concentrate efforts on local content."

Uddin Akbar names and discusses issues affecting the functions of writing, entry, and updating surrounding the development of locally relevant content, including: understanding local information preferences and concerns, using local language, establishing an update and feedback collection mechanism, designing a medium for delivery and a system for bundling content, enhancing operator capacity, developing a unicode format in local languages, and addressing infrastructure and connectivity. Communication strategies for developing relevant content include: understanding local need; building broad partnerships; establishing a web-based resource sharing mechanism and exchanging learning and experiences; mobilising research for new content and updated content; building capacity among practitioners; and including telecentre operators.

The author's key strategy in the design phase of content development is allocating resources for the early stages, which, according to this article, cannot initially be solely private sector resources.
The article, recognising that a sustainable business model for telecentre success depends on minimising the content gap and addressing content in a structured way, delineates a critical role for multistakeholder partnerships in addressing the issue of content development, including recognising the private sector's potential role "in taking forward the content update mechanism and in creating a competitive landscape in the content development market."

Shahid Uddin Akbar concludes that making telecentres work for rural communities depends on the approach and services, largely related to content as the product of a telecentre, which requires a mechanism of developing relevancy and regular updating. He indicates that for a promising future the telecentre movement needs to focus on the core issue of content and end what he labels "the pilot syndrome."