Strategic alliances vs digital divide

By Pia Rufino | 21 September 2011 | Permanent link | 0 comments

There’s certainly no doubt about it—a single entity cannot address the digital divide in isolation.

While it is the government’s responsibility to set policies and formulate strategies, create a positive legislative environment and fund digital inclusion programmes, the active participation of all stakeholders is greatly needed in order to achieve an inclusive and people oriented information society.

Public and private sector partnerships are needed to address the digital divide in Asia’s emerging economies, especially in terms of bringing broadband services to rural and under-served regions. The private entities also bring innovations and make ICT tools available to the masses. Meanwhile, the participation of the civil society is to bring long-term sustainability.

The importance of building a strategic coalition to narrow the digital divide was also pointed out by Professor Craig Smith, the Director of Digital Divide Institute (DDI), a non-profit based in Chulalongkorn University’s Center for Ethics in Science and Technology in Thailand in our recent conversation.

Smith told me the model for broadband deployment should not just be a mere government “policy” but a framework for mobilising all sectors in a country – governmental, commercial, academic, NGOs, and media.

“The small countries need to come together in ways that will pull their efforts to attract broadband investments. I think the smaller countries need to form a coalition to pull their populations together into more of a solution that is attractive to the investors and to the companies.”

DDI recommend policies and practices that show how governmental, corporate and academic sectors could innovate to bring “meaningful broadband” to their mass populations. By saying meaningful, Smith means usable, affordable and empowering.

The institute has developed framework for Meaningful Broadband deployment in Thailand and Indonesia and their works is now being extended to other Asian countries as well. Smith said the big problem with governments is how to share the cost and risk of bringing broadband to everyone. He added that most governments lack political will to step forward and help the private sector with the capital investment cost.

The government, he said, should encourage the higher education sector to develop applications and find a way to work on lowering the cost of smart devices.

“They (governments) can’t just sit back and regulate and let the private sector try to bring broadband to everyone. It won’t work. “

The importance of PPP in narrowing the digital divide was also brought up during the FutureGov Summit last year in a panel discussion on bringing ICT to rural and remote regions; leading government officials from The Philippines, Canada and India said that alliances with the private sector would create more sustainable programmes.

Ministry of Government Services CIO for Ontario, Canada, David Nicholl, said that governments should focus on regulatory work and “private-public coalition building”, but added that the private sector must be allowed to have operational control in partnerships with the public sector.

Nicholl said the Ministry’s focus is on having a government policy, to encourage partnerships between municipalities and the private sector with some seed money from both.

“It’s a little bit of competition to come up with the most efficient business schemes that would drive economic development or will drive some kind of community participation. It’s what I called private-public collision, plus it’s more about allowing the private sector to just do what they have to in order to mandate some operational control.”

In the drive to bridge the digital divide, it is therefore important to establish meaningful strategic alliances to leverage existing resources and capitalise on the knowledge and experience of each other.

This unique combination of perspectives, experience, skills and resources through private-public sector strategic partnerships and collaboration with the civil society would bring the optimal benefits of the digital inclusion programmes to the masses.

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