New technology supports rural development

At the end of last week, Sunday the 7th, we visited the town of Mokopane (formerly Potgietersrus), in the Mogalakwena District of the Limpopo Province. The reason for this visit was to learn about an important process that is taking place in this district, concerning the introduction of modern information and communication technologies (ICT).

During the World Summit for Sustainable Development (WSSD) held just over a year ago, we had occasion to join Ms Carly Fiorina, CEO of the major international ICT company, Hewlett-Packard (HP), to launch the process in Mogalakwena.

It was explained that this process, the 'Mogalakwena HP i-community', would be about drawing on the capacities of HP to bring ICT into the rural district of Mogalakwena. This would be done through a partnership that would combine the Limpopo provincial government, the District Municipality of Mogalakwena, and HP - a public-private partnership (PPP).

Before we proceed any further, we must deal with the question - what is an 'HP i-community'? HP's answer to this question is as follows:

"It is essentially a project that is designed to narrow the social, economic and digital divide by facilitating technology access, education/learning opportunities, employment/job skills transfer, community building/increased civic involvement, and economic development to a specific community.

"The i-community projects are generally driven by a fixed term Public-Private Partnership (PPP) between HP and various government/provincial departments. The creation of an ICT infrastructure, the provision of training and education, and the identification of opportunities for economic growth are key factors in the project.

"The main goal of an i-community is to develop a breakthrough in the way that ICT enables sustainable social and economic development. This means helping an emerging market enhance the technology, business and life skills of its populace, build capacity and, thus, create opportunities for economic growth. Again, this is done with sustainable development in mind.

"Being able to replicate the successes of an i-community in other emerging markets is also vital. Each project is therefore run with a view to replicating the successful elements in another part of the country or, indeed, another country entirely."

At the ceremony in Johannesburg in 2002, where we launched the 'Mogalakwena HP i-community' project, described as above, we also had the possibility to convey the sincere thanks of our government and people to HP for the enormous support they had given to the WSSD, by contributing the computer network that enabled the World Summit to handle all its information and communication requirements.

I mention this latter matter to make the point that this contribution demonstrated the commitment of HP both to the advancement of the centrally important global agenda of the WSSD, and ensuring that our country met its obligations to the nations of the world, to create the best possible conditions for the success of the World Summit.

Accordingly, when we launched the 'Mogalakwena HP i-community' project, we had no doubt that we had entered into a partnership with a corporate ally with a heart. These were new partners who had proved that they were genuinely interested in working with us to ensure that we emerge as a winning nation. What we saw in Mokopane last Sunday, confirmed that we were correct in our conclusions of a year ago.

Indeed, we must also make the observation that we are very fortunate to enjoy excellent cooperation with other global ICT companies, all of whom are members, together with HP, of our President's International Advisory Council on Information Society and Development. We will report on this cooperation in a later edition of ANC Today.

The central task of the 'Mogalakwena HP i-community' project is to address the important and urgent challenge our country faces, of bridging the domestic digital divide. Even in terms of international comparisons, our six Metropolitan areas, such as Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban, are relatively well served with regard to access to ICT.

Relatively large numbers of people have access to computers and the Internet - the digital technology at the cutting edge of the development of modern societies.

Very few of our people in our Rural Districts have such access. Accordingly, there is an enormous digital divide between our Metropolitan areas and our Rural Districts. The 'Mogalakwena HP i-community' project is focused on bridging this divide.

Because of this, the project is therefore also focused on closing the development gap between our urban and rural areas. It is this gap that drives many of our people in the rural areas to migrate to our towns and cities. The strength of this tendency has been confirmed by Census 2001, which showed a significant growth of the numbers of people resident in the Metropolitan areas, compared to the situation reflected in Census 1996.

The closure of this gap also means that the 'Mogalakwena HP i-community' project is also serving as a practical intervention to address the critically important matter we raised in an earlier edition of ANC Today.

This was about the need for us to elaborate policies and programmes to transform our domestic Third World economy, so that our people imprisoned within this economy liberate themselves from this condition, and integrate themselves within our domestic First World economy, as well as the global economy. It was about the implementation of a development paradigm that would enable us to solve the problems of unemployment, poverty, underdevelopment and social alienation.

All this explains the vital importance of the 'Mogalakwena HP i-community' project to our country as a whole, and the strategic task we face to eradicate poverty and underdevelopment. This is the reason we have described what is happening in Mogalakwena as both a project and a process.

The HP explanation of the concept and practice of 'i-community', which we cited, said "each project is therefore run with a view to replicating the successful elements in another part of the country or, indeed, another country entirely." Mogalakwena will provide us with a model, developed in the actual conditions of a South African rural community, which will be capable of replication in other rural areas of our country and other African countries.

Earlier in this Letter we quoted the HP explanation of an 'HP i-community' at some length. We did this to ensure that all our readers understand what can be done with the technology categorised as ICT. From this explanation, it becomes clear that the important issue is therefore not the mere availability of digital technology in the Rural District of Mogalakwena.

The central issue is the use of this technology to enable all our people speedily to address the issues that define our reconstruction and development process, that are critical to the success of the people's contract to push back the frontiers of poverty and ensure enhanced access to a better life for all.

Accordingly, the 'Mogalakwena HP i-community' process is designed to address such matters as education and learning, economic and business development, skills and employment, health, community development, arts and culture, social integration and the building of communities, good governance and popular participation, sustainable development, national and international integration, and others.

As we said in the earlier Letter to ANC Today to which we have referred, the development of the Third World sector of our economy and society requires conscious, specific interventions, such the one given life by the 'Mogalakwena HP i-community' project. In turn, the provision, through ICT, of the services and opportunities we have mentioned, requires the existence of the requisite ICT infrastructure. By definition, our rural areas do not have this infrastructure.

Necessarily, therefore, the Mogalakwena project had to start with the provision of this infrastructure, to create the means that would be used to provide the defined services and opportunities. The challenge the project faced in this regard is somewhat akin to the tasks we confront with regard to ensuring the existence of an adequate health infrastructure to enable patients to access certain types of drugs and medicines.

The 'Mogalakwena HP i-community' could not begin to deliver services to the people until the necessary infrastructure had been established among the 360,000 people resident in the more than 120 rural and urban human settlements of Mogalakwena. In truth, all that the district had in this regard, when implementation of the 'i-community' began, was electricity and some telephony.

This was thanks to the electrification and communications programmes our government, Eskom and Telkom have pursued since our liberation in 1994. Thirty-four of the villages still do not have access even to such basic services as clean water and modern health facilities.

Accordingly, for the first twelve months of its existence, the project has focused on the establishment of the necessary infrastructure. Over 20 community computer access centres have now been established. These are based at schools, clinics, municipal offices, offices of traditional leaders, libraries, community and multi-purpose centres. Better access has also been secured through the installation of fibre optic cables, and the use of wireless, i.e. radio and satellite, technology.

All these centres now have computers, as well as people trained to facilitate access to these computers, including the Internet. These trained people, who include traditional leaders, are therefore able to assist any resident of Mogalakwena who seeks to use ICT to meet his or her needs.

The project has also trained over 1,000 people in the skills necessary to use the ICT facilities that are now available. Some of these are teachers, instructors and operators that we met during our visit. These are helping others to be computer literate, to access the Internet, including the use of the e-mail, and giving possibilities to schools, clinics, business people, cultural workers and others to use ICT to meet their needs. In other words, the rural community of Mogalakwena is becoming ICT-literate.

The project is also training people to maintain and service computers. This is to ensure that if any computer anywhere in the district breaks down, plunging the affected local community into the disconnection from the rest of the district, our country and the rest of the world from which it suffered before the introduction of the project, this breakdown is ended as quickly as possible.

Connected to this, people are being trained to staff a call-centre, so that if the local technician were unable to solve any problem that might arise, he or she would call the call-centre, which would then communicate with the relevant people to come to the assistance of the resident local technician.

Without the establishment of this district-wide physical and human infrastructure, it would be impossible to provide the services and opportunities made available by the introduction of digital technology in rural Limpopo.

In this regard we must also mention the matter of language. The 'Mogalakwena HP i-community' project has also prepared software in sePedi and Afrikaans, adding to the available English software, to ensure easier ICT access by all residents in Mogalakwena.

It is impossible to provide the benefits of ICT to the people, without the establishment of the necessary physical and human infrastructure. The Mogalakwena project has demonstrated this obvious truth.

The Mogalakwena project is also linking with our government's 'e-government' ICT projects. These include the Information Terminals based in our Post Offices, among others, and the Gateway portal that will soon be launched. The stunning work being done by an extraordinary group of young black ICT specialists at ISSA, (the Institute for Software and Satellite Applications), in Grabouw in the Western Cape, is also being linked to this project.

Both Telkom and Sentech, which are public enterprises, are an integral part of the 'Mogalakwena HP i-community' project. There are also other smaller private companies that have joined this important modernising venture, whose important partners also include by such national organisations as COSATU, NAFCOC and SACOB.

The 'Mogalakwena HP i-community' project has already started with the delivery of services in such areas as education, health, governance, arts, culture and community development, business development and job creation.

For example, we witnessed a local music group working to record and print a ready-for-the-market CD of its music. We talked to people creating a Mogalakwena web page that will tell the peoples of the world what the rural community in this part of our country wants to communicate about itself. This includes its tourist attractions and the goods and services it produces for sale. But this is only the beginning, the first year results of a three-year programme.

Our country is moving forward in many ways and in many localities, towards the accomplishment of our reconstruction and development goals. Everywhere, including the rural district of Mogalakwena, we find concrete expressions of the strengthening of the people's contract for a better future for all. The ordinary South Africans involved in these processes, which are giving birth to a new South Africa, are hard at work, refusing to be distracted by the empty drums that make the most noise.

It is exciting to live during such times. It is a privilege to belong among the new masses that are creating a new world in front of our eyes. It is our great fortune that we have such partners as HP. It empowers all who are genuinely interested in ending poverty, underdevelopment and the digital divide in our country, that we have projects and processes such as the 'Mogalakwena HP i-community' initiative.

Gradually, the South Africa visualised in our Constitution, which will be democratic, peaceful, non-racial, non-sexist, prosperous and African, is coming into being. In Mogalakwena and everywhere else in our country, what is happening, practically, says that, truly, the tide has turned.

Voter Registration

Massive campaign to register millions

The ANC, its alliance partners and structures in the broader democratic movement are launching a massive campaign to encourage all adult South Africans to register to vote in next year's election.

According to the Census 2001 results, which were released recently, there are around 9.5 million South Africans of voting age who are aren't on the voters' roll. This is largely due to the large number of young people who will be voting for the first time next year.

Statistics from the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) and the census suggest that almost half of all unregistered voters are under the age of 30. There is also a significant number in their 30s.

To ensure the participation of all South Africans in the democratic process, it is crucial that these people be registered to vote before the election period starts and the voters roll is closed.

To vote in the election, a person needs to be registered as a voter in the voting district where they live. Every voting district has one voting station and that is the only place where they will be able to vote.

People who voted in the 1999 or 2000 elections will already be on the voters roll, and do not need to register. But if they have moved since then, they will need to register in their new voting district. People who haven't previous registered need to register as voters.

It is estimated that around 10 people of people change their address each year. This average is likely to be higher among the poor, who have migrated from rural to urban areas. If this is the case, large numbers of the 18 million registered voters would also need to re-register, thus increasing the burden of registration far above the 9.5 million estimate

The IEC will be holding a special registration weekend on 8-9 November, when all voting stations will be open for people to go to register. They need to take their ID books with them. Their books will be scanned and their names automatically entered onto the voters' roll for that voting district. In some areas, where voting stations have changed, the IEC plans to visit people's houses to register them.

This does not mean that people have to wait until November to register. They can go to their local council offices at any time before then to put their name on the voters' roll.

The largest numbers of unregistered voters are found in the provinces with the largest populations, KwaZulu Natal and Gauteng - with over two million unregistered voters each. There are also large numbers unregistered in the Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Limpopo and North West - around one million each.

About 40 percent of unregistered voters are to be found in the six metro areas. The metro areas are also likely to have experienced massive inflows of migration over the last five years. These voters would therefore need to re-register in the metro.

The large number of first-time voters who are unregistered suggests there is a need for a more sustained programme of voter registration. Because participating in elections is an important part of the exercise of the rights of every citizen, the IEC, government and other institutions should look at ways of registering young people on an ongoing basis through schools, tertiary institutions and other sites. To leave the task of registration to a few months before election places a great strain on the resources and capacity of the IEC and other organisations. It also threatens to exclude from voting those people who weren't able to register in time.

Throughout September and October, therefore, tens of thousands of volunteers from the ANC and the democratic movement will be going door-to-door in communities throughout South Africa to encourage people to register as voters, and thereby ensure that they can exercise their right to choose a government of their choice.

More Information

• Independent Electoral Commission

Health

Africans work together to meet health challenges

Do we know what is it that is killing the people of Africa? Do we have a good sense of the health challenges facing them? And are we therefore in a position to conceptualise strategies and advise African Heads of State and Government on appropriate responses?

This was a challenge thrown by President Thabo Mbeki to the 37 Ministers of Health and delegates from 46 African countries on the eve of the 53rd Session of the World Health Organisation's Regional Committee for Africa convened in Johannesburg last week.

Presentations at this five-day meeting spelt out some of the challenges facing us. We learnt of the devastating impact of armed conflicts and interpersonal violence including violence against women and children. Deaths from road accident injuries cost Africa more than US$7 billion (about R49 billion) with young economically active males accounting for the largest number of victims.

Improvement in health therefore requires an investment in sustaining peace and preventing or solving conflicts. Comprehensive strategies to tackle the link between violence and health are needed, including strengthening our capacity to prevent and manage emergencies.

Considering African countries remain below the Abuja Declaration target of allocating at least 15 percent of national budgets to health, we resolved to advocate for more national and global resources for health and to improve our capacity to absorb these resources.

As this year marks the 25th anniversary of the Alma Ata Declaration that adopted the primary health care approach to health challenges, we committed ourselves to strengthen primary health care as a pillar of our interventions in promoting health. Hospitals remain critical centres for referral care. Development of hospitals in Africa requires government stewardship and community participation, improved financing mechanisms and should be guided by the need for quality health care.

Human resource is critical in the success of our interventions but this remains a scarce resource in Africa partly because of migration of health personnel. The meeting heard country after country relating its experiences of this 'brain drain' and agreed that this matter be tabled before the 57th Session of the World Health Assembly in Geneva next year.

We also agreed to prioritise women's health. We cannot accept that while we constitute 12 percent of the world population and only 17 percetn of the global annual birth, Africa should account for almost half of the 600,000 pregnancy-related deaths recorded worldwide. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that Africa's maternal mortality rate has increased to 1,000 per 100,000 live births in 2001. These deaths are attributed mainly to complications during and after delivery, sepsis, unsafe abortion and hypertension.

About 75 percent of these deaths can be averted through timely access to appropriate obstetric emergency care. The notification of and enquiry into all maternal deaths is going to be our initial step towards prevention of this unnecessary loss of women's lives. Data from such inquiries is critical in determining appropriate interventions for improvement of our health services for women and children in particular.

As a region we have a challenge to eradicate polio, measles and other vaccine preventable diseases. We are at an advanced stage towards certification for a polio free continent and have managed to do away with smallpox.

The meeting also grappled with many challenges posed by HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria, including the efficient and effective use of drugs. We noted that the progress made on access to affordable medicines would not render the desired outcomes if support mechanisms and our capacity to properly deliver the drugs were not improved concurrently.

The Director General of WHO, Dr Jong-Wook Lee said: "If all the money and drugs were available today, that will not solve our problem because they will not be delivered. There are simply not enough doctors, nurses and infrastructure. It is very misleading (to say) that it is a lack of drugs that is making this crisis worse."

We are already facing a spectre of multi-drug resistance in TB and chloroquine-resistant malaria. A robust system for monitoring and evaluation of antiretrovirals is necessary so that we do not face a greater problem of drug resistance as we scale up our response to HIV and AIDS as well.

Also critical was the acknowledgement of the conditions of poverty and malnutrition that make our populations more vulnerable to HIV and other infections and cause them to succumb easily to AIDS and TB. Issues of food insecurity, malnutrition and underdevelopment remain a priority and we decided to lobby for nutritional support and intensify our efforts towards poverty alleviation. Socio-economic development is critical in pulling our populations out of the conditions of poverty and disease and the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) provides an opportunity for our collaboration as Africans in addressing our health challenges.

What has come out clear from this meeting is that we, as health ministers in Africa, need to act in unity to get a better deal for Africa in international arenas and to enable us to exchange ideas within the continent. We have also come to appreciate that we need to begin to chart our own destiny and tackle our problems based on material conditions we encounter on the ground. The commemoration of Africa Traditional Medicines Day is the assertion of self-worth that we need to cultivate.

As South Africa assumes the position of chairperson of the WHO Regional Committee for Africa, we are determined to ensure that we conceptualise strategies based on a good grasp of the health challenges facing Africa. South Africa also has an opportunity to ensure that these issues of life and death to millions of Africans gain global attention when we become Vice President of the World Health Assembly in Geneva next year.

* Manto Tshabalala-Msimang is a member of the ANC National Executive Committee and the Minister of Health.

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