AfricaLink Services for African Network Leadership

If you are a leader within an African network presently working in partnership with USAID in agriculture, the environment, or natural resource management, welcome! You've found the right page.

Just to be sure your network is eligible for AfricaLink assistance, let's clarify terms.

• We interpret the term "network" rather broadly to be a group of people working on common problems and regularly sharing ideas. Some networks are formally constituted (e.g. the Network for the Environment and Sustainable Development in Africa). Sometimes "networks" are called "task forces" or "working groups" or "committees." Whatever yours is called, or even if yours isn't called anything at all, you are welcome here.
• A network's "leader" might be the chairperson or director of the network, but sometimes the leadership in the area of information technology and information management might come from someone else within a network. If you consider yourself an information technology leader, even if you are not the administrative leader of your network, you may nonetheless wish to be in contact with AfricaLink to discuss your network's needs, perhaps then to work in partnership with AfricaLink to develop proposals for your network's administrative leadership.
• AfricaLink restricts its focus to agriculture, the environment, and natural resource management. This is because the office within USAID that funds AfricaLink is responsible for those areas. AfricaLink is a support activity for that office, and thus concentrates on the work of that office. If your network is not involved in one of those areas, assistance may still be available through USAID. Please refer to our documentation for other networks.
• We say AfricaLink is a support activity, and not a project. AfricaLink supports the work of the staff within its funding office. Whatever those staff and their partners require in the area of information technology and information management, AfricaLink is available to provide assistance. Unlike a project, AfricaLink is generally not at liberty to provide assistance to organizations or networks not already somehow in partnership with USAID.
• AfricaLink is available to networks working in partnership with USAID. A USAID partner network might be one that receives funding from USAID, or it might simply be working with USAID staff on a common objective. As with the term "network," we define "partnership" quite broadly. However, a USAID partner should be able to identify a specific USAID employee as its principal liaison. For AfricaLink to provide assistance to a USAID partner network, the USAID employee must grant consent.

As a leader in a USAID partner network, perhaps you perceive a need for assistance in the areas of information technology and information management. The USAID/AfricaLink Advisor is ready to discuss these areas with you. If we agree that there is scope for AfricaLink assistance to your network, the next step would then be to discuss assistance strategies with your network's administrative leadership (if that is not you) and with your USAID program liaison. If those persons agree, then we're ready to develop a more formal information management strategy in which AfricaLink can play a role.

AfricaLink generally provides assistance to networks in these ways:

Connectivity

As an initial objective, we implement connectivity programs to assure that every member of your network has access at least to electronic mail. We use simple strategies that are tailored to the special conditions in each country in Africa. We maintain databases of information about technological infrastructure in each country, so that we know in advance roughly what technological options are available and what they will cost.

Our strategy insists that your network's members take individual responsibility for their own connectivity, with assistance from you and from AfricaLink, to assure sustainability. For example, we require each of your network's members to send a staff member to visit their local Internet services firms to learn first-hand about their options, and then, if they are requesting funding, to submit to us a pro-forma invoice for the option they themselves choose.

Funding should in the first instance come from your network's existing budget provided by USAID. If USAID is not presently funding your network, or if those funds are insufficient, AfricaLink will assist you in locating other sources of funds for connectivity, either within USAID or with other donors. Wherever the funds come from, AfricaLink can still provide consultative assistance.

Access to Technical Support Help Desks

Our connectivity strategy seeks to build a strong relationship between each of your network's members and their own local Internet and other information technology service providers. We recognize, however, that the markets for these services are not always well developed. We also know that sometimes your network members may require special services that are not readily available. Sometimes extra assistance is required.

In partnership with other donors and with technology firms and consultants throughout Africa, we are developing a network of technical support help desks. Thus for example, if one of your network's members has a technical problem that has not been resolved by a local service provider, the help desk might be asked to make special inquiries to determine what can be done. Sometimes the problem is a simple failure on the part of the network member to explain the problem to the service provider in the appropriate technical terms. The help desk can assist in making the appropriate explanations.

In effect, the strategy of the help desk is to make special consultative assistance for your network's members more readily available within their own country or region. While we can always offer advice to your members via email, sometimes there is nothing more effective than a personal visit to someone's office.

While help desks can be organized in a variety of ways to suit the needs of your network's members, most will follow the principles established in collaboration with the IDRC's Unganisha Program. The services of help desks already established under Unganisha are available through AfricaLink, or a special help desk tailored to the special circumstances of your network can be established.

If you perceive that particular members of your network may require this kind of extra assistance, we are prepared to discuss this with you. Please bring the matter to our attention.

Leadership Skills Enhancement

We generally find that when a network's leaders are comfortable with information technologies, they will begin to integrate those technologies more effectively into the programs of the network. AfricaLink is thus prepared to target special training opportunities for network leadership.

Depending on need and the availability of funds, this might mean providing a technical consultant from a local technology firm to visit leaders in their offices and provide personal instruction in such things as Internet information search techniques and electronic mail file attachment/decoding. Or it might mean scheduling a regional training opportunity for leaders from a number of networks to meet, share ideas, and acquire new skills from the world's leading experts.

The initiative must come from the leaders themselves. We are prepared to discuss with you your requirements, and then to help secure the necessary resources.

Information Management Strategic Planning

It is often the case in technology projects that most attention is paid to hardware, with much less attention paid to how this hardware will contribute to the work of the networks concerned. In developing a strategic information plan, we generally want first to know who wishes to communicate with whom, what information they expect to exchange, and how frequently they expect these exchanges to take place.

In discussions with you, we will want first to know how your network's information requirements are presently being met. We'll then lay out for you some technological options, and discuss with you how these options might help you move your existing information more effectively. We'll also suggest ways new technologies might help you do things that were never before possible.

In effect, AfricaLink is available to you, the network leader, as an information technology consultant. All you need to do is ask.

Access to Resource Centers

Throughout Africa and around the world, via the Internet, you have access to centers of excellence with the resources you need to get your work done more effectively. You may already know about these resource centers. AfricaLink might help you identify others.

For example, if your network's members require special technology training, we would be pleased to introduce you to SANGONeT, an organization in Johannesburg that has for many years provided training tailored to the needs of small organizations in Africa. Or if you are interested in accessing the extensive databases of the world's leading network of integrated pest management scientists, we can introduce you to their key information custodians. Are your network's members tired of waiting weeks for important journal articles to arrive in the mail? Perhaps we can discuss equipping a national agricultural research information service with special equipment and software to transmit journal articles in an instant via electronic mail from libraries in Europe or America.

Whatever your requirements, whatever your connectivity and fiscal constraints, we can help your network incorporate into its information management plan the technological tools you require to gain access to resource centers in the most effective way feasible.

Those are the principal areas where AfricaLink support has been targeted in the past. However, if you have special needs not mentioned above, please do not hesitate to make inquiries.