Vanuatu IT Users Society

A focus in one of my courses this semester has been about community media, ICTs, development and social change. As part of the lectures, industry experts in the field of ICTs and development are brought in to talk about their experiences and the role they or their organisations play in bringing about social change in various contexts.

One of those presentations was from someone from the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC). APNIC is regional Internet registry that allocates IP (Internet protocol) and AS numbers in the Asia Pacific region.It is an open, membership-based, not-for-profit organisation providing Internet addressing services to the Asia Pacific. APNIC used to be located in Japan but moved its headquarters to Brisbane, Australia in recent years. It is also worth mentioning that the other organisation responsible for the region’s ICT technology needs is PITA, an acronym for Pacific Islands Telecommunications Association, also a non-profit organisation formed to represent the interests of small island nations in the Pacific.

However the lecture was on the Internet, especially the role of APNIC in developing and funding communication projects that are innovative or stand the potential of bringing about meaningful social change within the communities of the Asia Pacific region.

We all know the Pacific island nations face a wide range of critical challenges ranging from their susceptibility to natural disasters, limited diversification and narrow resource-based economies, heavy reliance on external trade and foreign investment which means they are vulnerable to external economic shocks, and the tyranny of distance from major markets.

Of course with these unique challenges and minimal connectivity due to the large expanse of the Pacific Ocean, it is hoped that ICTs could make a difference in bridging the divide and making communication easier; and hopefully promote trade, or provide a way towards better governance and democracy.
Apart from the many acronyms and technicalities of the internet as per the presentation, I thought it was pretty telling that very little project applications came from the Pacific Island countries wanting to access funds from APNIC’s innovation fund to develop internet projects.

Part of the reason, as pointed out by the APNIC representative was two-fold: a perceived lack of innovation; as well as what seems to be a real issue of the high cost involved in getting proper infrastructures like undersea cables that link these island nations to large economies like say, Australia or New Zealand. Which means for most of these Pacific island nations, they are currently having to rely on satellites for their communication needs, which is very costly and have low speeds by comparison to cable.

In terms of innovation, the exception in the Pacific, according to APNIC was Niue, where following a major controversy over the island nation’s domain name ‘dot.nu’ more than five years ago, the issue was finally resolved when Sweden, who happened to also have (a couple of other Scandinavian countries also have the same word) a similar suffix “nu” for “now”, agreed and decided to pay the island nation huge sums of money for the domain name. All of a sudden the Niueans found a new source of revenue— that is currently said to have a long-lasting future. In other words, Niue will continue to generate revenue from companies wanting to register under the dot.nu domain.Indeed the island nationwhich only has a population of 2000, has been able to generate much-need revenue from company registrations although one can argue whether Niue islanders are being paid enough for what some among their ranks believe concerns their sovereignty as a nation. And there is also an ongoing concern about people from the porn industry registering under the dot.nu domain —raising interesting moral questions for the Niueans.

But there’s more to the Internet and ICTs in development than just selling or registering domain names. Examples of the use of ICTs in the area of marketing and exporting of handicrafts in places like say India, for example,continue to serve as reminders of the potential of investing in ICTs and information communication resources.

However what the gap (in terms of perceived lack of innovation; and reflected in the minimal application for APNIC’s innovation fund) also shows is a lack of capacity and therefore an enabling environment that would ensure these tools are used effectively. Appropriateness is always a critical issue that is often debated by governments and policy makers. The gap is not to say that governments in the Pacific have not been addressing the issue or do not want to invest in communication infrastructures. According to yet another researcher on ICT policies in the Pacific, governments seem interested but are often held back by their own competing interests and have yet to fully work in a collaborative manner.

However there seem to be also some positive news in the ICT and communication industry where major infrastructures such as undersea cables are being laid to boost communication within the region.

And yet, while we have witnessed a steady growth in the provision of information services in developing countries, a number of fundamental questions remain unanswered. There are those in many of these countries who question the relevance and appropriateness of such massive investments.Investment in information technology and communication services do not seem to be priority for many of these countries. For the foreseeable future, it would seem community radios and mobile phones would best serve their needs, especially those who are remotely located away from the urban centres.

And if governments are concerned about questions about sustainability then a lot more must be done to prepare the groundwork for these technologies to be used effectively to compliment national development efforts, once established as highlighted. This also means governments need to invest in training more of their manpower resources—people who have the skills in both hardware and softwares of the ICTs in order to make these technologies useful within their particular locales.

A question that was posed as a reflection exercise was in places where governments might not see ICT or information communication services as priority in terms of national development goals, what roles should actors in the process of bringing about social change and economic empowerment, should they play? And how do they go about convincing communities that the Internet is the way forward in an era of modernisation and globalisation?

The challenge for governments, communities and NGOs in the Pacific is to be able to weigh the benefits of investing in ICTs and Internet technologies against their immediate needs, in order decide on appropriate policies that would help ensure communitiesmaintain pace with the rest of the world in what is definitely becoming a highly globalised economy; as well as ensuring people have access to basic needs such as food, health and education.

For Vanuatu the government has invested in an e-governance network the status of which I am unaware but similar e-government projects are being delivered in various other developing countries and the idea is that with such projects, governments could improve their communication needs, apart from just cutting down on their telecommunication costs. But there are questions also on whether such projects promote two-way communication flows, not just internally within the government apparatuses, but also with the masses?