ReliefSource

Sanjana has posted his thoughts about ICT4Peace in a post that takes a slightly different angle. He appreciates that the report was written at all; but laments the fact that is has such a bias towards website-based, northern initiatives. Unfortunately, we’re guilty as charged, particularly because most of the research was carried out via the web. However the charge of northern bias doesn’t stick that well, for two reasons.

First, as Sanjana points out:

“It is however interesting how a single report of this calibre - well written and relatively well researched - can overwhelm the work of a smaller organisation, such as InfoShare in Sri Lanka. Though we receive brief mention in the report, I know not of any other organisation that pioneers the use of ICT in Peacebuilding in the fashion that we’ve engineered in Sri Lanka over the past 3 years.”

There’s the problem in a nutshell; although our resources were limited, we certainly looked for other organisations in southern countries working with technology in this arena - but we couldn’t find them. That doesn’t mean that they’re not there - but the digital divide just makes it very difficult to get away from a northern bias.

Second, the report was targeted at a very specific audience. As Sanjana says,

“This failure to engage with the South, and the top-down approach of research, is never more explicit than in the recommendations of the report - which though good are somewhat mundane to those of us who have gone beyond them in our work. It is perhaps a question of audience as well - the report necessarily addresses those unfamiliar with the concept of ICT for Peacebuilding and thereby needs to capture what to us may be obvious and passe.”

The report was indeed targeted at an audience unfamiliar with the concept - or indeed, unfamiliar with conflict issues in general. The recommendations were targeted more at international organisations than those working at the grassroots, for several reasons. The most important reason was that institutions such as national governments and the United Nations are in a position to allocate funding and other resources to create an environment that would make the work of grassroots organisations easier.

One of the problems we faced with the report was exactly this: how does one bridge the gap between high-level policy institutions and grassroots operations? In the spirit of the chicken and the egg, which comes first? Hopefully the next iteration of ICT4Peace will start to address that issue, by opening up the text for wider contributions, and focusing more on building communities and networks around these issues. I don’t pretend to have all the answers, though - if anybody does, please feel free to send them to me on a postcard (or in the comments box below).