The NGONET Africa project is based out of the Environment Liaison Centre International (ELCI) in Nairobi, where a Fido bulletin board system has been set up to provide a conduit for electronic mail traffic in the region and to NGOs worldwide. This is done using a high-speed modem to make daily calls to the GreenNet Fido gateway in London. The project is also supporting the MANGO (Micro-computer Assistance for NGO's) Fido bulletin board project in Zimbabwe (see below) and plans to assist in the establishment of a third bulletin board system in Dakar and another possibly in Ghana.
In particular, support is being given to improving the flow of electronic information around the preparations for the UNCED conference in Rio, Brazil in 1992. An earlier survey found there were significant numbers of NGOs which had computers but were not using electronic mail yet. A total of 48 NGOs are being identified to receive modems, training, documentation and support. ESANET (Eastern and Southern African Network) is a pilot project to link researchers at universities in Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Kenya with each other and with researchers worldwide by installing electronic mail facilities at the computer centres of universities in these countries. ESANET is based at the University of Nairobi Institute of Computer Science. To maximise scarce resources, coordination and technical support is being shared with the NGONET project. Where there is no local NGO host system it has been agreed that NGOs will be able to use the resources of the campus based nodes.
Nodes are currently being installed in Kampala - Makarere University - nodename MUKLA, Nairobi - nodename UNICS, Dar es Salaam - University of Dar es Salaam/Eastern and Southern African Universities Research Project - nodename ESAURP, Lusaka - University of Zambia Computer Center - nodename UZCC, and Harare - University of Harare Computer Centre - nodename UHCC.
Each node runs a suite of Fido software on an IBM compatible AT with 40MB hard drive, high speed modem (PEP) and dedicated phone line. Zambia, Kenya and Harare can connect directly to the GreenNet Fido gateway (GNFido), while Uganda and Tanzania can only connect via Nairobi because direct dialling facilities outside the PTA (Preferential Trade Agreement) area are not available. Zambia has begun to experiment with direct dialling to London and the other nodes are expected to begin testing connectivity later next month. They are still awaiting arrival of hardware shipped from Nirv Centre (Web) in Toronto, Canada.
HealthNet is operated by a Boston based NGO called Satellife which was initiated as a project of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW). Satellife have purchased 60% of the capacity on the University of Surrey (UK) built Uosat-F satellite. This will initially be used to exchange health and medical information within the same Universities (coincidentally) participating in the ESANET project and via Memorial University in Newfoundland Canada. Memorial is an appropriate site because of Dr Maxwell House' work with telemedicine and because it is so far north the satellite passes overhead 10 times a day on its polar orbit.
Because of the total overlap in institutions in Africa, the HealthNet project is being administered by the African participants as part of the ESANET project to evaluate alternative data transport methods.
Although the current traffic is limited to health related issues, it will be up to the individual participating institutions in Africa to obtain clearance from the authorities for a wider interpretation of the health mandate. As far as the funders of the HealthNet project are concerned, this could encompass a much broader range of environmental and social issues. Currently however, only Zambia has been successful in obtaining approval for the installation of the ground station and this was with a specific medically oriented application.
The Zambian approval nevertheless sets a precedent for the authorities in the other countries. Also Zambia will now be able to host satellite traffic from the other participating countries via direct dial telephone lines with the ESANET Fido network until other ground stations have been approved.
The Pan African Documentation Centre Network - PADISNET is a project to link 34 countries into a network of participating development planning centres which exchange databases and information. PADIS is based at the United Nations Economic Council on Africa (UNECA) in Addis Ababa which also operates a Fido node connecting on demand to London, South Africa and the US. NGONET and PADISNET project workers have held joint workshops it is likely that the two projects will be able to share resources in the support of other nodes in Dakar-Senegal (CRAT), Accra-Ghana (AAU), Dar es Salaam-Tanzania (ESAURP).
WEDNET supports research on women and natural resource management. The aim is to link researchers in Senegal, Ghana, Burkino Faso, Nigeria, Sudan, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Canada via electronic communications and conventional networking. WEDNET is also based at ELCI in Nairobi. WorkNet operates as the national electronic network host for NGOs in South Africa. The network has been established for about three years and now has about 150 users on a multi-user BBS programme called MajorBBS. Users include the labour movement, human rights groups, the alternate press, documentation centres, service organisations and church groups. The ICTFU has funded the development of gateway software which will allow MajorBBS users to send messages to other systems and obtain conference postings. The MajorBBS format is converted to the Fido standard and a separate machine operates as a Fido bbs to transmit and receive the messages. The Fido machine is now officially registered on the Internet (worknet.alt.za) and is in daily contact with MANGO in Harare and the GreenNet Fido gateway in London via high speed (PEP) modem. An X.25 leased line is already on premises awaiting the installation of X.25 software and PAD in September/October. MANGO is a bulletin board service in Harare, Zimbabwe, operated by a collective of NGOs:; Africa Information Afrique (a regional news agency), EMBISA (religious development group), SARDC (Southern African Research and Documentation Centre), EDICESA (Ecumenical Documentation and Information Centre for Eastern and Southern Africa), and SAPES (Southern Africa Press Service). It was recently agreed that the system be made available to the NGO community as a whole and a fee structure has been developed. MANGO now connects three times daily with the Web Fido gateway in Toronto. In addition it connects three times a day to WorkNet in Johannesburg.
ARSONET is a CIDA professional development project to link the Africa Regional Standards Authorities in Addis Abbaba-Ethiopia, Nairobi-Kenya and Cairo-Egypt with Fido networking technology.
In all these networking initiatives users are connecting to their nearest host node. This provides them with a link to the global network for receiving or sending private messages and public bulletins via a gateway operating at the Association for Progressive Communication's London host - GreenNet. Through this system users in Africa can gain access to the community of 10,000 NGOs and individuals working in peace, social development and environmental issues who use the APC network.
With a 2400 baud modem, users are reliably achieving transmission speeds of 220 characters per second (cps), even on relatively poor phone lines. Because the messages and files are automatically compressed before transmission to as little as one third of their original size (and even more for fixed length record databases - up to 10 times) it is possible to send or receive about 40,000 characters (about 6,500 words) during a one minute call. Because the connection between the computers is all under control of the machine at each end, the only time when the full 220 cps transmission speed is not being achieved is during the first 10-15 seconds while handshaking between the two computers takes place.
5) Creating African Electronic Mail Host Systems
The methods and systems described above are the early stages of establishing full electronic mail hosts systems in Africa, owned and operated by Africans.
Complete electronic mail, computer conferencing and database systems are now being run on small and relatively inexpensive microcomputers ('286, '386, SPARC based hardware platforms can all be set up for between $5,000 and $15,000). Locally-based systems such as these can greatly reduce the costs to the individual user of computer-based telecommunications. In this case users can make a local phone call and share the cost of the international connection, rather than all individuals competing for scarce and expensive international lines.
The benefits of such local operations has been proved by small UNIX systems installed by the Association for Progressive Communications, the RIO project in French-speaking countries of Africa and the Carribbean, and by the Bureau for Latin America of the United Nations Development Programme in Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador and Costa Rica, and by BBS systems operating in several Eastern European and African countries. These benefits include service at a far lower cost than
There is now a variety of software and hardware available for this purpose. Selection is not easy; some factors to consider include not just the cost of the original equipment, but the availability of skilled technical people to maintain the system, the availability of spare parts, and the cost and availability of technical support from vendors. The significant barriers to rapid implementation are the need to train system operators and the high state tariffs on computer and communications equipment.
The challenges of making this technology work in Africa are balanced by significant rewards. African countries are in a position to leap-frog technologies and install relatively sophisticated information technology now, skipping older, less effective techniques and methods. With this kind of information system in place, dialogue and information exchange regionally and internationally can greatly expand, with benefits to every sector of African development.
Mike Jensen is a computer engineer based out of London. He was a founder of Web, a non-profit computer network in Canada, and, while working at GreenNet in London, developed software to gateway the UNIX systems of the Association for Progressive Communications with the FIDO world. Most recently he has been traveling extensively in Africa setting up small BBS systems and training non-governemtal organizations to use them.
GreenNet 23 Bevenden Street London, N1 6BH, ENGLAND tel: +44-71-608-3040 fax: +44-71-490-4070 email: mikej@gn.apc.org
Geoff Sears is the Director of the Institute for Global Communications in San Francisco, California. IGC operates the non-profit PeaceNet and EcoNet international computer networks. IGC is a founding member of the Association for Progressive Communications, and is currently involved in the establishment of computer networks in the USSR, Eastern Europe and Latin America.
Institute for Global Communications 18 de Boom Street, 1st Floor San Francisco, CA 94107 tel: +1-415-442-0220 fax: +1-415-546-1794 email:gsears@igc.apc.org
Message 96: From fuhrmann@dfn.dbp.de Wed Dec 4 16:43:19 1991 Received: by cernvax.cern.ch (5.57/Ultrix2.0-B) id AA03309; Wed, 4 Dec 91 16:43:16 +0100 Received: by dxmint.cern.ch (cernvax) (5.57/3.14) id AA08285; Wed, 4 Dec 91 16:36:15 +0100 From: fuhrmann@dfn.dbp.de Date: 4 Dec 91 15:19 To: Tony Rutkowski <amr Message-Id: <911204161947*fuhrmann@dfn.dbp.de Subject: Isoc Newsletters 12.30 Germany Status: R
