[Bp_localcontent] Existing policy measures and private sector initiatives, impediments

[Martha Giraldo]

Hello all,

 

Contributing to AREA 2 :infrastructure, I would like to bring up the
following question or key point.

Knowing that Internet turns to be a huge ocean which grows exponentially in
amount of data, information, contents  ,
 , what would be needed to help
people fishing the information they need?  How to assure local people have
access to the information they need, not only commercial?. Is it about
developing new “social driven” search algorithms? Is it about recommending
country policies for developing applications (portals)  with links to the
local information? Is it about increasing local hosting capacities as
Meshingo suggests? Is it about the metadata associated to the content? A
policy over the internet? A mixture of the previous ones? Or something else?

May we advance on agreeing a basic recommendation for this “Access to local
contents” point?  What do you think? 

Note: Public libraries are perfect places for the appropriation process
(local content retrieval and giving support for it´s development) but they
still face the same fishing problem. 

 

Regards,

 

Martha Giraldo

Colombia

 

 

De: Bp_localcontent [mailto:bp_localcontent-bounces at intgovforum.org] En
nombre de Meshingo Sechele
Enviado el: jueves, 24 de julio de 2014 01:40 a.m.
Para: Susan Chalmers; bp_localcontent at intgovforum.org
Asunto: Re: [Bp_localcontent] Existing policy measures and private sector
initiatives, impediments

 

Greetings everyone, I am Meshingo Sechele from Botswana.

 

I would like to make my contributions to this week's discussions and thank
you Susan for  the summary of last week's discussions.

 

Area 1:  Human Capacity

Human capacity is a major component for the creation of local content. As a
country which is about to implements its National Broadband Strategy, lack
of local component is a major concern to the utilisation of broadband
services and could also be attributed to the low internet penetration rate
and there is no relevant content available online that people could relate
to. There is need to have people with the right skills to develop content
including bring the indigenous knowledge online and online applications.  In
Botswana, there are a lot of ICT  trained graduates (software
developers/engineers, computer science) whose skills are under-utilised and
they could be the ones used for bring the local content online and develops
applications relevant to various communities. These people are either
unemployed or their skills under-utilised in the workplace due to a lot of
outsourcing incorporated by companies hence their skills are never
harvested. Lack of ICT  project incubators is also a major concern as there
is no place where content developers' ideas can be nurtured to come into
life.

 

Area 2: Technical Infrastructure

Countries should invest in the development of data centres that would be
able to host local content such as e-Government, there should also be IXPs
connecting national ISPs and interconnecting regionally with others.
Botswana has invested in securing international bandwidth  capacity from the
WACs and EASSY  as well as in the national backbone. However there are a lot
of gaps in the access network which needs to be rectified, the access
network is critical as it is the one that will bring internet carrying the
relevant content to an end user's doorstep. All these components should be
treated as a whole to ensure the content is delivered to the consumer. With
a population of only 2 million people, Botswana is challenged in the sense
that, with such a small population there could be no or minimal motive for
Content Delivery Networks  to setup their networks in Botswana to bring the
content that people want closer to home. Poor quality of service has
remained a challenge despite access to sufficient international bandwidth
capacity due to the location of content. However our local ISPs  are working
round the clock to ensure they enter into agreement to interconnect with
CDNs which are present in neighbouring countries.

 

Area 3: Legal Frameworks

It is important to have robot legal frameworks in place. This would spur
local content development and lure international CDNs to bring content
locally. Regulatory ICT  frameworks should promote for the creation of
content.  National Broadband policies should support for local content
development as one of the demand side initiatives. Universal Access and
Service policies should promote for the development of local content and
this should be funded and supported by the Universal Access and Service
Funds. Delays in enactment of laws or policies in relation to copyright,
data protection, e-Government Strategies are some of the issues which have
an impact on content development particularly in the case of Botswana. 

High Internet prices has also remained an impediment to use of the internet
or access to content. There is need to ensure that once the content is
created it should be available to consumers at affordable prices. In  that
regard, regulatory bodies should work round the clock to ensure content
developers are subsidised in creation of content and at the same time ensure
prices are not prohibitive for accessing the relevant services required.  I
would like to agree with Seun on the issue regarding cached content that it
should be available for free for consumers or there should be a level of
visible cost saving to the consumer.

 

Regards

 

Meshingo

 

From: Susan Chalmers <susan at susanchalmers.com>
Date: Sunday 20 July 2014 11:32 PM
To: "bp_localcontent at intgovforum.org" <bp_localcontent at intgovforum.org>
Subject: [Bp_localcontent] Existing policy measures and private sector
initiatives, impediments

 

Greetings all, 

 

It's now time to move on to the third area of our discussion on local
content best practices, and that is identifying existing policy measures and
private sector initiatives & impediments for the creation of local content.

 

I'd like to remind the group of the tripartite structure we've adopted, and
invite all to make contributions under this framework. For example, please
note measures and initiatives under these categories:

 

Area 1 - Human Capacities

Area 2 - Technical Infrastructure

Area 3 - Legal Frameworks

 

Many thanks!

 

Sincerely,

Susan


 

-- 

Susan Chalmers 

Consultant, Internet Policy

 

+1 269 324 4101

www.susanchalmers.com





















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