Long Version SDNP Lebanon: Promoting Transparency If you keep information only for yourself, its power is of no use to you. But if you share it with everybody, then everybody knows who you are and what you're doing. That is where the power lies." Laylan Rhayem, Chief of Information at Lebanon's Ministry of Agriculture,had a problem. She was in charge of a comprehensive Biodiversity Surveyher Ministry had just completed - the first such survey ever conductedin her country. The document would obviously be an invaluable resourcefor scientists, environmentalists, educators, planners and policy-makers.It was Ms. Rhayem's job to make it available for public use. But whenthe survey was completed in 1995, she had no place to put it. "I had planned to put it in our documentation centre," Ms. Rhayem recalls,"but we were still recovering from the war, and we didn't have the rightfacilities. Even today our documentation centre has no funding and no staff."The Ministry's library might have been a good choice, but it had been destroyedby fire during Lebanon's 18-year war, which ended in 1992. Ms. Rhayem hadno alternative but to keep the Biodiversity Survey in a drawer in her office.
Then, in 1997, officials at the Ministry of Agriculture were approachedby Georges Akl, National Co-ordinator of the Sustainable Development NetworkingProgramme (SDNP) in Lebanon. Mr. Akl suggested the Ministry should havean Internet web site and offered to train its personnel in developingand maintaining the site. Most of the officials were hesitant and somewere openly opposed to the idea, but Ms. Rhayem was overjoyed. Thanks toher lobbying, the web site was finally approved. The Ministry obtainedInternet access through a commercial server, and in late 1998 the web sitewas up and running. The first piece of information to be loaded onto it was the Biodiversity Survey, followed by a National Village Survey and an Agricultural Production Survey for 1997. A comprehensive General Agricultural Survey is currently being prepared for the web.
Connectivity and the Speed of Change
The experience of SDNP in Lebanon has been unique, shaped on the one handby swift technological change and on the other by centuries-old traditionsand attitudes. When the SDNP feasibility study was conducted in 1994 therewas only one ISP node in the country (at the American University of Beirut),and far too few telephone lines. "Lebanon was coming out of a long war,and everything dealing with infrastructure was in bad condition," explainsDr. Lamia Mansour, Sustainable Development Adviser at UNDP in Beirut. "Thisincluded the quality, capacity and stability of telephone lines."When the Lebanon SDNP began in 1996 with Georges Akl as its National Co-ordinator, much infrastructure development had taken place. Not only had ample, high-quality telephone lines been installed in Lebanon,but ISPs had proliferated on the local market, competing with each otherto the point where their services were generally affordable. Mr. Akl did not need then to put UNDP project funds into setting up an ISP and could focus on other needs. "We decided to achieve something on the human side of the project by providing added value." said Mr. Akl, "So we started publishing web sites."
Redefining Power
Mr. Akl focused on SDNP's primary mandate: promoting information-sharingin support of sustainable development through the use of communicationstechnologies. As an inducement to new users, or "partners," he offeredto cover the first six months of their connectivity costs with local ISPs.All of the 15 government institutions and NGOs that received this subsidyopted to pay for the service when the six months ended. "We studied themarket carefully to see how we could implement this with the least costin terms of equipment," Mr. Akl stated."We decided to spend more on capacity-buildingand promoting the idea of information-sharing. We implemented the technicalconnectivity in a very sustainable way. Now that the project has ended,the Ministry of Environment, where we were operating, is not left with lots of outstandingcosts to bear."Resolving the connectivity issue was relatively straightforward; convincingthe Lebanese of the value of information-sharing was the hard part. "Thereare people here who think that having information -- and keeping it toyourself -- is power," Mr. Akl explains. "Instead, the opposite is true.If you keep information only for yourself, its power is of no use to you.But if you share it with everybody, then everybody knows who you are andwhat you're doing. That is where the power lies."
This concept though was a hard sell. Indeed, Dr. Mansour of UNDP sees the gradual changein mentality sparked by SDNP as the most profound and far-reaching resultof the project. "I think the most important aspect is the acceptance of a new custom, this idea ofpublishing information on the web." she says. "The availability of informationis a big constraint in this country. We're still at the stage where, becauseinformation is power, people want to keep it under lock and key, whateverinformation it is. It was an agonising process for Georges to convincepeople to put a few things on their web sites, but he perservered and succeeded in gettinga large number of web sites published."
"We approached the sources of information, the Ministries, NGOs, researchersand educational institutions," says Mr. Akl. "We believed that they hadsubstantial information to be shared which would be of benefit to others. The problemwas how to extract it from their drawers."
In the end, he did this by showing what others had done. Before visitinga given Ministry, Mr. Akl would print out the first few pages of the websites of corresponding Ministries in, for example, the United States, Canada,and Australia. Then he would bring these along to the meeting. "I wouldsay, ‘Look what you can have over the Net, guys, if you supply me withinformation. Then everybody will know about you.'"
During the short two-year life span of the project, SDNP Lebanon trainedsome 200 individuals, including 35 staff members at government institutions,120 members of NGOs and 35 journalists from virtually every media outletin the country. And this training covered every aspect of information technology, from its philosophicalunderpinnings, to how to send an email, deal with attachments, how to use the Internet in HTML (See box on technical terms, page...), and how to develop and maintain a web site.
"He involved all parties who were concerned with sustainable development,with a special focus on the environment," says Dr. Mansour. "Often thismeant getting them accustomed to using computers in the first place, becausesome people had never had access to computers before. There was all sortsof training ranging from using the keyboard and the mouse to maneuvering more sophisticated software likeestablishing home pages."
Among the NGOs trained in Internet access by SDNP is an umbrella groupcalled the NGO Forum which brings together a number of groups workingin various fields. "After our work with them," says Mr. Akl, "these peopleare now building a database on women's rights in Lebanon. They're collectinginformation using the Internet from different sources in the country. Believeme, they were not doing this one year ago."
The Flow of Information
In 1996 there were no government home pages or web sites in Lebanon.By early 1999, SDNP had helped develop over 50 websites; seven for academic and research facilities, eight dealing with environmental government programmes, nine on behalf of Lebanese Ministries and public institutions, ten for NGOs and publications, plus another 20 private sites -- all hosted on the SDNP Lebanon home page. Many of these web sites are now linked to one another enhancing the networking and information-sharing opportunities."I think the SDNP web site is one of the most sophisticated web sitesin Lebanon," says Lamia Mansour. "Georges has triggered a chain of information-sharingin this country because he has linked various organisations one to theother. One thing is for sure: this project has established a nice infrastructurewhich is going to serve as a great lesson for us. It has proved an effective way to change attitudes helping us to move forward into the 21st century."
Untangling the Web
However exciting newfound access may be to those who have received trainingin it, George Akl understands that to the newcomer the Internet can bea scary place. In order to further motivate people to use the Internet,he has given a great deal of thought to making it more "user friendly,"especially for the 120 members of (mostly environmental) NGOs that SDNPhas trained in its use. "Those people are very thirsty for information,"he says. "But even though they practiced with us after receiving the training,they really lacked the know-how to use the Internet effectively. Sometimesthey were totally lost in looking for information." When a person usingsearch engines such as Yahoo or Altavista asked for references to,say, air pollution, he or she would be given some 25,000 links. "They wouldspend three hours just to determine which of the links was the one that they wanted,"he say. "So that they wouldn't ultimately lose interest, we came up with a solution."That solution is an Environmental Web Directory, (http://www.sdnp.org.lb/envsearch.htm), which can be accessed both on SDNP Lebanon's web site or via the Ministry of Environment. The directory contains 19 major categories, ranging from air pollution to water and including, among other things, biodiversity,deforestation, environmental economics, marine life, natural resourcesconservation, ozone, renewable energy, and solid waste. Possible keywordsrun into the hundreds, but the number of links or sources of informationhas been carefully weeded out so that only the most useful ones are included.If one enters the category "biodiversity," there are 75 sites to choosefrom. "Biodiversity" coupled with the keyword "animals" brings up 35 sites.The category "deforestation" calls up 57 sites, but with the keyword "education"it produces just nine sites.
"We conducted an intensive Internet search to find links to each ofthese 19 topics," says Mr. Akl. "Now people can find sources of information,sources of funding, or experts in any given field. For example, let's sayyour search takes you to the US Environmental Protection Agency. We putthe name of the agency, the Internet address, and a small summary whichresearchers can read to see if this site answers their question or not,before really getting into the Net and spending money. They loved it."
An Ongoing Future
SDNP Lebanon responded to local needs by focusing on awareness-raising andIT training for key stakeholders. That well along the way, a new project is taking shape at the Ministry of Environment to be headed by Mr. Akl, executed by UNDP, and funded by the European Union. Ministry staffwill be trained to develop databases and collect and analyse informationto be made available on the Internet. In addition, Mr. Akl is seeking funding fora project to establish "tele-centers," particularly in the rural areas."In every village," he points out, "you find at least one person who canread and write in English or French. They can become the link to the Internetfor the whole community."For more info: info@sdnp.undp.org
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