Evaluation Results of SDNP's Capacity Building Programme

The linking of computers through the World Wide Web is playing an important role in knowledge and information gathering and dissemination. This aspect of Internetworking technologies is one the most exciting features that has a potential to provide backbone for e-commerce, social and economic development initiatives. Furthermore, with the spread and diffusion of these technologies, in societies across the globe, the role of World Wide Web is bound to increase, particularly, for developing countries it will open up new arenas of development co-operation and economic growth.

Recently there has been a proliferation of the Internet in Pakistan, its growth fuelled by the Universal Internet Access scheme of the government, coupled with drastic reduction in bandwidth rates. No longer confined to major cities alone, the Internet is now accessible from hundreds of small cities and towns all over the country. However, there is still a great paucity of local content, especially development information relevant to Pakistan.

SDNP has been trying to address this question. It has come up with a training and capacity development programme for governmental, non-governmental and other civil society initiatives. This programme incorporates, along with regular courses of web authoring, an advocacy component to create a paradigm shift in the aims of web publishing i.e., not just providing a "brochure" for the organization's projected activities, but solid and credible information that can be shared with the public at large, or at least those working in the development sector.

SDNP helps organizations to develop and implement an "information strategy", training staff in how to look for information on the Net, and what information is worth publishing electronically. It has also trained a large number of email/Internet users in small cities and towns of Pakistan through workshops to enable them to use this technology effectively. Qualified professionals from within and outside SDNP go directly to the organizations that matter, and the people of Pakistan in general, to enable them to experience the explosive power of the Internet at the touch of a button. Events are organized in collaboration with SDNP's development sector partners spread across the length and breadth of the country. The workshops are well covered by the local media, which mirrors the ownership of the community involved in organizing them.

Beginning from basic web-authoring techniques needed to set up a simple website, more advanced topics like online databases and graphics/animation have been covered in SDNP's workshops. More than 260 organizations have benefited from SDNP's training initiative in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). More than 157 websites have either been created or improved by SDNP as a result of this capacity building initiative.

The objective of these web-publishing workshops is to provide the necessary skills required by the participating organizations to bring their development information content about Pakistan on the Internet. SDNP encourages them by helping to create, and host, their websites on its servers. These workshops are intended to later help them maintain and update their own websites after creation.

However, a countrywide survey by SDNP regarding the successful development of these websites revealed that out of the 99 participating organizations polled, 75% created websites as a result of these workshops, and among them 29% are hosted on SDNP's own servers. The major problems faced by these organizations in not maintaining or updating their websites was lack of expertise and funds; lack of management support, and policy and technical problems.

Although nearly 90% organizations were willing to bring more of their resources online, they required external help regarding web-hosting services, technical advice, and organization of their information content.

Another obstacle is that the majority comes up against reluctance in their own organization to expose any type of information content; or that the top management questions how web enabling their information could benefit their business. To combat this problem, some government organizations suggested that workshops be organized for decision makers and top management officials to emphasize how important it was to have a presence on the Web. This kind of workshop can solve the problem faced by website developers who can't put their work online due to lack of management support.