One for all and all for one? Policy-making processes aspire to this, but where IT is concerned, it’s as often a free-for-all as one-for-all.

One of the biggest problems we face when we try to establish standards and policies around technology is that it extends into all sectors of society and the economy. This often results in very different views about – well, about pretty much everything.

Some people see ICT policy-making as a chance to pave the way for new business opportunities. Some see it as a chance to enhance the same moral, ethical and legal framework that currently defines their society; others see it as an opportunity for social transformation. Still others see it as merely a vehicle to define technical standards and protocols. Yet others see ICT as only one little egg in a much larger policy basket.

Getting everyone to agree on the process of establishing a national ICT policy, therefore, can be an exercise akin to herding cats and chickens all at once. Priorities are like noses: everyone’s got one, and every one of them is different.

The biggest battle usually arrives before a policy discussion can even start: Who gets to lead this little dance? It’s obvious enough that without substantive commitment from government, a national ICT policy hasn’t got a hope. But it doesn’t follow that the policy-making process falls exclusively within the government’s purview. Indeed, there are many aspects of ICT policy where government doesn’t need to – and arguably shouldn’t – play a role.

Online businesses, for example, are usually happiest when no one’s looking over their shoulder. Indeed, well-intentioned but misguided legislative efforts have done more to hinder online business than help it. The US state of Maine recently required that websites offering products and services to underage people must verify that their customers have obtained parental consent before selling them anything. That’s all well and good, but how exactly do they propose to accomplish this? Webcams? Phone calls? Even those can be faked.

That said, government oversight is often needed in order to ensure that people aren’t blithely left exposed to loss of privacy and identity theft. In an indictment revealed earlier this week, an American and two Russian hackers were charged with stealing over 130 million credit card numbers and owner details from a credit processing company that handles transactions for thousands of online stores. Security at New Jersey-based Heartland Payment Systems was so lax that the criminals effectively waltzed in, using the most trivial means to steal the data.

Industry-developed and driven standards exist for the management of online payment systems and credit card information management, but it’s obvious that whatever inspection regime may exist is woefully inadequate.

Whenever issues of online privacy, identity and trust appear on the radar, we inevitably find ourselves in a push-me-pull-you scenario where business sees any regulation as a threat to its bottom line and government finds itself struggling to express important constitutional values in practical terms. Meanwhile, parents, churches, privacy advocates and other concerned social groups tug the debate in all directions. Inevitably, something’s got to give.

That particular morass is just one tiny facet of a much larger conflict. Education too, often finds itself caught between the flood of newly-accessible information pouring in from the Internet and its own pedagogical processes. It’s a common affliction of education systems around the world that the kids end up knowing more about the technology they’re using than the teachers. There is often significant tension between those who insist on building the entire learning process anew and those who would simply throw technology pell-mell into the mix.

Public morality is another touchstone issue. On the one hand, we have those who would go to any lengths to ensure the safety of their children as they explore what often seems like an online moral wasteland. On the other, there are those who understand that every single tool that allows parents to monitor their children can be used for more nefarious purposes, too. Iran and China are the most obvious places where these same tools are used to control and suppress political and social dissent.

Conversely, the same encryption technologies that keep our online conversations private also protect purveyors of child pornography and other illegal material.

While government plays an important leadership role in determining how much privacy is enough, it must at all costs not be allowed to define and designate appropriate online behaviour alone. More importantly, independent defences against the worst abuses must be built into the mechanisms of Internet management from the start. There aren’t many politicians in the world that would do this without significant – dare I say pointed – encouragement from their consitituents.

Vanuatu has an energetic and ambitious IT community, and we feel it’s time to start thinking in broad terms about how we’re going to cope with the radical changes presented by the entry of high technology into our collective existence.

We can’t do it alone. But we can do it. Government has been toying for years with the idea of developing an overall ICT strategy, but as near as anyone can tell, the closest they’ve come was the fairly broad (albeit quite sensible) telecoms strategy that set the stage for market liberalisation in that sector.

The question of mandate has bedevilled its efforts to set internal standards and policies. The question becomes even more troublesome when we turn our focus outward at the nation as a whole. Who has the right to lead? Who needs to be part of the process?

Well, the short answer to both questions is the same: Who cares who leads; just make it an open, flexible process. In fact, little matters more than defining a transparent, open-ended mechanism for engaging with all sectors of society, and allowing it to take on this vast, amorphous challenge piece by piece over the course of years. Some aspects of the problem will prove intractable, others will develop such momentum that we’ll be tempted to throw obstacles in the way just to keep up.

But just as we’ve always done at village level, we need to keep talking. And talking. If we don’t, the process of developing an appropriate and manageable national ICT policy for everyone will resemble a free for all more than anything else.

Over the last couple of weeks, there’s been an increasing amount of discussion amongst the IT community over the need for a national ICT policy. We were all encouraged when someone from the Prime Minister’s Office spontaneously responded, suggesting that the best way to get things moving was to start moving ourselves.

One of the key points that came out of the discussion so far is that ni-Vanuatu feel that it’s time start taking issues of national policy in their own hands. That’s really heartening news. It’s always good to see a healthy amount of impatience when it comes to technical issues. Unless and until people are willing to invest something of themselves in the process, there’s little chance that the policy will take a meaningful or useful form.

In the interests of helping move the process along, I’m going to repeat a few lessons I’ve learned myself over the years….

1) Change is… Change.

The benefits of the rapid and fundamental transformation that technology offers society are undeniable. Health, education, literacy and business development are all areas where the potential improvements are obvious. Governance and civil society should improve as well, if only because people in the village will at last be able to keep track of their MPs, even to the point of calling and reminding them of their promises periodically.

But what about the other side? What will happen when a young man, ripe with ideas he’s acquired on the Internet, begins to question the words of his chief? The ideas may be good, and the chief may even be wrong, but what will the villagers do when they see his guidance being second-guessed?

Rest assured that local beliefs will be assailed. Kastom will be affected, for better and for worse. We need a few people to play a guiding, reconciling role in this process in order to ensure that we don’t become a nation adrift. They would serve – not supplant – kastom, helping it to remain relevant and useful in an age when Vanuatu’s villages take on a global dimension.

2) Learn Your History.

Go back and study in detail the how the Internet came to be. Pay special attention to the open, cooperative spirit that was instilled right from the beginning.

Talk to those who were there. Most of its inventors are still alive, and many of them are genuinely interested in what’s happening here in the Pacific. Vinton Cerf, widely known as the Father of the Internet, is an honorary member of the Pacific Islands Chapter of the Internet Society. He’s taken time from his schedule to join us in Apia at the PACINET conference, so it’s perfectly reasonable to expect that he’d be happy to spend an hour to two talking with someone helping to plot our national IT strategy.

Now do the same with your grandparents, with the Malvatumauri, with the Kaltoral Senta. Reconciling everything you find out will be difficult, but if you can’t do it, who can?

3) Keep Asking ‘Why?’

One of the fun parts of being a geek is that we get to indulge that very trait that makes every three year old insufferable: We can be – no, we have to be – insatiably curious. Just like the toddler who never stops asking why, we are expected to challenge every assumption, all the time.

The most interesting area of IT is where it comes into contact with society. Ask yourself why IT planning models are built the way they are, in spite of the systemic and often colossal failure that results. Study software licensing through the last three decades. Watch how it changes, consider what that means in terms of code quality, in terms of product management and sales, and most importantly, what its effect is on people.

For example, keep asking yourself, “If I can copy something for free, why should I pay for it?” The answers, you’ll find, are not nearly as simple as you think, and they will keep changing.

4) Technology is a Process, Not a Product.

If Ecclesiastes were written today, and David were a geek, he would no doubt say: Process of processes, all is processes. Ultimately, technology consists of layers upon layers of processes. Generations of software come and go, licenses change, products change, and so do capabilities. The only thing we can rely on, then, is the process. The process of learning, applying, then learning some more.

5) Information is a Gift.

The principle of vastly increased demand for communications in an economy of plenitude needs to be well understood by everyone involved in development. Planning becomes quite difficult when the landscape changes at such a rapid rate. In fact, the traditional process of descending from vision to strategy to policy to activity is going to require a fundamental reassessment.

Improved human communications means improved ability to act. Improved efficiency and effectiveness at the grassroots level means that organisations had better be ready to react to new demands, or they will either be opposed or ignored.

Remember as you act to protect people from certain information or to protect information from certain people that, in this case, more is always better. Certain things can never be un-learned, un-seen or un-heard. But our understanding of them can be changed by other things we learn, see and hear.

Someone once joked, “Information is like violence; if it doesn’t solve your problem, you’re not using enough.”

6) Let Kastom Guide You.

The biggest tension that exists today is that between Kastom and Business. Kastom often manifests itself as a process of lengthy consultation and the constant search for consensus, no matter how long it takes. The traditional European ‘business model’, on the other hand, consists of arbitrary groupings of individuals given legal rights and mandated to operate in particular areas. People are united for the purpose of commercial gain, and their roles and responsibilities are clearly defined. This is an effective and efficient way to deliver products and services, but it does not always serve to foster coordination and cooperation.

Most importantly, when decision-making is limited to a few leaders sitting together behind closed doors, it’s possible to make decisions quickly, but it’s also possible to be very, very wrong. Somebody once described this phenomenon thusly: “Put a bunch of smart people into a room and they emerge dumber than when they went in.”

We have a tremendous opportunity right now in Vanuatu. While the rest of the world is just beginning to rediscover what we already know, we can charge ahead. In technological terms, there are tons of collaborative tools available that will allow local groups to create a virtual nasara.

The Vanuatu IT Users Society (VITUS) already does this, and we would be happy to assist others. We invite all IT stakeholders to join in the ongoing dialogue. With a little time and a willingness to work in a manner that’s appropriate to Vanuatu, we will all emerge from the room wiser than when we entered.

Fifty years ago, Charles E. Lindblom, a professor at Yale University published an essay entitled ‘The Science of “Muddling Through”.’ The paper’s main point was stated briefly and simply: We can’t know everything about anything. So, as long as we’re just muddling through an imperfect world with only imperfect knowledge, we’d just as soon admit it.

At the heart of Lindblom’s rationale is the contention that even if we could know everything, we’d never be able to adequately express the value of competing development priorities. Therefore, we should work within our limitations, reduce the scope of our planning activities and allow competing interests to adjust to each other over time.

In a column marking the 50th anniversary of this seminal essay, Financial Times columnist John Kay remarks that, while contemporary economists may have scoffed at what they considered to be an unscientific and benighted approach to policy and planning, Lindblom’s gradualist approach has largely been vindicated.

Kay’s take on gradualism is filtered through the eyes of a businessman. Noted development economist William Easterly, however, celebrates Lindblom’s work as the only really workable model for developing countries.

Easterly is sometimes known as ‘the man without a plan’, a title bestowed on him by Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen in an appreciative but not entirely flattering review of his work in Foreign Affairs magazine. Easterly riffs on Lindblom’s ‘muddling through’ approach as he develops the idea that most development aid projects are driven by Planners, whose top-down, all-encompassing vision tends, he says, to produce ineffectual and inappropriate plans.

Easterly suggests that we need Searchers, people with intimate knowledge of local conditions who know best how to muddle through their often bewildering environment, moving in small steps toward the greater goals of social empowerment and economic prosperity. His vision is of a bottom-up approach to development that is more opportunistic than deliberate.

One example of Planners vs Searchers particularly close to my heart is the case of over 100,000 internally displaced people in Timor Leste, burnt out or chased from their homes during the civil disturbances in 20076. When newly elected Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao asked a prominent UN agency for assistance in dealing with the problem, he was presented with an 8-10 year timeline, during which all human needs would be assessed, community healing and development activities would be embarked upon, and eventually, houses built.

Xanana baulked. The very idea of leaving 10% of the population living in refugee tents for the better part of a decade was unconscionable. He then took the radical step of actually asking the displaced population what they wanted. The answer was simple and direct: ‘We don’t care about anything but going home.’

In a move that drew the ire of many development agencies, he offered them lump sums of cash to help pay for the reconstruction of their homes and sent them on their way.

Xanana’s government wasn’t so foolish as to believe that their work was done. They recognised that there would be further problems, that some of the money might be misused or otherwise wasted. They knew that there was a great deal more to be done to build the health of communities torn by decades of strife. But within 18 months, they had reduced the number of people living in tents to a few paltry thousands.

Vanuatu is currently facing a choice which pits planners against searchers. The World Bank recently published an assessment of the possibilities for creating a regional fibre-optic communications network joining some or all Pacific nations. Among the options considered were a comprehensive regional plan for countries to share the costs of regional deployment and a more piecemeal country-by-country approach.

The contrast between the two approaches is fascinating for anyone interested in development processes. Both alternatives have much to recommend them. The Pacific is small enough that it’s possible to develop a pretty detailed list of variables influencing such a project. Within reasonable limits, the Pacific is actually more suitable to top-down development approaches than just about any other region in the world.

But while we can safely enumerate the majority of factors affecting a project such as this, we are much more limited in terms of reconciling competing priorities. Few generalisations, if any, can be made that are true of Vanuatu and all – or even some – of its Pacific neighbours. Even among Melanesian countries, the state of readiness and capability with regard to an international fibre-optic link diverges widely.

The planners in this case are represented by those touting the South Pacific Island Network, or SPIN. Backed largely by the prospect of significant financial support from France, who want a fibre link joining New Caledonia to French Polynesia, they’ve been trying to bring other nations onto the bandwagon. The idea is that national governments chip in for their own segments of cable, and manage the connection themselves, or contract its management to the most able local organisation. In most cases, this would be the national telecoms operator.

The searchers, on the other hand, are best exemplified by a small Vanuatu-based group led by local entrepreneur Simon Fletcher. He’s been wrestling with communications issues for years now, and has recently come up with a plan to provide a modest link joining Vanuatu to New Caledonia. By allowing a few design compromises into his plan (making it slightly less capable than a planner might want), he’s formulated a simple approach that could quickly deliver up to a gigabit of higher-quality Internet bandwidth for prices that could compete quite nicely with the best available satellite service.

Will the planners win out in the end, or the searchers? I’d prefer not to speculate right now. While my personal sympathies lean toward small-scale, bottom-up approaches like Fletcher’s, I’ve learned that it’s unwise to ignore high-level strategy. While a simple, quickly workable plan has much to recommend it, it never hurts to consider it in terms of longer-term goals. And in Vanuatu, they’re easier to enumerate and express than in most other nations.

That said, Vanuatu’s decision makers can’t sit still forever. At some point, they’ve got to get on with muddling through the reefs and shoals of development planning and sign on to someone’s plan. While it may behoove some to play for time, we will inevitably have to commit to improving our national communications capacity.

Doing so quickly could have quite a salutary effect on the local market. Once our current incumbents get comfortable, it’s not unimaginable that they might want to start consolidating their position, with an eye to keeping upstarts out. The presence of a neutral backbone communications provider with no vested interest in the status quo could enhance competitive market forces significantly.

Unfortunately, precipitate decisions are hard to act on if we want backing from more planning-oriented institutions like the World Bank. These innately cautious agencies are designed such that it’s difficult to act without a comprehensive assessment (which is not to say understanding) of a given undertaking. On the positive side, once their projects develop momentum, it’s really hard to stop them.

Vanuatu’s patient dismantling of the telecommunications monopoly was made possible on large part due to the assistance of the World Bank, and its success provides an important example for our neighbours.

But our success was largely due to a small contingent of individuals whom Easterly would not hesitate to identify as searchers through and through. It’s time once again to do a little searching, and to plan a way to continue Vanuatu’s march toward leadership in communications in the Pacific.

I got some really good feedback from last week’s proposal to create incentives for those kinds of computer equipment that are most suited to creating opportunity and improving access to information for ni-Vanuatu.

Not all of the news was necessarily good, but all of it was useful. Daryl Moon, who runs the local Datec store, responded that he’d done a little math on the issue, and he found that computer vendors would certainly be able to sell computers for less if they were constructed locally from tariff-exempt components.

But he went on to explain that in order to justify hiring extra staff for that purpose, he would have to sell 20 computers per week – a number which, he suspected, exceeds the weekly sales of all local computer retailers combined.

I also had discussion with a few local economists and trade experts. One of the issues raised was the difficulty of actually measuring the outcome of such tariff exemptions. Generally speaking, government is willing to accept a drop in revenues in one area provided that it sees an increase elsewhere (VAT income from increased sales, for example) or that the social benefit is sufficient to merit the cost.

As I reflect on these conversations, I’m beginning to realise that, ultimately, the most compelling argument for Appropriate Technology incentives is not economic in nature. The capstone on this discussion is a moral one.

We need to take steps to improve access to information, learning and communications for all ni-Vanuatu. The steps we’ve taken so far are necessary, but not sufficient. We need to do more. And in the absence of a coordinated national strategy, we should take small steps like this simply because we can.

The cost of failure is measurable, and probably low. Maybe there won’t be a huge surge of new employment; maybe it won’t help local small business people as much as we like. If it doesn’t work, though, at least they won’t suffer for the mistake.

Though we can’t really know exactly what the value is on the upside, we can all agree that if it does work, it will benefit people in countless small ways: expediting business, enabling both formal and informal political, social, religious and community networks, encouraging learning and exposing people to a world that many have never encountered before.

The benefits are likely to be intangible and difficult to measure: One more scholarship won because a young woman studied extra at home on her netbook. A few extra bookings at a resort via email that kept one more person employed. A better-attended fund-raising for an important cause. None of these will ever show up directly in a statistical analysis, but nobody doubts their value.

There are liabilities inherent to the idea, of course. As I cautioned last week, if the Appropriate Technology designation is reduced to a laundry list of specific products approved by government, ample room might be created for error, inefficiency or even abuse. If a local vendor, for example, becomes the sole distributor for a given brand of products, then succeeds – by hook or by crook – in getting them included in the list, they would stand to profit more than before. Conversely, if other vendors were to lobby to block the inclusion of a certain brand of products, that same sole distributor might find itself working at a deficit.

The solution is to ensure that the criteria for this list are generic in nature, and are described in functional language that references the purpose and performance of a given product rather than its name, version, manufacturer, what have you.

Low-power devices, for example, could simply be classed as any computing device that uses less than X number of watts under normal circumstances. While the value of X might float higher and lower as we fine-tune things, the criterion is clear enough that equipment clearly either meets or misses the mark, with little room for ambiguity or misapplication.

Now: Let’s pause for a second and look at the bigger picture. This kind of proposal should really be part of a larger dialogue about a national ICT strategy. It’s unfortunate, actually, that one of the strengths of the argument for an Appropriate Technology tariff exemption is that it stands on its own and doesn’t necessarily need to be integrated into a larger framework. By rights it should be leading us to bigger things.

My hope is that ideas like this start people thinking in strategic terms. The idea of liberalising the telecoms market is a similarly simple (albeit more ambitious) idea that was led by a stalwart few within Government, but which ultimately involved many parties, nationally and internationally. One of the greatest benefits we derived from this (after the obvious win of vastly improved mobile communications) was the creation of a regulatory body to oversee things.

When the Ministry of Infrastructure and Public Utilities first embarked on the long road toward an open telecoms market, I’m not sure everyone realised the full implications of the work they’d taken on. Happily, with assistance from numerous parties, the idea served as a fulcrum to develop the will and then the resources necessary to make this undertaking an internationally noteworthy success story.

I confess I’m a little nervous that people will rest on their laurels. Mobile communications are great, but more is needed.

There’s a subtle but crucial difference between mobile communications and the Internet. It’s often hard to see because there’s a good deal of overlap between the two. Email and SMS are essentially equivalent, modulo a few small differences, as are VOIP and traditional telephone services.

Even though the lines are blurring between the two, one fundamental difference remains: Mobile telecoms enable mostly one-to-one communications. They recreate our kitchen conversations. The Internet is by default a public (one-to-many and many-to-one) medium that allows us to recreate the kind of dialogue we see in our schools, our churches, political meetings and – most importantly – in the village nasara.

Mobile Internet services soon to be available in Port Vila and Santo will blur that line even further. We need to enhance that effect, and promote devices that make best use of both technologies.

We also need to push these services out into the islands. Currently available solutions are expensive, but it’s the cost of buying and running the equipment required that shuts the door with finality for most island residents.

As happy as I am to see our capital growing in resemblance to its overseas counterparts in Australia and New Zealand, I can’t escape the realisation that, in part because of our own complacency, our brothers and sisters in the islands are still miles behind.

Small steps like an Appropriate Technology exemption are useful, especially if they lead to bigger steps further down the road.

One of the joys of working in IT is the endless tide of change that seems to run through it. The stereotypical geek – and I confess I bear a strong resemblance to him – is constantly, almost pathologically curious. Like mynah birds we flit from one shiny piece of technology to the next, changing our song moment by moment.

Some may find it dizzying. Just as they get used to one set of jargon terms, the lexicon changes and their stuttering education in techno-Babel starts anew.

IT professionals typically work with about a six month window before the bleeding-edge products they’re using slip down the next rung of the ladder of obsolescence. After about two years, they’ve dropped away completely.

Governments and other institutions often find this a constant source of aggravation. It takes so long to develop standards that they’re often outdated even before the testing, analysis and verification is complete.

But their mistake is one of emphasis….

Focusing on specific technologies and products is a mug’s game that forces planners to make predictions about the unforeseeable. If, however, planners focus on underlying principles, standards and processes that are common to all technological progress, they can achieve great things.

Learning to properly understand the nature of technological progress is a simple task, but not an easy one. The difficulty lies in the fact that, while the principles are simple, their application is very complex. The secret to IT policy making, then, is knowing how far you can safely generalise and what you can reasonably expect to achieve.

Vanuatu’s government operates within fairly tight constraints. While it is the single largest employer in the country, it has relatively little reach in terms of enforcing public standards or creating incentives to drive private sector innovation.

That said, it can and should be doing more. Ignoring the lack of a national IT strategy for the moment, let’s take a look at a number of small, low-cost steps that the Government of Vanuatu could take to improve people’s lives through technology.

While mobile communications have swept over nearly all the populated islands, uptake of Internet services has been much slower, mostly due to the cost of entry. Standard desktop computers cost the equivalent of several months’ salary for most ni-Vanuatu, and laptops even more.

The Government could address this in two simple steps:

First, implement a salary deduction scheme that allows public servants to purchase used government computers for reasonable prices, with payment installments spaced over a 12 month period. Not only does this ensure that computers are accessible in the home, it also enables rapid turn-over of computing equipment in Government itself, lowering maintenance costs and helping the civil service stay efficient.

Second, incentivise local businesses to offer lower-cost computer systems by creating a tariff category for Appropriate Technology. Right now, computers are listed as luxury items, and are subject to a total markup of about 40% of the original price once VAT and import duties are added.

This has a stultifying effect on local suppliers. In some cases, it makes more sense for an expat to fly to Suva or Sydney, purchase a top of the line laptop there and fly all the way back than it does to purchase one in Port Vila.

While a lot of high-tech gear merits its luxury status (a 100,000 vatu iPhone, for example), a great deal of it does not. If the government were to drop tariffs on computer parts, for example, they’d create strong incentives for local businesses to import all the components and construct PCs locally.

Not only would this reduce the cost of finished systems for local consumers, it would also help to create a cottage industry, with additional local staff laid on to build the machines. These staff would also be exposed in much more detail to the inner workings of the machines they support. This can only lead to improved levels of service, maintenance and support.

What’s more, opportunities would be created for small-time, one-person businesses to flourish. Buying full-blown systems is beyond the means of the average would-be entrepreneur in Vanuatu, but purchasing a few hard drives, memory chips and the like is not. This means that an aspiring independent technician could set up shop for next to nothing, and offer repairs and upgrades for far less than their brick and mortar competitors in town.

Let’s go one step further with this. If we were to exempt the emerging family of so-called ‘Netbooks’ – low-power, solid state laptops with tiny screens and even tinier power requirements – we could make it possible for people with limited access to power and technical service to productively use the Internet.

Simple consumer demand could make these devices the new standard in Vanuatu, with the effect that someone could arrive from the islands with a fistful of cash and return to his village with a new information device that will make life at home much better. His children will have a crucial key to better opportunity, and he will have an important business tool. More importantly, the computer itself requires lower levels of service (no moving parts means it will stand up better to wear and tear) and if it does need to be serviced or replaced, it can be done in town without huge expense or wasted time.

Any loss of revenue related to such tariff reductions would be more than made up for by increased VAT revenues and higher employment levels in the local market.

An ‘Appropriate Technology’ class of items. Two simple criteria. And nothing required of government but to quit making it harder for local business. It’s hard to see how a step like this couldn’t help.

Technology is complicated, and in relation to other aspects of daily life in Vanuatu, it’s expensive. But its value to society is indisputable.

Without a doubt, the Government needs to develop a clear, comprehensive policy concerning use of technology within its own sphere of operation, and on the national level as well. But that will take time, and there’s much that can be done in the mean time.

The benefits of telecoms market liberalisation are undeniable, but as the Pacific Institute of Public Policy rightly pointed out in its baseline study of social effects of the opening of the mobile market, more needs to be done. Uptake for business purposes is still low. Secondary infrastructure needs work as well, and if we want to see the same growth in Internet as we’ve seen in mobile use, we’re going to have to take steps to make it possible.

Programmatic support of technology that’s proven appropriate for ni-Vanuatu is a goal that’s simple to achieve. All we have to do is put the right tools into reach, then get out of the way.

I think there’s another aspect to this too, one that shouldn’t be undersold: There’s a moral argument to be made that access to the Internet is a disruptive but ultimately necessary and positive thing. Therefore, any reasonable proposal that takes us in that direction should be tried. Ultimately, this is the most compelling reason of all for me.

More on this in my second take on the issue.

Recently, I’ve come across references to a phenomenon some expats have wryly termed the ‘V’ factor. Apparently there is some magic variable Vanuatu inserts into every equation that reduces our ability to calculate a sensible output to zero.

As emblematic phrases go, the ‘V’ factor ranks somewhere between Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 and those inane office posters warning you that ‘you don’t have to be crazy to work here, but it helps.’

Joseph Heller penned his famous novel in an attempt to characterise the crushing, often deadly banality of bureaucratic systems. His initially humourous tone peels away layer by layer until death, disappearance and the destruction of innocence leave the surviving characters with few illusions about humanity’s true nature.

Compared to this tour de force of gallows humour, a silly-looking poster tacked onto a corkboard seems innocuous, to say the least, little more than an ineffectual, protesting squeak from a mouse in a maze.

The ‘V’ factor isn’t so harmless. Rather than explain (Catch 22-style) Vanuatu’s unique environment, it substitutes dismissive hand-waving (often accompanied by another beer) for any serious desire to adapt to the reality of the situation. In essence, it’s a quick and easy way of exculpating oneself, of refusing to be implicated in the petty, small-world inefficiencies that define Vanuatu.

The ‘V’ factor is the final excuse of someone who wants into the show, but doesn’t want to pay for the ticket.

Okay, I’ve said what the ‘V’ factor is, but the real question is: What does it look like? It is the best laid plans of expats and investors going awfully awry. It’s the sum of the gecko eggs in the computer case, the centipede in the sandal and the rats in the wiring. It’s the axiom that, of a truck, some fuel and a driver, you can have any two at a time. It’s the two-day-late SMS that says, “I’m waiting. Where are you?”

It’s the always-empty service desk, police who don’t patrol, the teacher who’s later than his students, the meeting that’s always one short of quorum, but never the same one. It’s the marvelously, magically receding deadline, beckoning like the endless sunset on a westbound plane.

But most of all, it’s the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It’s a will-o-the-wisp, a flight of fancy. It’s fairies in the buttercups. It is the recognition that the world isn’t working the way you want it to – and the irrational impatience you feel as you wait for the world to adjust itself for you.

Why, then, are even the best-laid plans doomed to failure? And if they are doomed, what should we do?

I’m glad you asked.

Systematic planning, order and organisation are all anathema in the islands. And not without good reason. You see, the village is a very small place, and in Vanuatu, it’s always been the source of all abundance, of everything that’s good. In order to ensure continued access to that abundance, we villagers need to understand a few basic rules:

• Give a little, get a little. Yes, it can be a pain to suffer constant interruptions, distractions and requests for help, but the day will certainly come when you’ll be the one at someone else’s door with your hand out.
• Get along with everybody, all the time, if you want to prosper. You’re going to need a hand some time soon, so you’d better be nice to people, even that greedy, jealous so-and-so who’d cut your throat as soon as look at you – if he didn’t have to be so nice, too.
• The nail that stands up gets hammered down. The village is a small place, and there’s no room for rivalry. Keep your head down, don’t get too noisy or ambitious or, just like the weak dog in the pack, all the others will turn on you.
• The Lord giveth; the Lord taketh away. Trust in today, and let tomorrow take care of itself. Worst case scenario: your fellow villagers will all be in the same boat as you, so your misery will have company.
• Don’t plan on anything. There are no kings here to tell us how it’s going to be, and you really don’t want to act like one. That would make you the nail in a village full of hammers.

Vanuatu is changing; there’s no doubt about it. But over 90% of the country has a set of rules that have worked well since time immemorial, and let’s face it: this is their country. This may be paradise, but even paradise has its rules.

Many of us expats – myself included – are here as agents of change. We know the world outside, what it consists of, and devote our energy to helping ni-Vanuatu come to terms with the things they cannot change. But in order to do that, we need to know the ground we stand on.

It may be that throwing your hands in the air and laughing off the ‘V’ factor will work for you. But don’t plan on it.

At a public meeting recently held in Port Vila, Digicel Pacific General Counsel David Dillon estimated that Digicel and TVL combined have about 100,000 active mobile subscriptions in Vanuatu. If that number is correct – and I believe it is – it means that the number of subscriptions has increased by a stunning 400% in less than a year.

100,000. Let’s think about that for a second.

In the big cities of the world, selling 80,000 new subscriptions is a modest achievement. But here in Vanuatu, simply finding that many is a herculean feat. Extrapolating from the 2001 census numbers, we can estimate that there are roughly 55,000 people living in Port Vila and Santo today. Pick any reasonable percentage of people actually using mobile phone services, and it quickly becomes evident that reaching the reported subscription level requires pretty significant penetration into places that had never had mobile services before.

Digicel, TVL and the government of Vanuatu have achieved a truly remarkable thing. This is nothing short of a communications revolution.

Nobody doubts that the effect of opening the telecoms market is a fundamental transformation in the way Vanuatu society interacts. But it’s difficult to characterise the exact nature and scope of the impact.

It would be nice to quote statistical chapter and verse, but we don’t have enough publicly available information to do so.

Both Digicel and TVL have a policy of keeping their cards close to their chest. Says TVL Managing Director Ian Kyle, “I will have no comments to make on speculative metrics such as these. Of course, TVL has a solid understanding of the local GSM mobile market, including detailed analysis of traffic and yields.”

In an interview during a recent visit to Vanuatu, Digicel’s Dillon made a similar statement. He demonstrated to me how closely Digicel monitored its performance metrics, but declined to go into detail concerning actual numbers. Both he and Digicel Vanuatu CEO Tanya Menzies have asserted that such information is proprietary and needs to be guarded carefully for competitive reasons.

That’s a reasonable stance, on the face of it. It’s standard practice in any business to deny any competitive advantage to other players. But on consideration, the need to keep subscription numbers secret seems less compelling than it might appear at first blush. You see, when someone with a Digicel account calls someone on TVL (or vice versa), both companies have a record of the call. Given a sufficient call volume, it quickly becomes possible to get a very clear picture of how many subscribers the other guy has.

So the only ones they’re keeping these numbers from is the public.

More to the point, though, raw subscription numbers aren’t particularly useful when it comes to analysing business performance. TVL’s Kyle discounted their importance, stating that TVL “must focus on market revenue and maintaining healthy financial [indicators] rather than the more simple act of chasing customer numbers. Money is the metric which drives the machine and in that commercial reality, TVL continues to achieve significant success.”

Both TVL and Digicel have gone on the record with subscription numbers when it suited them. Some months before Digicel’s initial rollout in Vanuatu, TVL stated publicly that they had about 20,000 subscriptions. At last month’s meeting in Vanuatu, Dillon offered the estimated total of 100,000 active accounts for both services. These numbers appear to be roughly accurate.

More interestingly, Digicel Pacific’s CEO Vanessa Slowey told Islands Business magazine in October last year that Digicel controlled 70% of Vanuatu’s mobile market.

So what do these numbers really mean?

First off, 100,000 subscriptions does not mean that 100,000 people are using mobile services. It only means that 100,000 subscriptions are in use right now. Some people have multiple active subscriptions (I have 3 myself).

A survey of social effects of mobile market liberalisation by the Pacific Institute of Public Policy (PiPP) includes a finding that many people keep two SIM cards on hand, using their TVL card to call other TVL subscribers, and a Digicel card for friends and family on the Digicel service. Preferential pricing for callers on the same network, coupled with an aggressively low cost of subscription, leads people to double up.

So how many people are using mobile phone services in Vanuatu? And more importantly, what are the effects of such a massive increase in less than a year? Analysts agree that it’s hard to speak in anything other than generalities right at the moment.

The PiPP survey was a baseline study. While it provides important insights into usage habits, it’s a snapshot taken within weeks of Digicel’s Vanuatu rollout. Things have almost certainly changed since then.

The number of households surveyed is what analysts call statistically significant, meaning that we can draw some conclusions about the general population based on the numbers contained in the report. But the survey is too limited in geographical terms to allow us to make broad assertions concerning demographics, such as the relative number of men, women, youth and adults using mobile phone services, how much each of them are spending, and how they’re using them.

Even with the limited data this initial independent study provides, it is possible to make some observations. PiPP Communications Director Derek Brien states, “in order to capitalise on the benefits of improved access to telecommunications, policy makers and the private sector need to consider options for addressing affordability, improving complimentary infrastructure, reducing gender inequalities and facilitating the transfer of resources to the rural areas.”

There is, in other words, a clear need to supplement the commendable work that the government and private sector have accomplished so far. But in order to do that, we need good data to work with. Says Brien, “Policy decisions need to be evidence based and this is why it will be an important part of PiPP’s 2009 activities to update this research in order to build on the initial findings and examine the developments in access and use.”

The draft telecoms legislation covering the role of the Regulator gives him some latitude to request information from the two telcos. While some of the data contained in these reports must necessarily – and rightly – remain confidential, it is hoped that enough will be made public that we can better understand the effects of this communications revolution on Vanuatu society.

Next year, we should have the first results of this year’s upcoming census. These too will be crucial in helping us better understand the shape and nature of Vanuatu society. More importantly, they will give us better information to extrapolate from, making our projections for future development more reliable.

A single tidbit of information is nice to have, and useful, too. But when we can plot numerous points on a graph, we can begin discussing trends. And trend analysis is critical when we’re trying to understand long-running processes like the spread of communications throughout the islands.

It’s clear that Vanuatu is undergoing a historic change where communications are concerned. Our next steps will depend largely on how we understand the effects of our actions. Everyone in Vanuatu is best served by an environment of equal and open access to information. Let’s all continue to work together to make this happen.

Economic hardship is expressed in the simplest terms in Vanuatu. The price of rice, of diesel and cooking gas, the selling price of copra and kava – all of these hit closest to home. The most pressing question facing our new government is how best to insulate Vanuatu from the worst of the economic turmoil affecting the world’s economies.

The question for all ni-Vanuatu is how to hold the new government to account.

Economists describe Vanuatu’s position as that of a ‘price taker’. In layman’s terms that means we don’t get much of a say in how prices are set. OPEC members have never heard of us, and are content to keep it that way. Commodity exchanges deal in volumes that give Vanuatu no more say over prices than a corner shopkeeper.

Nonetheless, government decisions echo throughout the local economy. It’s limited in what it can do, but what it does affects us directly.

There are other players in this game. Recently, banks have shown remarkable largesse. Private sector loans increased by nearly 30% in June alone. This, along with the fact that they focus mostly on ex-pat and overseas business for their profits, limits the flexibility of the local economy.

Ironically, things look slightly better for those most at risk.

One fascinating aspect of Vanuatu’s economy is the role played by social forces. There’s an interesting relationship between commodity prices and agricultural production here in Vanuatu. When the price of local commodities rises, production goes down, not up. The reason for this is that the need for cash in rural areas is quite limited. Once a villager earns enough to pay school fees, clothing and a few staples, there’s no more need to sell their crop. So when they can earn the same amount of money for less effort, they do so.

This is one of the factors leading to a kind of economic insulation for the average ni-Vanuatu. The bottom line is that the cash economy remains small in rural Vanuatu because the cash economy is only a small part of the whole picture.

Once the inherent economic elasticity in this system is used up, however, poverty sets in. People planting cash crops in places once reserved for food crops, for example. It’s a fine line between building the cash economy and building dependence on the cash economy such that a person’s outputs can’t meet their costs.

The greatest challenge facing local economists and financial planners is developing the ability to gauge the amount of elasticity remaining in the economy. It’s commonly felt that we don’t really have a good handle on the Consumer Price Index, which measures the cost of everyday items and feeds directly into our understanding of inflation and other important metrics. Work is underway to remedy this, but it will take time to get things right.

It’s not just economists who have a hard time measuring the effects of rising prices and inflation. One forecaster asks, “Does the average consumer in Vanuatu recognize how they are affected by inflation? Bus drivers, for example, buy fuel in very small amounts like VT500 a time. Do they realize they are getting less petrol for this?”

We all have an undefined yet undeniable sense that times are getting tougher. We know that fuel and rice prices are hitting us hard. What we don’t know is how hard, and what effect that’s having. Are we eating less, or relying more on local kaekae, or both? Are price pressures affecting school registrations? Are we reducing travel or communications?

Voters have a right to expect clear answers to these questions.  Without the ability to gauge where we are, we have no way of judging the performance of those whom we elected to represent our interests.
Once we have those answers, we need to hold our new government to account. We need proof – not assurances – that it’s acting responsibly.

We also need to ensure that they’re not acting out of expediency. It would be a noble thing indeed to subsidise rice, for example. But wouldn’t it be much better to investigate why prices here are out of whack with those in other countries? A solid regime of anti-trust enforcement might serve us better than more government spending.

Indeed, reducing spending is the single most effective tool the government holds to mitigate the effects of inflation. Heaven knows there’s a lot that could be done without affecting salaries or critical projects. Much as we appreciate their work, do we really need to thank outgoing ministers with cash? Surely a Presidential medal would suffice.

We’ve come a long way since the days when a foundering, inept government failed even to table a budget. Controls have improved and reporting is getting better as well. But it’s a constant battle for everyone concerned to get a really solid picture of Vanuatu’s economic health.

Translating economic data into terms – and results – that make sense to a hard-working housegirl with a family to feed is a challenge unique to Vanuatu. But that is exactly what our MPs signed up for.

One of the questions that came up regularly when I asked for feedback on my talk was how people would be able to afford mobile services. Given that 5000 vatu (about USD 50) per month is not an unusual family income in the village, even topping up with 200 vatu credit (currently the smallest increment available) would be a burden, would it not? The answer is yes and no.

There’s an interesting relationship between commodity prices and agricultural production here in Vanuatu. When the price of commodities like coffee, copra and cacao rises, production actually decreases rather than increasing. The reason for this is that the need for cash in rural areas is quite limited. Once a villager earns enough to pay school fees, clothing and a few staples, there’s no more need to sell their crop. So when they can earn the same amount of money for less effort, they do so.

This is one of the factors leading to a kind of economic insulation for the average ni-Vanuatu. I wrote a bit more about other aspects of this phenomenon in this article for the Daily Post.The bottom line is that the cash economy remains small in rural Vanuatu because the cash economy is only a small part of the whole picture.

When mobile communications are introduced, the perceived need for cash increases. In the short term, this puts stress on the pocket book, but things can probably work themselves out through a nominal increase in the amount of cash being generated (e.g. through cash crops). Add to this the increased efficiencies that come hand in hand with better communications, and we’ll likely see more prosperity and economic activity – in cash terms – than less.

In other words, this is not a zero sum game.

That detail is still lost in many traditional planning processes. In fact, ignorance of this dynamic is a bigger inhibitor to growth than many other external factors. If people can’t forecast capacity properly, their estimates come out consistently low, and because products and services don’t meet the need, they don’t have the effect they’re intended to, so people don’t invest in them.

Very often, taking the last few years’ numbers and extrapolating linear growth creates a self-fulfilling prophecy in which growth remains linear only because that’s as much as it can grow. Unfortunately, it allows analysts to sit back and say, ‘See? I told you so.’

Update: Looking a little further down this continuum: Once the inherent economic elasticity in this system is used up, however, poverty sets in. An example would be people planting cash crops in places once reserved for food crops. It’s a fine line between building the cash economy and building dependence on the cash economy in such as way that a person’s outputs can’t meet their costs.

Digicel launched their mobile phone service in Vanuatu this week with a splash the likes of which have not been seen since Independence. Outside observers will find it hard to believe just how much excitement the arrival of a new phone company has engendered in Vanuatu. This column needs to be read in the context of a nation that, in terms of communications, has been utterly impoverished, but whose poverty seemed to vanish in a single day. In this light, the prospect of nearly ubiquitous mobile coverage at affordable rates is takes on historical proportions.

This week’s column isn’t so much a commentary as a sketch of first impressions about Digicel, its services and people’s reactions to both.

Digicel’s launch was a coordinated campaign designed to make it look to most people as if it sprang fully formed from the ground on the morning of the 25th. Billboards went up overnight, the flagship store was unveiled, the largest bandstand in Vanuatu history was constructed in the aptly-chosen Independence Park. Top-up signs appeared on store fronts everywhere, sometimes four to a block. Even newspaper sellers were transformed into Digicel vendors. One of the biggest concerts in Vanuatu history went off on-time and without a hitch. Hundreds of people – athletes, the disabled, the wealthy and the powerful – were entertained with food and drink that flowed smoothly and in apparently limitless quantities. It culminated with the biggest fireworks display in living memory.

Digicel wasn’t just showing off. There was a deliberate point to be made, and they made it emphatically: Digicel delivers.

Anyone who’s done any amount of work in Vanuatu knows just how remarkably difficult it can be to coordinate everyone’s efforts. This usually leads to things happening in sequence, rather than all at once. That, in turn, leads to delays, because one little failure can hold up the entire chain of events. These failures can compound quickly as a delay in one area can – and usually does – affect the once-ready state of others.

Digicel has proven that they have an organisation capable of delivering a large-scale event in a coordinated and coherent manner, and that they are willing to commit the resources required to do it.

This has two interesting implications. The first and most obvious is that there is every reason to believe that Digicel can operate successfully throughout the country at the level promised. They can do so by relying on nobody but themselves. It is clear now that when they offered a very large performance bond to the government, they did so with complete confidence.

The second implication will take time to play out. The Digicel Group has given a great deal of autonomy to each of its 27 national operations. They make a policy of investing significantly in local knowledge and capacity in order to tailor each company to the local environment. There is obvious wisdom in this strategy, as their business plan is predicated on effective operation in heretofore marginal markets.

How will this strategy play out in a country with largely undeveloped technical capabilities? It will require extensive engagement and a higher degree of commitment than any other outside entity has proven willing to invest in the past. Only time will tell whether Digicel’s leadership will continue to invest the resources necessary to the task.

But I’m writing this neither to praise Digicel, nor to bury them. What follows are anecdotal observations of the first few days after the birth of nation-wide communications in Vanuatu:

On opening day, I went down to the opening of the new store where Ma Barker’s used to be. Absolute madness. There were about 40 people allowed into the store at a time, with a line-up that was never less than about 100 people all the time I was there. There was an air of tangible excitement in the crowd. One would think they were selling Rolling Stones tickets, not mobile phones.

I was told that Au Bon Marché Nambatu was lined up out to the parking lot, as was Top Video.

At the launch party, I spoke briefly with John Delves, the General Manager of Digicel. I asked him about sales figures for the day, but he would only say that they were very pleased with results so far. Interestingly, he said that their primary form of measurement is call volume. The phones, obviously, are just a means to an end, and their reporting reflects that.

The next morning, I went down to the Digicel store, and found out that 3 different models were out of stock. Apparently the phones are in-country, but not enough were prepped for sale. Staff said they expected to have more before lunch time, but by end of day the phones had still not arrived. One staff member estimated that they sold over 500 mobiles at the main location on the first day alone. That’s not at all a reliable number, but it gives some of perspective on the rough level of interest. Five hundred phones in a single day, in a town of roughly forty-thousand people.

Interestingly, the cheapest phones, which start at 2000 vatu, were still in good supply. The sold-out models were in the lower middle range, between 8-15,000 vatu. It seems that Digicel misjudged the market slightly. It’s equally possible that people are simply conditioned to spend more on mobile service, and that Digicel has so exceeded their expectations that people simply up-sold themselves. It will be interesting to see if Digicel adjusts its marketing tactics, or the market adjusts to Digicel’s aggressive price point, or both.

A significant number of people were buying two or more mobiles at a time. When asked, more than one of them said they were purchasing them for family back on the island.

Crowds remained excited on the second day, even a tiny bit rowdy. They would have benefited from having staff outside to manage the line, but nobody seemed to have considered just how excited people would be. One intrepid security guard eventually brought order to the situation through a combination of wily talk and a little bit of chest-puffing.

Some technical notes: I bought a SIM card for an existing phone, and later when I checked my credit levels, it told me that I have 0 vatu credit. The good news is that my expiry date was ‘9999/12/31’. I hoped at first that my SIM card could be handed down through the generations, but the problem was rectified later the same day without any intervention from me. Nonetheless, I hope they’ve incorporated the year 10,000 bug into their IT planning.

Call quality seems to be excellent so far, but there are problems texting from TVL to Digicel. I’ve been told by reliable sources that the problem originates on the TVL side (Digicel’s error message says tactfully that the problem originates on ‘another’ network), and that it will be fixed within days. I’ve also heard reports that the service is down in Aore and Malo islands, and that coverage in North Efate leaves a little to be desired. Villagers in Epule have to walk to the shore or up the hill in order to place a call.

None of these initial wrinkles are surprising. What does surprise me is that Digicel turned up the entire network, rolled out its marketing and sales effort and then threw a party of historic proportions all on the same day. That is a logistical feat that is without precedent in Vanuatu history.