Challenges

Our experience in planning, managing and reviewing the OneWordl Think Tank electronic conferences points to several challenges which need to be addressed if electronic conferencing is to become more useful as a tool for information exchange and communication for development purposes.

1. Follow-up. The e-conferences have generated a large amount of information exchange as well as information and ideas. In a sense they are only the first steps in longer paths. All four had links to other ongoing and larger processes and projects. Something is needed, using the Think Tank mechanism or something else, to return to previous discussions, to capitalise on them, to ensure that the knowledge generated has been disseminated and used and can be extended and enhanced.
2. Feedback. To assess the usefulness of the project, we need insights into the perceptions of the 'content' practitioners regarding the discussions. Especially from the moderators, how useful was the information generated, how does the process compare to others, and would they do it again?
3. Capacities. This is a project with partners in the North. Despite each of the partners having collaborators in the South and seeking to involve some of them in the project, resources have not been available to significantly assist in developing the capacities of local organisations to engage in the same tasks. Yet this is a crucial part of any strategy to directly engage individual beneficiaries and local groups in the discussions fostered in the project.
4. Lessons. Aside from the insights into the organisation and delivery of water and sanitation services, the project has generated practical insights into information and communication strategies and tools in the sector. This needs to be documented and disseminated and brought to the attention of policy makers and practitioners in various sectors and fora.
5. Sustainability. The logic behind the project was to combine limited seed money with a commitment by the participating organisations to contribute their own (staff) resources, often far exceeding any initial seed money. By adopting a co-operative approach, each organisation can participate in the most appropriate way, using the project to contribute to the achievement of its own goals in the sector. By adopting such an approach, the group could together achieve far more than by working on their own. This was demonstrated by IRC and WEDC who used the experience in 2002 running e-conferences under the WSSCC and Virtual Water Forum umbrella offered by the Third World water Forum.. One focussed on School Sanitation and Hygiene Education http://www.irc.nl/sshe/resources/econf.html , and another one on Scaling Up Community Management of Rural Water Supply is running, see http://www.irc.nl/manage/debate/econf.html.

Two overall questions

• How to reach the unreached? Despite rapid growth in the hardware and software capabilities of developing countries, we know that on-line access is still extremely limited. The future for e-conferencing may be as a telecommunications skeleton which links together disparate, but more traditional forms of interaction. In this scenario, off-line discussions needs to be married with on-line discussions, interfaces between fax nets and e-mail need to be brokered, the traditional, oral based communication media of the urban/rural poor needs to be linked meaningfully to electronic means of communication.
• How to prevent tokenism? One of the key challenges for practitioners working in water supply and sanitation provision is to demonstrate meaningful demand responsiveness. Electronic conferencing provides a means by which NGO's, CBO's, government and others can interact and debate, for example, levels and quality of service provision. The next step is to facilitate through e-conferencing a voice for the 'end users' of these services. A real danger is that end user representation becomes a token effort - all show and little substance.