The Timbuktu Multi-Purpose Community Telecentre – Mali

The project was created based on the belief that the provision of information and communication technologies to rural and isolated communities will catalyse their development and result in an improvement of their quality of life. MCT implemented three main strategies in order to reach its goals:

• identification at local level of a core user group (30 people) who were introduced to and familiarised with the facilities offered by the MCT. They were allowed to use the services free of charge and it was hoped that they would act as the multipliers of the centre within the community;
• establishment of 13 teams whose members were appointed by local organisations responsible for specific fields and concrete projects; and
• development of application-oriented projects by means of demand analysis, feasibility studies, financial modalities, and practical implementation.

Following a study to identify the information and communication requirements of the community of Timbuktu, the MCT developed the following services:

• public telecommunication services (public telephone, fax, email, videoconferences, voice mail, and web-based research);
• access to presenters from rural radio stations to training infrastructures, know-how and information as well as any other information they may require;
• equipment and know-how in the production of information, databases, and publications reflecting local knowledge and skills;
• training in the use of ICTs, in particular with a view to improving tourist and commercial activities;
• education and training to match the needs of the communities (distance learning, technology-assisted training);
• telemedicine;
• rental of offices and conference rooms, provision of translation services, and commercial support;
• home page-based marketing; and
• production of a journal entitled Annoura "Truth emanates from light" as an information tool for rural radio stations.

The project also involves an ICT literacy project for women in small businesses which uses transformed keyboards in the local languages of Tamacheq and Songhai. They develop their own databases for finance and communicate with women in other countries and share business ideas. Health projects include the training of rural doctors in ICT. Teachers and students are also catered for and a "Kids teach Kids" project provides children with new levels of expertise through computer games on CD-Rom.

According to the organisers, the telecentre uses the rural radio stations to reach the nomadic desert population. The project seeks to build the skills of radio presenters in the use of CD-ROMs and web-based research. The presenters come to the telecentre to retrieve information, which is then copied onto a diskette; they can also prepare their programmes with the help of the second hand computers, which the telecentre has donated to each radio station. Moreover, the use of portable radio equipment means that specialists from a number of fields such as health, decentralisation, elections, the environment, etc. can be invited to the telecentre to surf the internet and present live broadcasts: this is known as "radio-surfing". The telecentre also operates a small radio broadcasting station and produces its own programmes.

ICTs for Development.

Timbuktu is one of the world's most remote towns - 1,000 km. from the capital of Mali (Bamako), and surrounded by desert. It is 2,000 km from the Algerian coast and 1700 km from the coastline of the Ivory Coast.