Relevant and local content and services
Key issues: Limited relevant content and services
Attracting people to connect to and benefit from digital technologies is reliant on empowering communities to inform the development of relevant content. This is content that appeals to their needs and wants, in a relatable and understandable manner. In LDCs, online content that is relatable and reflects the culture can be scarce. In some regions the available digital products or services are detached from daily life. The other challenge is having online content that is in local languages and, for those with weaker literacy skills, written simply and clearly. There are as few as three mobile applications in the national languages of some LDCs, as shown in Figure 19. As a result, people are less interested in connecting and have reduced opportunities to experience any benefits from being online.
Potential interventions:
A) Co-creating digital content for essential services
The creation of relevant content for users, particularly in LDCs, may be driven across a variety of sectors. Digital technology can be associated with products and services that are essential to local communities and people. For example, the public sector can leverage e-government services to introduce people to the Internet. Creating content in collaboration with the target users might help achieve the relatability, pertinence to local needs and resonance with the culture to make digital technology attractive. Private and social sectors can form partnerships with local organizations and people to co-create the content. Through these partnerships, locals are well-positioned to advocate for connectivity. People’s interest in the available content needs to be raised via awareness campaigns, especially those endorsed by trusted locals, and can also increase the knowledge and cultural acceptance of digital technologies. The advantages of being online (e.g. access to information, convenience, efficiency, and the global community) should also be communicated in the context of what is most appealing to a community or group of people.
Spotlight
By collaborating with and training rural farmers, Digital Green has empowered them to produce and distribute over 6,000 videos in more than 50 languages that share locally relevant knowledge and practices to help increase resilience, improve crop yields and tackle malnutrition. These community videos have been created for Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Niger and Tanzania. [88]
B) Open-source tools, systems and content
Making more software for various digital tools and systems open-source is a key way to produce more relevant and local content. This may require strategies to encourage the development of open-source software such as incentives and benefits that are more attractive than those of closed-source software. Open-source software is reusable, easy to access, scalable and inexpensive or free. As a result, developers across the world can leverage what already exists to create products and services that are attuned to locals and their contexts quickly and at a low cost. An important enabler for this is equipping local people with the skills and incentives to become developers, content creators and designers who can build digital tools and systems. (This is explored in more depth under Focus area 3 – VALUE CREATION: Building digital ecosystems.)
Spotlight
NavCog is an ‘indoor GPS’ that uses Bluetooth to collect data and map the topology of the area around the user. With the intention of obtaining a global contribution to the project, IBM Research and Carnegie Mellon University made the platform open-source. [89]
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Footnotes
[87] GSMA. (2019). GSMA Mobile Connectivity Index.
[88] Digital Green. (2022). Community Videos: By the community, for the community.
[89] Carnegie Mellon University. (2015). IBM Research, Carnegie Mellon Create Open Platform To Help the Blind Navigate Surroundings.