Cluster III. Good governance: where the strategy aims at developing structures and systems of democratic governance that are participatory, representative, accountable and inclusive and
3.9 ICTs, telecentres and socio-economic development in developed countries
The main aim of the first telecentres in Sweden was to provide basic telecommunication services for the local, isolated population. Telecentres in Sweden began with public investment to create a public good, in an attempt to build local capacity and provide people
with the tools and the skills to participate in the information society (Ellen 2000; Fuchs 1998;
Molnár and Karvalics 2002). A case study research by Bernhardson (1998) found that the objective of the Faergelanda telecottage, which was the first telecentre to be established in Sweden in 1987, was to educate staff for the industry and the local government, to increase work opportunities and to supply ICT services to small and medium enterprises. About ten years after the birth of the first telecentre, the number of telecentres in European countries had grown to some hundred (Ellen 2000; Molnár and Karvalics 2002). Soon after these first Scandinavia telecentres, similar projects were established in other parts of Europe and North America (Benjamin 2001b).
In Spain Obra, Cámara and Meléndez (2002) reported that telecentres that provided ICT- related service were introduced in 1991 as an aid to socio-economic development and to increase employment opportunities in deprived rural and urban areas. In their empirical exploratory and descriptive study, which was carried out on a national scale on telecentre initiatives in Spain Obra, Cámara and Meléndez (2002) discovered that the telecentres were used mainly by the tele-workers. The ICT facilities in telecentres enable the tele-workers located in rural areas to work at a distance for companies in urban areas. The occupation of the users of these telecentres in Spain included data processing, translation, web page design and sales activities.
Moindrot (1998) reported that in the rural areas of Wales a network of telecottages was introduced in 1992. The telecottages were used for training rural communities in the new technologies and were also used for data inputting tasks and database management for the local government and local enterprises. The telecottages trained local small businesses owners, which resulted in familiarity with IT which, in turn, helped their small businesses grow.
Apart from the European and Scandinavian telecentres, the telecentre movement continued to grow in Canada, the United States of America and Australia. In Australia Suzuki and Chamala (1998) and Reeve (1998) reported that in the late 1980s a feasibility study was conducted to examine whether or not the telecentre concept developed in the Scandinavian countries was applicable to the Australian rural conditions. The study found favourable
interest in government and in rural communities. In the early 1990s, a number of experimental telecentres were established. These telecentres provided a range of programmes such as community distance education centres and computer-based public information access.
The telecentre network in Australia was used to address the educational needs of remote and rural communities and was used as a technology hub for a wide range of government and community services. The telecentres were used for internet-related services, computer-based services, resource centre services, social activities, government services, labour market programmes, community programmes, local enterprise, tele-education, tele-health and tele- law (Short 2001).
In the United States the first “community technical centre” was established in 1983 to reduce the gap that had evolved between the upper and lower layers of American society in the access to, and use of, basic technological and communicational devices. Greatest emphasis in these centres was placed on training, in addition to providing free access to the ICT means (Mark et al., 1997) cited by Molnár and Karvalics (2002). The major aim of these American telecentres was technical, in contrast to the first Swedish and Danish telecentre experiments which were introduced later, in 1985 (Cronberg et al., 1991).
In Canada, Downer (1998) reported that telecentres played a key role in the development of local skills, as they related to software applications, electronic mail, online databases, the internet and the World Wide Web. Most of the telecentre clients were members of the economic development agencies and/or the business community. The telecentres helped the local business community by providing them with information and assistance with the preparation of business plans and securing of funds from the government. Many local businesses came to the telecentres to learn how to develop brochures, Web pages, business cards, newsletters, posters and sales flyers. This type of service led to a much more professional image of local businesses and formed the basis of the area‟s privately owned desktop publishing business (Downer 1998).
Other rural ICT initiatives in Canada were the Remote Community Services Telecentre (RCST) project, which was an initiative developed to test the concept of a wireless multifunction telecentre for rural and remote communities in Newfoundland and Labrador province. The RCST implemented 13 specific applications, including telemedicine, tele- education, government services, internet services and business/community services (Sheppard 2001). Another initiative was the Kitimat Community Skills Centre in the northwest of British Columbia, which operated as the provider of educational technology in the community. The centre provided a satellite-based talk-back television system and videoconferencing facility, which was used to deliver course content from educational institutions and universities to the rural and remote communities (Hartig 2001).
Despite the earlier successes of the telecentres in Sweden, Europe, USA, Canada and Australia, the telecentre movement in these countries could not develop indefinitely. A research on Multipurpose Community Telecentres in rural and remote areas in Europe, North America and Australia (Ernberg 1998) showed that most of the telecentres closed down when government support was withdrawn. A study by Fuch (1998) discovered that, over time, the public investment of telecentres either entered a "contracts" phase or ceased to exist. Fuch (1998) said the Welsh, Australian and Swedish telecentres all moved to financing arrangements which were based on contracts with government agencies, health organisations, educational agencies or other institutions, to provide training, technical support and related information and communications services.
Fuch (1998) pointed out that, in the case of Wales, telecentres were converted from being diffusion catalysts into centres for the organisation and marketing of telework or distributed work. In the Canadian example, the telecentres were "re-invented", to become part of regional economic development or distance education. In Australia and Sweden, telecentres which lasted beyond the diffusion stage, moved to provide contract services to local and national markets that were willing, and interested in, data-entry and other IT related services.
The telecentre movement in Sweden, Europe, USA, Canada and Australia could not develop indefinitely. The great price reduction in personal computers in the early 1990s made it
possible for more and more private houses to be equipped with their own computers, making the community solution less relevant (Ernberg 1998; Fuchs 1998). Ernberg (1998) explained that this was mainly possible due to the fact that in high-income countries, people, even in remote areas, generally have their own telephone line and can afford to buy a computer and a modem, once they discovered the potential benefits of these. Their level of education and exposure to modern technology is much higher than among people in developing countries and they have better access to training, both in computer literacy and other vocational training courses.
Despite the closure of many telecentres, and due to the reasons explained above and some of the telecentres switching to the commercial model, as opposed to the Swedish social model, these telecentres contributed to developing the market for information and communication services and the capacity of people in remote areas to participate in, and benefit from, the information society. In many developed countries the contribution of the Multipurpose Community Telecentres was mainly to the marketing of the ICT resources and services in remote and rural areas (Fusch 1998).