ICONNECTGHANA

ICTs & Poverty Reduction in Ghana
front page

Pioneering research has recently been done in the field of information communication technologies (ICTs) for development in relation to the digital divide, the information society, exclusion and participation. The United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID) funded research entitled “Information Society: Emergent Technologies and Development Communities in the South” which involved a year long ethnographic study of some rural and urban communities in Ghana, South Africa, Jamaica and India.

The work established connections between civil society groups, NGOs and university researchers within the above countries. In each country at least one urban and one rural community were selected for one year of field work. Mamobi (Urban Accra) and two villages near Twifo Praso (Central Region) were selected for the study in Ghana. Using ethnographic research methodology: interviews, surveys, participant observation and involvement with households and community groups, the researchers were able to develop a detailed understanding of both poverty and communications in these communities.

A one day workshop was organized in Accra recently to present some preliminary findings and to generate discussion, debate and ideas on ICTs and development in relation to the research findings. There was also a presentation on Internet use in Ghana and a group discussion on ICTs in education, health, rural development and enterprise. It became clear that the creation of a true information society is heavily dependent on emergent technologies.

A key concept in the research was “communicative ecology” which focused on a complete range of communications resources in a community and the social network through which such communications flow. ICTs were defined broadly to include the Internet, computers, phones, radio, tv, cassettes, photocopiers, video/VCDs and photography. Researchers also noted that communicative ecologies include roads and vehicles, face to face communications, community groups and many others.

In the communities studied, poverty was characterized by subsistence activities and by labour with low levels of recompense. According to the research results ICTs were understood and used by the people mainly as a means of communication, not as a source of information. Thus ICT development policies which are generally focused on information need to either connect to the actual understanding of ICTs as a means of communication or find ways to broaden existing ICT culture. In both urban and rural sites, there is therefore a need to think about ICTs assemblages or 'hybrids' that connect up communication resources into successful flows of information.


It was also found that no one is mediating the new media to local populations, hence the need to frame these media in terms of expanded and more creative uses, including meeting information needs. The results indicated that “it is crucial to move outwards from computer centres into the villages through low-tech media such as audio, print, posters, video/VCD/CD, through radio and mobile phones where available, through mobile hi-tech such as PDAs and laptops, and connecting through everyday face to face interactions and movement of people along roads.”

Editorial
Credit: EDITOR
Email: editor@iconnectghana.org.gh

Another year is here with us again and the editorial team of iConnect Ghana is pleased to welcome you back and wish you all a Very Happy New Year.

This year we hope to continue fulfilling our mission of offering an online and offline vehicle for sharing knowledge and information on Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for sustainable development, in Ghana and elsewhere.

This sixth edition of iConnect Ghana includes stories on the ICT4D debate generated by the official launching of the Ghana Information Network for Knowledge Sharing (GINKS), ICT4D training for journalists in Kumasi and the possibilities for low cost access to the internet.

We hope to bring you information that will help broaden your horizons and bridge the digital divide between the information rich and information poor in the country, especially in the rural areas.

You can access our website at www.ginks.org and also the database of ICT professionals at www.itafrica.org.

We hope you will enjoy this issue as usual and look forward to your contributions and comments addressed to editor@iconnectghana.org.gh

To read full content of 6th edition of ICONNECT GHANA
please visit http://web.archive.org/web/20040604085149/http://iconnectghana.org/

Editorial
Credit: Editorial Team
Email: editor@iconnectghana.org.gh

The theme running through this edition of iConnect Ghana is the development of an Information Society in Ghana. Such a society focuses on providing people with universal access to all means of communicating and sharing information relevant to their developmental needs.
The Ghana Information Network for Knowledge Sharing (GINKS), which is being launched during the week 13 - 17 October 2003, is committed to promoting this ideal. Activities nationwide, will bring people together to share information and knowledge in the area of ICTs for development.

This edition begins with a feature on the Information Society and also touches on Ghana's participation and contribution to the World Summit on the Information Society process. iConnect Ghana also chronicles some key events which took place recently in the ICTs for Development space, including the first ever stakeholders meeting on Open Source use and development in Ghana and two editions of the Cyber Series, on Health, Agriculture and Education, and much much more.

Till we come your way with another edition of iConnect Ghana we encourage you to participate in the conversation and support events which promote the creation of an Information and Knowledge Society in Ghana.

Please send your comments and contributions to: editor@iconnectghana.org.gh

To read full content of 5th edition of ICONNECT GHANA
please visit http://web.archive.org/web/20031018063904/http://www.iconnectghana.org/

www.iconnectghana.org.gh

EDITORIAL
Credit: EDITOR
Email: editor@iconnectghana.org.gh

This edition of iConnect Ghana, although it is Issue No.4, is the maiden issue under the auspices of the Ghana Information Network for Knowledge Sharing (GINKS). This Ghanaian network seeks to create, identify, synthesize and disseminate information and knowledge on ICTs for Development, to provide information and knowledge that will facilitate capacity building for ICTs products and services, and to promote the use of ICTs throughout the country.
It is a source of pride that from its inception in July 2002 with Volume 1 issue 1, iConnect Ghana, offline and online, established a presence on the ICTs for development landscape and fulfilled its mandate to publish three offline editions in July 2002, October 2002 and February 2003.

GINKS plans to publish three more editions in the coming year which will be linked to the GINKS portal on the web.

In this edition we cover stories like CatchITYoung, which talks about youth led ICTs for Development, the launching of the Ghana government's official website www.ghana.gov.gh, Open Source Software as a Resource for Development and Digital Bridge Africa: Redefining Africa's Future through Technology, among others.

We hope you enjoy this edition as much as the previous editions.
Please send your comments and contributions to: editor@iconnectghana.org.gh

See 4th Edition content at http://web.archive.org/web/20030806121505/http://www.iconnectghana.org/

EDITORIAL
Credit: EDITOR
Email: editor@iconnectghana.org.gh

As the popular saying goes, time flies when you are in good company. About a year ago, iConnect Ghana came out with the first edition,with a mandate to produce three editions for the year. iConnect has become a very important source of news and views on Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) and the development landscape.

For the editorial team at iConnect Ghana, the process of writing, editing and publishing this unique ICTs for development newsletter has been one of continued improvement. In this edition, interesting yet challenging issues are discussed. These include Telemedicine and its potential impact on health care delivery, the Empowerment of Women using ICTs and the formation of the new Ghana Information and Knowledge Sharing Network (GINKS).We are happy to celebrate this third and final edition of Volume 1 and we look forward to another three editions in the coming year.

The next edition is slated for May 2003. We would like to keep in touch with our readers. Please send any comments and contributions to editor@iconnectghana.org.gh

See content of Third Edition at http://web.archive.org/web/20030423071631/http://iconnectghana.org/

EDITORIAL
Credit: KWAMI AHIABENU II

On a scale from 0 to 100 the end user has a variety of options in accessing, using and owning information and communication technology tools. At the 100 end of the scale, you can count all the tools such as computers, the Internet, radio and television, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and smart cards etc. All things being equal, the end user can access these tools for development at all levels. In the second edition of our newsletter, we take a very interesting journey along the path of access to technology in Ghana, with a focus on mass shared access. There has been a rapid growth in the use of technology in Ghana. This situation can, in part, be ascribed to the ability to provide end users with access to technology without the need to invest a lot of money in acquiring information and communications technology tools. One computer can cost up to five years' wages for an average user, but with the availability of community internet access centres, an individual can make use of the technology relevant for his or her needs without worry about the cost barrier. Ghana has recorded a lot of activities, projects and programmes in the area of providing shared access and these successes must be applauded on their merit. But most areas of the country are still very deprived and the drive to provided appropriate technology to these areas, mostly rural, must be given a major boost. The future looks bright in the area of providing access to technology for a majority of the people if only the end user is placed at the centre of these initiatives.

See second edition content at http://web.archive.org/web/20030604224842/http://www.iconnectghana.org/pages/nletter/index.asp

Welcome Message
Credit: Kwami Ahiabenu,II

Change is rapidly occurring on Ghana's ICT landscape. Significant success has been chalked particularly in the use of ICTs in health, education, infrastructure, agriculture and the environment. However, problems and challenges still exist. To meet these challenges, a forum to share knowledge is long overdue.iConnect Ghana has been designed to serve as a knowledge distribution vehicle. The main objective is to use ICTs as a tool for growth and development. To ensure accessibility, the newsletter appears in both online and offline formats. Resource material will focus on the role ICTs can play in the sustainable development aspirations of Ghana. That means all readers get the good, the bad and the ugly; i.e. success and failure stories of ICT projects in Ghana and the lessons we can draw from them. Hopefully, such experiences can make a difference in ongoing and future ICT projects.In this first issue, we highlight a range of topical ICT and development themes from a local as well as global perspective. iConnect Ghana is a quarterly publication and contributors include people from diverse backgrounds who share a common passion to see ICTs create an enabling environment for rapid growth and development across the country.
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ICTs for Development: Myth or Reality?
Credit: Barbara Fillip

We are entering the information age, building knowledge societies, renaming everything with 'e' as a prefix: e-learning, e-government, e-commerce, e-society, e-everything. What should developing countries think and do about all this? Is it real or is it another mirage? Can information and communication technologies (ICTs) make a difference?On one hand, the optimists argue with enthusiasm that ICTs offer new opportunities for developing countries to catch up with the developed world. On the other hand, skeptics and pessimists remind us that technology is never the answer on its own, and that technology transfer is not a simple matter. As everyone is talking about ICTs and a growing number of organizations have gone beyond talk and started implementing projects and programmes, we are now coming to a point where there are numerous examples of what can be done with ICTs in developing countries. In Ghana, ICTs have helped to increase employment and provide new income opportunities. ICTs are opening up new markets for Ghana's products through e-commerce. The government is using ICTs to make its functions more efficient and transparent through e-governance.However, just listing what ICTs can do, provides no guarantee that their potential will be realized. In all sectors, there are important obstacles. First, while there have been impressive gains in Ghana with regard to telecommunications infrastructure, especially mobile telephony, access to ICTs remains limited to few people. Secondly, the capacity to effectively use ICTs for development purposes is lacking. This means that human resources needed for the knowledge society must be developed. Thirdly, the lack of appropriate regulations and policies can hinder both access and effective use of the ICTs. We can relate some success stories of ICTs from the point of view of small-scale projects in the country. But their “success” is heavily dependent on donor funding. Beyond small-scale projects, Ghana and its development partners should be looking for more successful projects that can be scaled up to a national level so that their impacts are maximized. The ability to scale up, in turn, will depend on the availability of funding and the existence of financially self-sustaining models. There are no easy solutions. But one thing is certain. There has been a lot of hype about ICTs. We can also work hard to make sure that the real potential of ICTs is realized. One of the first steps in that direction is to realize that ICTs are not operated in a vacuum. The extent to which they are disseminated and can be effectively used for development depends on a broad range of issues. To address these issues is to address development related matters as well. As noted by Peter Ballantyne in a recent issue of the iConnect newsletter, rather than continue talking about ICTs for development, we need to start thinking about development with ICTs and refocus our attentions on what it is that we are trying to achieve rather than the technologies themselves. ICTs must be integrated within all development activities and to the extent that they are selected to provide an appropriate fit between information and communication needs and the availability and costs of various ICTs.
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Introducing IICD
Credit: Kees Hommes

The collaboration between the International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD) and Ghana is now four years old. It reaches into education, health, agriculture, and the environment. This newsletter is a concrete milestone in the development of a Ghana-based network of ICT practitioners to link people associated with IICD's local projects - and beyond. At IICD, we are very pleased to be associated with this effort, as it falls within our strategy to strengthen local efforts to exchange information and ideas on ICT-enabled development. By building local knowledge sharing communities and networks, we hope that the impact of ICTs in Ghana's development can be maximized and the tools put to good use.Here, we briefly introduce the main elements of IICD's recently approved five-year strategy. Our mission is to assist developing countries to realize locally owned sustainable development by harnessing the potential of information and communication technologies. We do this through a strategy with the following goals:to empower local organizations and stakeholders to make effective use of ICTs on their own terms; and,to catalyse lessons learning and knowledge sharing on ICTs by local organizations and the international community.We have adopted two strategic approaches to achieve our mission and goals. First, Country Programmes bring local organizations together and help them to formulate and execute ICT-supported development policies and projects. Second, Thematic Networks link local and international partners working in similar areas, connecting local knowledge with global knowledge, thereby promoting South-South and South-North exchanges.A Country Programme, such as we support in Ghana, has several components - Network Development, Project and Policy Formulation and Execution, Capacity Development, and Knowledge Sharing. In the past, the cycle normally began with a Roundtable workshop. Today, we seek to work with a small network of committed local organizations who join with us to determine priorities, share responsibilities and tasks, prepare an annual budget, act as a platform for the exchange of ideas, foster collaboration, mobilize resources, and monitor planned results. A key component in a Country Programme is the Roundtable process which links ICT plans and investments with existing development strategies in key development sectors. Roundtable workshops enable local stakeholders to analyse the potential of ICTs in development and set priorities for future actions. Consequently, after each workshop, project partners formulate policy plans and project proposals. Capacity development plays a key role in the Country Programmes and cuts across all activities. The primary vehicle for this is a series of collaboration agreements with national training partners. Two levels of capacity development are addressed: individual capacities, meaning skills and knowledge, usually acquired through technical (ICT skills) and non-technical training workshops; and, building organizational capacities, such as internal structures, procedures, and the collective capacities of the staff. There are currently plenty of opportunities for sharing knowledge at the international level, but few to share knowledge locally. Local partners therefore alerted IICD to the need for a mechanism to redress this imbalance. Learning from efforts like the Tanzania E-Think tank, IICD is therefore supporting local initiatives to share knowledge and experiences with ICT-enabled development. Involving partners in several countries, Thematic Networks are tools for sharing ideas and information on specific sectors and issues - such as education, health, or training. When fully developed, each network will be a meeting space for people sharing an interest in a sectoral application of ICTs. They will link people and organizations with each other and with specialized expertise that can help answer questions, and guide us to answers. The Thematic Networks also act as a dissemination platform for research, lessons learned and storytelling. Associated with the Thematic Networks, IICD manages a small research support activity, targeted to learning about ICTs in developing countries and drawing on local expertise. A popular component of the 'Evaluation' Thematic Network is the ICT stories project that we run jointly with infoDev. It has proved to be an effective way to encourage people working on the ground to share their own lessons and experiences. Finally, all of these efforts are supported by a variety of information services and products. In some ways mirroring local information exchange and networking activities in Ghana, we also publish a paper newsletter - iConnect Offline - and a website - iConnect Online. Most recently, we joined with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa to launch an African edition - iConnect Africa - which will also highlight some of the local stories and experiences published in this newsletter and similar sources. Of course, newsletters and web sites tend to be good vehicles for so called 'explicit' knowledge that has been written down in some form. To support person-to-person exchanges in the Thematic Networks and possibly in the local country networks, we are working with other partners to set up a discussion space - Dgroups - where people working in development can meet and exchange ideas.
For more information, please visit www.iicd.org
www.iconnect-online.org
and www.dgroups.org
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News in Brief

PUTTING ICTS IN THE HANDS OF THE POOR
Information, knowledge and communication needs of the poor are equal to those of all other people, yet the poor are often unable to address these needs. UNESCO is launching a new project in South Asia to empower them to address their own information, knowledge and communication requirements.http://www.unesco.org/webworld/news/2002MALI'S

NEW SITE ON ICTS AND DEVELOPMENT Afribone in collaboration with IICD (International Institute for Communication and Development) have launched a new site on ICTs and development in Mali.http://web.archive.org/web/20040124151706/http://www.mali-ntic.com/

AITEC WEST AFRICA 2002 The 6th AITEC West Africa 2002 Exhibition and Conference, which focussed on Building a Knowledge Society for West Africa, took place in Ghana at the Accra International Conference Centre from the 16th to 18th of May 2002.

WORLD INFORMATION SOCIETY INTIATIVE (WISI) PREP MEETING The African preparatory meeting for the World Information Society Initiative (WISI) took place from 25th to 31st May 2002 in Bamako, Mali with the focus of building consensus on the African model for this global initiative.http://www.geneva2003.org/bamako2002/

LONG DISTANCE LEARNING PROJECT FOR GHANA The President of the Republic of Ghana, Mr. J.A Kuffour has launched a special Initiative on Distance Learning with a focus on developing a sustainable module for Distance Education.
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One Solution Does Not Fit All - The case for the use of appropriatetechnology based on tropical tolerance
Credit: James Page

To ensure that technology delivers on its promise, we must work towards using the appropriate technology for each environment. Tropical Tolerance is about creating a standard for ICTs in the Tropics. This will ensure that ICT tools are designed to suit Ghana's unique conditions and requirements.Frequently, taking a system from the West to the developing world results in an expensive system that does not give the promised functionality, or utility. The characteristics of a Tropically Tolerant System must include: no single point of failure, the ability to recover from an unplanned shutdown, the use of communication bandwidth sparingly, compatibility with low budgets and no need for expensive skills. In other words, a Tropically Tolerant System must be Power Tolerant, Communication Tolerant, People Tolerant and Capital Tolerant.The technology that is needed does not have to be reinvented. There are examples of technologies that fit the Tropically Tolerant benchmark. E-mail is a good example. E-mail uses the Internet as a transport mechanism. The Internet has no single point of failure - one part can go down and that will not bring the whole of the Internet to a crashing halt. If your connection to the Internet stops working, the e-mail server stores the message until you can retrieve it. If this server stops working there is a backup server that will store the message until your server works again. In other words, a lot has to go wrong to stop e-mail from working. An example of a system that is not Tropically Tolerant, is one based on the Client-Server model, where the central server holds all the data. For the system to work, clients need to establish a permanent connection to the server. Permanent data connections in the developing world are 20 times more expensive than in the West. Further, if the server crashes, the system fails completely. Complexity in computer systems goes up exponentially as data is added. Therefore higher people skills are needed to run the system. As the complexity of the data increases recovery times from unplanned shut downs (power failures) increase, sometimes taking up to 12 hours to recover. The cost of a large complex central system shut down can run into millions of dollars. For any technology to work well in the tropics, its design and implementation must be informed adequately by the unique operating environment that prevails.
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Ghanaian Teenagers among the best Worldwide
Credit: Ebenezer Malcolm

The Global Teenager Project is a biennial Internet/e-mail project organized for students and youth globally. The project seeks to bridge the digital divide between developed and developing countries. In addition, it also intends to create cross-cultural understanding among participating countries. The Project fulfils the need of teenagers around the world to share knowledge by creating an international learning environment and at the same time, integrating Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) into their school curricula. Schools are joined to each other through Learning Circles, where students learn to do research, think critically and summarize their findings around pre-set themes, such as globalization, democracy and their daily lives.Three out of Ghana's Learning Circles (two schools and a community participating group), were judged to be among the nine best performing groups worldwide. The best Ghanaian Schools, all in Accra, were Madina Islamic Junior Secondary School, West Africa Secondary School and a community-based group located at Rescue Mission Ghana's Computer Resource Centre.This was contained in an official e-mail sent to the various participants around the world by Neeltje Blommestein, Project Manager of the Global Teenager Project. The other best schools worldwide were:Burkina Faso- Lycee Nelson Mandela - OuagadougouLatvia - Kalupe Basic School - RigaLatvia - Kraslava Gymnasium - RigaRomania- Szekely Miko College BucharestSouth Africa - Reitumetse High School - Jo'burg South Africa - Tsukudu High School - Cape Town.These schools kept the best time-schedules and produced the best summaries on their thematic areas.The Global Teenager Project operates in 18 countries worldwide: Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Jamaica, Jordan, Latvia, Moldavia, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Slovenia, South Africa, Suriname, Romania, Tanzania, Uganda, United States of America, Zambia, Zimbabwe.
Details of the project are available at http://web.archive.org/web/20021028185833/http://www.iicd.org/globalteenager

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ICTs Links Ghanaian Rural Farmer to the World
Credit: Eddie Addo-Dankwa

Nana Owusu Gyare II, Chief of Akwamu in the Techiman Traditional Area, is a farmer in the Techiman District in the Brong Ahafo Region of Ghana. Techiman is about 7 hours drive north of Accra. He is also the Chairman of the Techiman E-Commerce Cooperative Union. This is a group of farmers and traders of Non-Traditional Export (NTE) products in the Techiman District. His main crops are yams, as well as a sizeable cashew plantationThe group was identified by the E-Commerce for NTEs Project of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, with the support of the IICD. The project has the participation of farmers, local government officials and local market authorities.The objective of the E-Commerce project is to support small and medium scale farmers to increase their revenues and improve their farming practices by enabling them to access information on local, regional and international market development and know-how. Nana Owusu was one of the few farmers who was prepared to experiment with the idea of using (ICTs) to enhance his farming and marketing capabilities. He eagerly volunteered to learn how to use the computer, enter and retrieve data, send and receive e-mails and browse the internet for information. He received free training in computer skills through the project. His details were put on the E-Commerce for Non-Traditional Exports website (http://web.archive.org/web/20021028190124/http://www.mofa.gov/ecomm ).
Subsequently in 2001, a yam exporter who visited the site contacted him. This exporter usually buys yam directly from the Accra market for export to Canada. He contacted “Nana” directly in order to get a better wholesale price, without the usual middlemen's mark up. Nana then organized other producers in the locality and together they were able to supply the quantity required.This year Discovery Interior Trading in the Netherlands, has contacted him by e-mail, for the direct supply of cashew nuts. The company currently exports handicrafts from Ghana to Holland and has a supply line already established. This is a real business opportunity which has broadened Nana's outlook and encouraged him to assess his readiness to enter the global marketplace. Yams today, cashews tomorrow, who knows what possibilities are in sight for the small non-traditional crop producer and exporter with the support of ICTs? Nana is now seriously considering venturing into mango production as well as other fruits and vegetables for export. If there is one thing he is assured of, it is that his chances of marketing his new products will be greatly enhanced through the use of ICTs.
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Extend ICTs to Districts in Ghana
Credit: Mawutodzi Abissath

The first half of the year 2002 has proved beyond doubt that it is mankind's KNOWLEDGE EPOCH and it can be clearly stated that the 21st Century is the age of communication and information.Any nation, especially a developing one, that neglects Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the scheme of its national development strategy must be deemed to be disinterested in the economic prosperity of its people.In Ghana, the days of total reliance on cocoa, gold and timber exports for economic progress are gone forever. The nation rather needs the kind of technology that will enhance the exploitation of natural resources for the economic take-off that the poor majority are yearning for.It must be admitted that Ghana still has a long road to travel. It is important to ensure that the vast gulf of the Digital Divide that exists between the urban and rural communities in Ghana is swiftly bridged.For ICT to contribute effectively to our national development, policy makers must adopt appropriate measures to extend ICT infrastructure to all the 110 districts of the country.Fortunately rural electrification has made it possible for all districts to be connected to the national electricity grid. What remains is for the districts to use electricity to develop themselves and eliminate the gap between the tecnological "haves" and "have nots".It is only when ordinary people at the grassroots level have access to ICT knowledge, and can apply that knowledge to enhance their economic activities, in areas such as agriculture, commerce, fishing, etc., that genuine development will be seen to be taking place for the improvement of their living standards.All District Assemblies must take the inititiative and invest a part of their COMMON FUND in ICT infrastructure and human resource development in order to propel themselves into the new information and technology age.
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ICTs Improves Environmental Management
Credit: Agnes Adjabeng

The Environmental Information Network (EIN) Project was launched by Ghana's Environmental Protection Agency(EPA) in August 1999 with the main focus of making information relevant to environmental management readily available to stakeholders scattered throughout the country. With technical support from the IICD the EPA designed the Environmental Information Network Project in September 1998. Subsequently in February 1999, a five-year agreement was signed between the IICD and the EPA. Two key institutions with vast holdings in environmental information, namely the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Forestry Research Institute of Ghana (FORIG) (www.forig.org) were linked up electronically as part of the project. A Wide Area Network (WAN) was established to connect the EPA Head Office and the ten EPA Regional offices throughout the country. This has gone a long way to enhance widespread environmental information dissemination plus the creation of a one-stop-shop for environmental information available at the www.epa.gov.gh website.The key achievements of the EIN include the development of electronic information services at the national and regional centres of the EPA, which has greatly facilitated environmental information flow throughout the country. Information delivery services were significantly improved through the use of ICT tools like telephone, fax and e-mail and the Internet throughout the ten regional offices of the EPA. The Internet, for example, was used to retrieve substantial environmental information from remote databases and made available to the users of the library. The key outcome of the EIN indicates that through the use of ICTs , there was a general improvement in environmental management thereby increasing environmental information flow in a timely manner leading to better decision-making processes.
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Information and Communication Technology Policy for the health sector
Credit: Isaac Adams

Over the last few years, the health sector has seen an influx of information management and communication equipment at every level of the health care system. However, several studies have shown that many of such investments have either failed to meet their objectives or simply did not address priorities in the health sector. Incompatibility to systems and management culture in the sector is also another factor. In other instances there was duplication of efforts and inefficient use of scarce resources in the procurement and deployment of information and communication technology (ICT). The first ICT roundtable conference for the health sector recognized that an increased demand for improved use technology will remain for both user and supplier perspective. But more importantly, the performance of the health sector will largely depend on the extent to which these resources are effectively deployed. This is particularly so in the context of decentralized decision-making in the health sector. There was therefore the need for the Ministry of Health to provide a framework to guide the acquisition and use of information and communication technology to support the realization of health sector goals and objectives. The ICT policy for the health sector provides the basic framework for the information and communications strategy within which detailed strategic plans for the deployment information and communication infrastructure and systems are to be developed. In particular the policy identified the following specific health information and communication challenges around which detailed plans for the use of ICTs should be developed: Improving access to health services. The policy looks at the use of ICTs for expanding the scope of activities of specialists in a way that will minimize the effect of their low numbers in the sector. It also makes clear provisions for supporting the establishment of a rapid response system to enhance performance in both clinical and public health care. The policy also seeks to empower patients through enhanced information dissemination so that they will seek quality care and make the right demands on the health care system. Improving quality of health care delivery by supporting the transfer of skills and expertise to health workers in the periphery thereby improving their on-the-job performance. Improving efficiency by improving both management and technical efficiency of the sector through reliable information dissemination systems. It also aims at supporting the decision making process by ensuring the prompt availability of information for all decision-makers. Improving collaboration by providing support to overall planning and sector assessment process, and Improving funding to the health sector by providing a broadcast facility for marketing the health sector. In meeting these challenges, the ICT policy aims at ensuring the maximum use of modern technology to enhance the overall performance of the health sector by providing a framework for the procurement, deployment and use of ICT in the health sector. Specifically the policy provides guidelines for the specification and selection of products and services for the development, enhancement and maintenance of equipment and systems for data collection and analysis; information generation and dissemination; information transmission and communication. It makes provision for human resource development for information management by setting standards for training and skills management and gives guidelines for the development and enhancement of a culture of information utilization in the health sector. Finally, the policy identifies priority areas and systems to be developed to meet the challenges o f the sector. The policy document is structured around the organizational set up of the health sector. It identifies the smallest management units as the starting points for planning the deployment and use of ICTs. These units are the Budget and Management Centres and for each one of them the policy defines: management information and support systems that will be supported internal communication systems and requirements, and external communication systems and requirements.Finally, there is no doubt that for the health sector to fully benefit from its ICT policy, a lot will ultimately depend on its implementation. This requires a clear commitment from all the stakeholders. It is only then that an improved performance through maximum use of ICT, can be achieved.

ICONNECT GHANA is a quarterly online, offline and email service knowledge vehicle designed to enable the rapid effective and efficient use of ICT’s as a tool for Ghana’s development.

ICONNECT GHANA is a joint venture of AITEC GHANA, International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD) and IICD’s local partners. It is produced by AITEC GHANA on behalf of the the Ghana Information Networking and Knowledge Sharing Network and funded by IICD.