The recent global recession has forced more companies to seek out ways of cutting costs as well in a bid to stay afloat and also to ensure that shareholders receive value for money. Outsourcing of no-core functions is increasingly becoming one such method and Kenya is increasingly becoming a preferred BPO hub.

In February 2011, the Technical Centre for Agriculture and Rural Cooperation (CTA) supported a 5 day BPO workshop for telecentre Leaders and practitioners in Nairobi. The lead facilitator during the workshop was Mrs Gilda Odera, the Managing Director and CEO Skyweb-Evans company Limited. She talked to i4dev Centre’s Damas Ogwe on the BPO sector in Kenya and why telecentres should position themselves strategically to reap from this growing sector.

Following are excerpts of the interview. i4dev Centre: The BPO sector is presently gaining ground in Kenya. What exactly is bringing about this new trend? Gilda Odera: With the recent global recession, many companies have been forced to be innovative in an aim to cut costs and increase shareholder value. One such way is the outsourcing of all or some non-core functions in these companies. This presents an opportunity for the countries whose cost of labor and doing business is genarlly lower. Kenya being a country with a relatively low wages, and further given that the country is witnessing increased usage of ICT, Kenya is becoming an ideal BPO centre in the region. i4dev: this workshop mainly targets the telecentre fractioned in Kenya especially those in the rural areas. What potential i4dev you see in them (telecentres)? GO: Telecentres, especially those affiliated to Kenya Telecentre Network are located in the rural areas. Business operation costs namely rent and personnel costs are not as high as they would be in cities. By coming together, these telecentres can to form a critical mass where a client needs to distribute work to many. Looking at the new constitution, which was promulgated last August and which created a new form of devolved government at the county levels, these centres can be useful in the provision of digitization and data services and help bring efficiencies in the area. they can even for these local governments as well as i4dev tele-sales for producers in the area so that they bring together buyers and sellers in the community. i4dev: Infrastructural challenges are a key concern in Kenya and most of Africa) and specifically so in the rural areas where most telecentres are based.

The key areas of concern are lack of or unreliable electricity supply, high cost and unreliable internet connection which is also of low quality among others. Aren’t these a likely impediment towards successful BPO work and what measures may be ai4devpted to mitigate this challenge? GO: Yes, this is definitely a key challenge. The truth is that for you to set-up a telecentre, you must have the appropriate infrastructural support in place. The telecentres must look at alternative sources of energy eg.solar. Use of solar and other renewable energy would be substantially cheaper than electricity as well as be environmentally friendly.

This would mean that telecentres in such areas may have to switch to low power PCs. Unreliable internet may be addressed by investing in the internet modems instead of the network internet. This may be a little more expensive but would be efficient and much more reliable in i4deving the work which would pay off. However, it may be prudent to mention that the government is presently continue with the Rural Electrification Programme(REP) through the Kenya Power and Lighting Company. However, those areas not yet covered under this program have to find ways and means of i4dev: Cyber crime is on an upward trend, and with the BPO back office services which handle highly sensitive and confidential personal/corporate information, there is a great risk involved if criminals infiltrate the BPO firm as workers. i4dev we have any laws or systems in place locally which can stem this? GO: Existing Kenyan criminal laws address this.

Anyone who defrauds or obtains goods, money or services through false pretense can be charged within the local courts. i4dev: One key concern for large and middle sized corporates is usually the issue of maintenance of standards. What guarantees i4deves the contractor have that the BPO firm will meet its high standards and also subscribe to its core values? GO: Whoever wishes to go into the big stage has to ensure that he/she puts in place systems and sets standards that will guarantee service delivery to the highest possible standards and meet set deadlines. The contractor would only give work to a centre once they ascertain what kind of management the centre has. Once they have the confidence, they would take them through what they expect and a service level contract would be signed. This Service Level Contract (SLA) clearly stipulates the client's expectations. If the centre not adhere to this then they could lose the contract.

Interview by: Damas Ogwe i4dev Centre P. O. Box 48-40606 Ugunja - Kenya Cell- +254 721 605 082

Thailand’s Ministry of Information and Communications Technology (MICT) initiative to start supporting telecentres in 2007 has lead to the establishment of over 1000 telecentres and greatly helped reduce and transform the digital divide in Thailand into an opportunity by creating the perfect environment and the necessary ICT infrastructures country-wide.

This is according to Mr. Mohamed Alasow an industry expert from Thailand with a lot of experience having worked under the Research Center of Communication and Development Knowledge Management (CCDKM) program for over two years and experienced firsthand how the MICT proliferated the telecenter initiative and donated ICT equipments to telecentres, provided support and ICT training, technical know-how, public relation support and other activities intended to move Telecentres to a sustainable level.CCDKM is one of the key partners with the MICT of Thailand and focuses on capacity building, collecting and disseminating information, and on researching contemporary community based issues, Information and research will be continuously up-dated and published on-line and in hard copy CCDKM also enables telecentres in Thailand act as on-line coordinating hubs and centers open sources learning among many other initiatives.Mr. Mohamed who is Ethiopian believes that such growth can be replicated within African Telecentres if there is political goodwill, improved ICT infrastructure, knowledge development as well as availability of other services like roads, water and reliable electricity to rural areas.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) workshop that was hosted by the Kenya Network of Telecentres (KENTEL) in Nairobi, Kenya, Mr. Mohammed believes that BPO can provide a stable source of revenue for thousands of telecentre staff as the BPO market is vibrant and brimming with opportunity and could help address the issue of sustainability which has been Telecentre’s Achilles heel for a long time now. He gave examples of low-end BPO activities like data conversion, customer contact centres, data entry operations, telemarketing, basic technical support that are being practiced in some Telecentres in Thailand as a third party service provision for large specialized companies which many Telecentres are capable of doing even with their present capacities.

The idea of the telecentres in Thailand was founded on the basis of the Community Learning Centers (CLCs) established between 2001 and 2002. Organizations like the National Electronic and Computer Technology Center (NECTEC) of Thailand, Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Community Organization Development Institute (CODI) and the World Bank also came on board by setting up telecentres.

But it is the establishment of the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology (MICT) in 2007and it’s willingness to support Telecentres that saw the number of Telecentres soar from only 20 telecentres in 2007 to 60 in 2008, over 200 in 2009 and currently stand at over 1000 in 2010 and still growing. One success recipe for Telecentres in Thailand has been the classification of Telecentres into clusters of 5 regions for operational purposes namely North East, North, South, Central and East which enhanced accountability, manage the telecenter for their community’s development and reporting of telecentre monthly performances to MICT for evaluation

By Damas Ogwe. The Kenya Telecentre Link has just hosted a one week BPO 101 workshop for telecentre leaders from across Kenya. The Technical Centre for Agriculure and Rural Cooperation (CTA)sponsored workshop has been brought about by the realization that sustainability being an matter of great concern, and given that telecentres already have the basic infrastructural set-up and requirements, their entry into the BPO sector may just be a major solution to their sustainability. Damas Ogwe of i4dev Centre talked to some participants on their views on BPOs as a response to sustainability challenge. Below are some of the excerpts. According to Anthony Mugo, Programmes Manager – Arid Lands Information Network (ALIN) “The future of telecentres is limitless especially when we look at the opportunities available yet the question of sustainability, of whether the centres will be there tomorrow and the day after is key. Embracing BPOs would be a good entry point that can help bring about sustainability for the telecentres as well as provide jobs for unemployed youth. These youth have been trained by the same telecentres and it is only fair if the skill gained can be translated into incomes. The entry of BPOs in the rural areas will also help stem the rural-urban migration and will also at the same time strengthen rural communities while at the same time tapping into the youthful energy.” Dan Ambetsa, Kimathi Information Centre, Nairobi is optimistic as he says “I see the BPO as an opportunity to create jobs and fight crime within the community where Kimathi Information Centre is located. We serve a low income and a segment of a lower middle class community. There is also the Kiambiyu slums near the centre. Crime rate is high in the area. Embracing BPO within KIC could help stem crime since the youth, a significant number of whom have basic ICT skills will be engaged positively” Abidha Desmond, Sauti ya Maendeleo Resource Centre states that “BPO can provide the much needed income for the telecentres. Telecentres in the rural areas have over the years trained hundreds of youth on basic ICT literacy and the begging question has been, What next? When the BPO takes off, the demand for ICT training will be higher also since youth will now see a real opportunity in ICT and employment. Joseph Walubengo – Project Cordinator Integrated Avenues for Compassion, Webuye says, “Sustainability of our centre is a key issue that we grapple with almost each day and any new idea that can ensure that we stand firmly is welcome. In my view, BPOs are a godsend and I don’t really understand why we did not think of this opportunity earlier. As telecentres, we seek to respond to community needs, and one major need in rural Kenya is need to improve livelihoods either. Embracing BPOs in our telecentres, most of which are already equipped with the basic technology capable of taking up small scale jobs will definitely help improve livelihoods especially for the youth as well as take our telecentres closer to the sustainability destination. The partcipants at the workshop are very optimistic and seem rejuvenized by the BPO training. To many, BPO has always seemed to be a very complex undertaking, whether it is in the field of data entry or other areas. But now, with BPO demysitifed, the telecentre practitioners say that there is at last "light at the end of the tunnel.

Kenya Telecentres Network in partnership with CTA has today the 22nd of February 2011 started a 4 day workshop on BPO training for telecentres in Kenya

This is an opportunity for telecentres in Kenya to create more income generating strategies towards their sustainability. This is CTA's partnership with various telecentre networks across Africa to support capacity enhancement projects for grassroots telecentres. We look forward to 4 days of great learning and will share our report and outcome of the at the end of the workshop.

Download the training programme

Pasha is a Swahili word meaning “to inform”. The Pasha Project's key role is to provide Kenyans, especially from rural areas with access to information across the country.

Entrepreneurs across Kenya are invited to apply for new funding to establish Pasha internet centres.  The Kenya ICT Board and Family Bank have jointly launched a Ksh320 million (USD3.9 million) loan facility to support the establishment of Pasha Centres across the country.  This facility will finance Kenyan entrepreneurs willing to set up the Pasha Centres. Pasha Centres are internet access centres that will offer various internet-related services to the public.

Even though this project has taken quite some time to pickup, its most Kenyans hope that it creates opportunities for the youths by unleashing their potential through these centres. Sustainability of most centres (telecentres) has been a major challenge for the ones I have interaction with. This approach is seen by many as a way to engage the most enterprising young Kenyans in establishing themselves in business and working towards making profits but also providing the much needed information to communities in Kenya. These centres are also expected to partner with other private companies e.g. mobile phone providers to offer their services, e-goverment services, e-learning etc. I wish to encourage those who take up this opportunity to engage with national and global telecentres movements such as KenTel,  Telecentres Africa  & Telecentre.orgto build their capacity and support their endeavors.      

To read More please click here 

Executive Summary

The core business of telecentres globally is to empower the communities they serve, through efforts like making available timely and relevant information on issues that affect communities such as health, food security, global warming, climate change etc. Access to some of this information is not easy for an individual telecentre as most research institutes are not easy to access.

Through partnership with CTA, KenTel thought it wise to further create public private partnerships to ensure information flow across all the sectors of development. In all this the individual telecentre then becomes the beneficiary of a lifelong channel to information for their use. They have a task of localization, repackaging, translation to simplify the information their audiences who are the local farmers, out of school youth, health workers and extension service providers among others.

Of importance is the general need to reach out to farmers with the relevant agricultural information to help boost productivity and promote food security as well as the generation of local content derived from the rich indigenous knowledge yet to be explored from the diverse Kenyan communities.

KenTel, a national movement for Kenyan telecentres through support from Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) got into partnership with local research institutes - International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE), Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) and International Livestock Research Institute ILRI, organized a two day workshop dubbed 'Agriculture, Local Content and Indigenous Knowledge workshop' held at ICIPE on the 9th and 10th December, 2010.

The workshop targeted telecentre managers from 30 telecentres from across the country to deliberate on the available strategies of enhancing agricultural information and local content development and to work around reforming their telecentres towards being central avenues for relevant information dissemination. This opportunity for telecentres to access local research institutions was also aimed at opening avenues for telecentres to expand their knowledge base, access more information and act as dissemination charnels for such content.

The experience of the two days was great following feedback we got from participants. KARI and ICIPE to work closely with KenTel to further enhance the work of the telecentres in the communities, as indicated in the details documented by this report.

Download full report

Enock O. Chiteri, UCRC/KenTel

Day 2 was exceptional, it carried the spirit of day 1 of the wokshop, which saw an active engaging participation from participants and presenters.

These were some of the activities for the day:
1: Online portals which participants where telecentre and staff can blog, put video, and any other content they generate.  This was moderated by Cleopa Otieno, and it took a deeper look at the KenTel, Telecentres Africa, and Telecentre.org websites. It targeted participants gaining knowledge on how to create accounts and log in details on these websites and how to post information to them. It emphasized the need to contribute stories in form of the good work telecentres doin Africa to share with wider audiences.

2: Presentations from Arid Lands Information Network. (ALIN)
ALIN Presented the Techsoup Kenya program project, which is a software and hardware donation to NGOs. Most organizations in the rural areas lack access to genuine software, they rely on ICT experts who exploit them yet still give them unlicensed software. KenTel thought it wise to expose the telecentres such opportunities so that they know where to turn to when they need technical support. They also shared about their version of telecentres

Dennis Mutwiri of ALIN during his presentation on  Techsoup Kenya - software donation program

3: Group discussion on the role of telecentres in harnessing, managing, repackaging and sharing indigenous knowledge. This was a breakout session where participants had three questions to ponder.

Group discussions during day two of the workshop.

4: The day came to end with a visit to KARI headquarters where participants were taken through the library by Mrs. Pauline Mburu – Librarian KARI. They learnet the procedures needed to request information from KARI and also how to access the online portal. Mr. Richard presented a hands on session on how to access information from KARI website.

Participants at the KARI library.

The workshop came to a close with words of gratitude to CTA, ICIPE and KARI from the organizers and participants. The KenTel vice chairman, Mr. Mahinda officially closed the workshop.

KenTel Vice Chair, Mr. Mahinda giving closing remarks at KARI.

The workshop was hosted at ICIPE Nairobi and attended by telecentre managers and staff from over 30 telecentres across Kenya. KARI, Assistant Director for Information Services, Dr. Jack Ouda officially opened the event. His presence also represented the government, especially Ministry of Agriculture.

A group photo of the participants at the workshop

His opening speech appreciated ICIPE for hosing the workshop as well as CTA for the bold effort to support telecentre networks in Africa and especially KenTel to be able to organize such an event among many more planned in the years to come. Picture this from Dr. Ouda’s speech, I quote “all extension service providers within government can only have a maximum of 4 minutes with any given farmer in Kenya in a year”.   This affirmed telecentres' role in extension services provision within the communities they serve to bridge the gap left by government extension service providers. It emphasized and validated the work currently done by KenTel to support telecentres in Kenya to be knowledge managers and producers.

Anne Bruntse Regional Coordinator, East Africa  Infonet-Biovision of ICIPE, in her presentation shared how telecentre practitioners can access information from the centre, the procedures involved as well as how to access their web portal which is quite rich with information (biovision).

Anne Bruntse of ICIPE giving a presentation

A field visit to various departments within ICPE marked the end of Day 1:  the African Fruit Fly Program, Applied Bio-Prospecting Unit and the Commercial Insect Program. Invited networks showcase their work today, notably KenDat and ALIN. They will share their work with Techsoup Global, which is a software donation program targeting non-profit organizations as well as how they are using various ICT tools to harness information through their 8 Maarifa Centres across the country. 

We will also have breakout sessions where participants will discuss their role in harnessing indigenous knowledge and tools they can use to share and disseminate content. The day will end with a field visit to KARI to learn more from them.

Participants during a visit to the Africa Fruit Fly Program Lab

I will be sharing a detailed workshop outcome soon after the workshop, so stay tuned.

You can download the opening speech from here:   

The workshop which is on agricultural knowledge management (indigenous local content). It will explore the role of telecentres in harnessing, managing and disseminating local content as well as how they can get content from research institutes, . Participants will also a have chance to go for field visits to ICIPE and KARI . This will expose telecentres managers and staff to content the institutions have developed over the years as well as how telecentres can access and make use of them. Our ultimate goal with these kinds of partnerships is to make the telecentres a channel through which such institutions can.

This is part of the support from The Technical Centre for Agriculture and Rural Cooperation, which works with KenTel to Strengthening the telecentres in Kenya for effective knowledge management and networking through capacity building. Watch this space for more information on the outcome of the workshop.

Kenya Telecentres Network has just revamped its website. This has been possible through the support of  CTA, the Technical Centre for Agriculture and Rural Cooperataion - ACP-EU which has entered into partnership with KenTel to strategically address some of the impediments that telecentres are facing in Kenya. This partnership will enable KenTel to continue to offer her services which are aimed at building sustainable telecentres.

The key focus is going to be service creation through Public Private Partnership at network and grassroots telecentre level, Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), content development with major focus on agriculture with biase on small-holder farmers who continue to play major role in food security in Kenya. Watch out for more updates from KenTel on this platfrom, otherwise I welcome your views on our new look website as we are still working on it. 

New look  here


Old look   here