FINAL REPORT ON THE UPDATE OF THE 1994 SIDSnet FEASIBILITY STUDY FOR THE ALLIANCE OF SMALL ISLAND STATES



    CONTENTS



    INTRODUCTION

  1. The Programme of Action of the Global Conference on the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States emphasized the vital importance of readily accessible information relevant to the sustainable development of SIDS and sharing of information and experiences among them. As a result of recommendation XV (a) 5, the Sustainable Development Networking Programme of the UNDP (UNDP/SDNP), commissioned a study to assess the feasibility of the economic and technical viability of establishing a SIDSnet. A study team produced a feasibility study in time to be presented to the 49th General Assembly and eighteen generally positive interventions were made by the delegates during the debate. In spite of the fact that no action has been taken on the specific recommendations of that study, many significant developments have occurred since the report was submitted in 1994.

  2. On 8 March 1996, the Chair of the AOSIS, Ambassador Annette des Iles, wrote to Dr. Denis Benn, Director of the Special unit for TCDC, asking that the SIDSnet feasibility study be updated. Terms of Reference for the update were developed and accepted

  3. All members and observers of AOSIS except Singapore were included in this update which means that American Samoa, Belize, Guam, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Netherlands Antilles, Nuie, Suriname, and the U.S. Virgin Islands (which were not included in the 1994 study) are included here while Bahrain, the Dominican Republic and Haiti (which were included in the 1994 study) are not included here.

  4. During a visit to the Philippines, meetings were held with officials in the Asian Development Bank and with Victor Reyes and Amy Leccione, Executive Director of the Sustainable Development Network Foundation in Manila.

  5. During a visit to Kingston, Jamaica, the consultant met with a number of people including Franklin McDonald, Executive Director of the Natural Resources Conservation Authority of Jamaica who was to be a co-consultant on this project, Ed Farnworth, the InterAmerican Development Bank, Richard Thelwell, Claude Davis of UWICED, Elizabeth Thomas-Hope who holds The James Seivright Moss-Solomon (Snr.) Chair of Environmental Management and chairs a local committee investigating the feasibility of an SDN for Jamaica, Joachim von Braunmuhl, the UNDP Resident representative, and Chloe Doutre-Roussel, UNDP Programme Officer.

  6. The consultant helped Maritza Hee-Houng of the CCA and Peter Ballantyne of the ECDPM design and give a training course on the Management and Distribution of Environmental Information in Small Caribbean Islands at the University of the West Indies, Mona Jamaica. The participants not only learned hypertext markup language (HTML) but also created prototype organizational and some country web pages. The design and content of a regional page were discussed briefly. There was considerable interest in continuing the process and the pages have been made available on the UWI server in Mona. Alan Duncan has created a full set of pages for the Institute of Marine Affairs which are available on this disk (IMA) and mirrored on the Small Islands Information Network (SIIN)

  7. Extensive searches were undertaken using search engines such as Lycos, Alta Vista and Excite and following up leads provided by various lists of WWW sites. The number of documents with terms matching the name of the country in an Alta Vista search was noted along with the ten best matches. No one source was complete and considerable time was spent creating and double checking the information for the connectivity pages in Appendix 2.

  8. The terms of reference, a progress report and the first draft of the final report were made available on the World Wide Web and comments were distributed to interested individuals through an electronic mail listserver. These comments together with a number of discussions have been taken into account in the final report. Peter Ballantyne of ECDPM and Bruce Potter of Island Resources Foundation made particularly extensive and helpful comments.

  9. Meetings were held with Interweb Inc to discuss the possibility of providing connectivity for the members of AOSIS. Interweb provides a web page for Samoa.

  10. The consultant made a presentation to AOSIS on June 27th using the WWW technology to demonstrate its potential. The points made during the discussion have been incorporated into the final report, In particular, cost estimates have been prepared for a fifth option which was brought up in the meeting.

    DEVELOPMENTS SINCE 1994

  11. The following tables summarize the developments that have taken place in the twenty-two months since the 1994 feasibility study was submitted. Not including those who make long distance telephone calls to remote Internet Service Providers or have authorized Web pages on web sites outside the country, at least 24 members of AOSIS now have full access to the Internet and have established Web sites . In the Pacific, PEACESAT sites have been established in each member coutry and the sites are given for those countries which do not have full access to the Internet. A recent upgrade has improved services considerable but the bandwidth is still not adequate for Web services and the connection is only available for limited times.

  12. In 1994, there were no Web pages on islands. Now there appear to be hundreds of thousands. The approximate number of documents found by a search using Alta Vista is given with the name of each country and the ten best matches are listed in Appendix 2. As the number of pages grows, so does the range in quality and the task of sorting out what is really useful for the sustainable development of islands is growing more formidable every day. The need to organize and facilitate access to the wealth of relevant information is greater than ever before.



    ATLANTIC, INDIAN AND MEDITERRANEAN
    Country Internet Service Sample Web pages Internal Sample Web pages External
    Cape Verde
    20,000    		 Leary Homepage
    Comoros
    2,000    		 Homepage
    Cyprus
    20,000    		 SpiderNet Logos Net Cylink/EUnet Cyprus University of Cyprus Cyprus,
    Guinea-Bissau
    3,000    		 Guinea-Bissau
    Maldives
    5,000    		 Maldives City.Net
    Malta
    20,000    		 Key World MAGNET Malta Online University of Malta METCO Falzon HP
    Mauritius
    10,000    		 INTERNET MauriWeb Commercial Bank Mauritius
    Sao Tome and Principe
    20,000    		 City.Net
    Seychelles
    6,000    		 City.Net





    CARIBBEAN
    Country Internet Service Provider Sample Web Pages Internal Sample Web Pages External
    Antigua & Barbuda1,000 CandW The Official Homepage
    Bahamas20,000 Bahamas On-Line Official Homepage The Bahamas
    Barbados10,000 CaribSurf Sunbeach Sandlinx CaribNet
    Belize10,000 Belize Online Btl.Net Belize Telecom BelizeanCyberWeb University College BRAIN Constitution & History (284K)
    Cuba30,000 Cubaweb Cuba
    Dominica5,000 TOD CODETEL TOD Platform Com Sec Homepage
    Grenada7,000 Caribweb-Grenada Grenada
    Guyana8,000 Surinam.net...Guyana Gold Corporation Guyana Handbook
    Jamaica30,000 InfoChannel TOJ JOL UWI NRCA
    Netherlands Antilles10,000 ANTILNET ICU IBM Fees by Antilnet
    St. Kitts and Nevis5,000 Official Homepage
    St. Lucia20,000 Cable and Wireless Homepage
    St. Vincent and the Genadines6,000 Internet Services De Vincy paradise
    Suriname 5,000 Surinamnet SR.NET, Homepage Pages by Ludwig Dirksz
    Trinidad and Tobago 2,000 InterServ WOW TSTT Opus-networx Fujitsu-ICL TIDCO
    U.S. Virgin Islands 6,000 COBEX IRF



    PACIFIC
    Country Internet Service Providers Sample Web Page Internal Sample Web Page External
    American Samoa 10,000 Samoa Observatory Page by PREL
    Cook Islands 3,000 PEACESAT Sites Welcome Biodiversity map
    Federated States of Micronesia 10,000 Site Information PEACESAT Sites An Overview
    Fiji 10,000 Home Page USP InterNet Services Visitor Info Necklace by PCC
    Guam 10,000 Guam Sprint Talaya 2000 Kuentos Ogden's WW W Things
    Kiribati 3,000 PEACESAT Sites JWR Homepage
    Marshall Islands 3,000 PEACESAT Sites RMI Online
    Nauru 3,000 PEACESAT Sites Ogden's WW W Things
    Niue 2,000 PEACESAT Site Fisheries Dept Ogden's WWW Things
    Papua New Guinea 10,000 PEACESAT Site Online
    Samoa 10,000 PEACESAT Sites Interweb Env Update ECOTOURISM
    Solomon Islands 4,000 Ogden's WWW Things
    Tonga 6,000 Tonga Online
    Tuvalu 3,000 PEACESAT Site Ogden's WWW Things
    Vanuatu 5,000 Vanuatu On Line Vanuatu



  13. The UNDP Sustainable Development Networking Programme UNDP/SDNP has continued to flourish and Programmes have now been established in 26 developing countries. The papers submitted to the Workshop in Mexico are clear evidence of the success of the programme. Another 50 developing countries including several members of AOSIS have expressed interest and many have started or completed feasibility studies. The most recent accolade is the announcement of Flagship Programme Status for the SDNP at a meeting in Morocco in June 1996.

  14. Donors such as the Asian Development Bank are showing much greater interest in supporting access to the Internet. In October 1994, the International Development Research Council IDRC launched the Pan Asia Networking programme (PAN). The United States recently announced major support to provide access for African countries. CUnet is a major project of the OAS designed to establish academic, scientific, technological, and research networks for the Caribbean region while the IADB is providing substantial funding to network the UWI. A recent World Bank study has demonstrated the cost benefit of internet access.

  15. The rapid growth in the number of private ISP's has significant implications for the SDNP's as well as SIDSnet.. The potential impact of the private ISP's on future of the SDNP is discussed at length by Labelle, Ramani and Zambrano but they all conclude that there is still a very important role for the SDNP because the ISP's are not likely to fill the special needs of the clients of an SDNP.

  16. As can be seen from the sample of external pages, there are many individuals interested in small islands who have devoted considerable time and talent to the creation of WWW pages about specific small islands. An Island Web Consortium is being formed to try to harness this widespread enthusiasm as well as evaluate and organize access to the many pages that are rapidly being created. The main goal of the IWC is to promote the use of WWW to support the sustainable development of islands. SIDSnet could provide an opportunity for the members of AOSIS to make available first hand information about their sustainable development to each other and the rest of the world.

  17. Another important development is the tremendous interest in these new technologies such as WWW. The participants in the UNEP Seminar on Facilitating Access to Environmental Information and the Training Course on the Management and Dissemination of Environmental Information in Small Caribbean Islands were very interested in the potential of WWW. Visits to the campuses of the University of the West Indies in connection with Internet connectivity to support the Island Sustainability, Livelihood and Equity Programme (ISLE) funded by CIDA revealed widespread interest in using WWW. The Mona campus already has six servers and the Marine Environmental Management Programme at Cave Hill has mounted WWW pages on Sunbeach, a private ISP.

  18. The costs of the technology have declined dramatically. A $500 computer for accessing the Internet is expected on the market this year.

  19. The technology is much more user friendly than it was in 1994. One can do searches on remote databases such as those maintained by the Food and Agriculture Organization and transfer files much more easily than ever before. An example of the kind of information that can be obtained easily is given in Appendix 5

    20. IMPACT ON THE NATURE OF SIDSNET

  20. The developments do not change the fundamental principles identified in the 1994 study: catalytic donor funding, cost sharing, cost recovery, subscriber fees, user participation, decentralized management, capacity building, training, building on existing infrastructure, synergistic interactions with existing activities, technical cooperation (TCDC), promoting and demonstrating the benefits of increased connectivity.

  21. The developments do not change the importance of bringing together the sustainable development stakeholders in the country but there could be more emphasis on making information available and creating metainformation to facilitate access to information relevant to sustainable development including assessments of the data.

  22. The role of the regional support structure would still include training and assisting the national nodes but there would be more emphasis on developing regional metainformation pages. (e.g. the prototype Caribbean regional page)

  23. The role of the global support structure would be much the same as it was in the original study with added emphasis on developing and maintaining pages and techniques that facilitate access to information at the global level.

    24. FIVE OPTIONS FOR IMPLEMENTATION

  24. The costs given in the following tables are estimates based on the best information available at the time. Detailed costs require individual feasibility studies and the funds required could well be less in cases where personnel can be seconded or space made available at no charge. The amounts used in the 1994 study were $15,000 for office rental, equipment, supplies, telephone fax etc., $8000 for training at the National level, $5000 for marketing, $2000 for travel and $45,000 for equipment for full access.

    OPTION A: SIDSnet 94

  25. The current costs of the 1994 proposal have been estimated by reducing communications costs from $60,000 to $30,000 per year. Everything else remains essentially the same including the number of states which did not include all members of AOSIS

    26. ESTIMATED COSTS ( IN US$1000) OF OPTION A: SIDSnet 94
    YEAR 1 YEAR 2 YEAR 3 YEAR 4 YEAR 5
    NATIONAL 1960 2835 3130 3425 3600
    REGIONAL 1020 1020 1020 1020 1020
    GLOBAL 660 660 660 470 490
    EQUIPMENT 335 335 90 210 110
    TOTAL 3975 4850 4900 5125 5220

    OPTION B

  26. Provide full access to the Internet for all the members of AOSIS and establish national SIDSnet nodes, regional and global support structures as quickly as possible. The regional structure for the Pacific would probably be based on the SDNP that already exists. It will be necessary to identify an appropriate location for a Caribbean regional support structure and for a third support structure for the remaining members of AOSIS as quickly as possible so that they can assist members in preparing applications for feasibility studies and funding for the establishment of country SDNP's.

  27. Although there are many different models for establishing an SDNP and local circumstances must be taken into account, experience with other SDNPs has demonstrated the value of starting with a steering committee to bring together the various interest groups and prepare a proposal for a feasibility study. Individual country feasibility studies and the subsequent establishment of country SDNP's would take place as each country demonstrates that it is ready to proceed and adequate financing is available.

  28. The Pacific SDNP is the only precedent for the establishment of a regional support structure but the recent evaluation has questioned the wisdom of creating a regional office before strong national offices are in place. The success of the steering committee approach suggests that the process begin with a steering committee with a representative from each of the member states which is interested in participating at this stage.

  29. The global support structure could initially consist of a committee of the three regional directors and at least one additional staff member. It would be responsible for developing and maintaining web pages of annotated electronic links to international information relevant to the sustainable development of AOSIS members and coordinating applications for funding. However, the cost estimates are based on those made in the 1994 study.

  30. Raul Zambrano's report to the Mexico meeting gives the estimated annual operating costs for staff, telecommunications costs and office expenditures for 11 SDNP's including the Pacific SDNP. These costs range from US$70,000 to US$155,000. The project budget for the first phase (June 1994 - November 1996) of the Pacific SDNP is $US 620,000 and covers three countries - Fiji, Vanuatu and Western Samoa. The estimate in the original feasibility study was US$130,000 but this included US$60,000 for communications which has been reduced.

  31. It appears that the minimum staffing required for an SDNP which is providing network services is three, a manager, a technical person and an administrative assistant and that the average annual cost would be about US$100,000. (Note that this level of staffing is less than most private ISP's). For a small island with private ISP's, the minimum staffing would be an information resource manager with part time administrative assistance and the annual operating cost would be US$50,000 plus network service costs of US$500 per subscriber. Initial equipment costs are estimated to be about $30,000 per country

  32. The only experience for estimating the costs of a global support structure is the SDNP head office in New York and the analysis done for the original SIDSnet study. The costs are assumed to be the same as in 1994.

  33. The experience with the Pacific SDNP suggests that the cost for a regional support structure might be lowered to $200,000 per year. Assuming there would be three, the cost is estimated at $600,000.

    34. ESTIMATED COSTS (IN US$1000) OF OPTION B: FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED ADD 8 PER YEAR
    YEAR 1 YEAR 2 YEAR 3 YEAR 4 YEAR 5
    NATIONAL 800 1,600 2,400 3,200 4,000 12000
    REGIONAL 600 600 600 600 600 3000
    GLOBAL 400 400 400 400 400 2000
    EQUIPMENT 360 240 240 240 240 1320
    TOTAL 2160 2840 3640 4440 5240 18320

    OPTION C

  34. In this option, the members of AOSIS which are most advanced in their planning for SDNP's would start with a pilot project. The objectives could include:

  35. As an example, the pilot project might include the following members of AOSIS:

  36. A regional support structure would be established in the Caribbean and the Pacific SDNP would provide the regional support in the Pacific (Given the concerns expressed in the Draft Report of the Evaluation of the PSDNP, serious consideration should be given to separating the regional support structure from the Fiji National node). A third support structure would also be established to provide support for the AOSIS members in the Atlantic, Mediterranean and Indian Oceans. These regional support structures would facilitate access to information relevant to AOSIS members which is available in both regional organizations and international organizations such as UN agencies, CIESEN, WCMC and IISD.

    37. ESTIMATED COSTS ( IN US$1000) OF OPTION C: START WITH MOST ADVANCED COUNTRIES
    YEAR 1 YEAR 2 YEAR 3 YEAR 4 YEAR 5 TOTAL
    NATIONAL 1600 2400 2400 3200 4000 13600
    REGIONAL 600 600 600 600 600 3000
    GLOBAL 400 400 400 400 400 2000
    EQUIPMENT 600 240 0 240 240 1320
    TOTAL 3200 3640 3400 4440 5240 19920

    OPTION D :START WITH 16 COUNTRIES WITHOUT ACCESS

  37. In this option, top priority is given to providing full access to the members which appear to have the greatest need for assistance (e.g. the 16 which do not have full access now) and to an initial global support structure. The funding should be for a period of three years in order to provide enough time to establish the SDNP's and assess their sustainability.

    38. ESTIMATED COSTS ( IN US$1000) OF OPTION D: START WITH 16 COUNTRIES WITHOUT ACCESS
    YEAR 1 YEAR 2 YEAR 3 YEAR 4 YEAR 5 TOTAL
    NATIONAL 1600 1600 2400 3200 4000 12800
    REGIONAL 600 600 600 1800
    GLOBAL 400 400 400 400 400 2000
    EQUIPMENT 510 0 330 240 240 1320
    TOTAL 2510 2000 3730 4440 5240 17920

    OPTION E :TWO YEAR PILOT PROJECT WITH 14 FULL MEMBERS WITHOUT ISP'S 10 MEMBERS WHICH ARE MOST ADAVANCED AND THOSE ALREADY IN THE PSDNP

  38. This option arose from the discussion following the presentation of the draft report. It achieves the most desirable goal of bringing full access to the Internet to all AOSIS members as quickly as possible (Option D), ensures that the states which are planning to establish SDNP's independently can be involved and ensures that all regions are adequately represented.

  39. Options B, C and D were all extended to five years and included all members after the pilot phase to make it possible to compare with the 1994 study. This option shows only the cost of a two year pilot project and the selection of the participants is based on the criteria that emerged during the discussions of the draft report and the presentation to AOSIS.

  40. This option provides access for all full members of AOSIS that do not have access at the present time, eight members from the Caribbean selected on a first come, first served basis, and Malta and Mauritius to ensure balanced representation from the three regions. Fiji and Vanuatu which already have access would also be included in order to build on the existing PSDNP.

  41. This pilot project would also permit a comparative study of the effectiveness of the regional support structure in the Pacific with the experiences in the rest of the world. The global support structure will have to provide a lot of the help in implementing the national nodes and the development of metainformation. It is interesting to note how much of this metainformation for small islands is already being developed by various UN agencies such as TCDC which has complied a Directory of Experts of Small Island Developing States and Directories of Institutions and will be making it available on the WWW as soon as possible.

  42. The private company which has developed the official homepage for Samoa has suggested that they could provide 256 KB dedicated access to the Internet, full 24 hour technical support from the U.S., network, top level domain and DNS administration and local offices and local network manager/technical support for five countries at $12,650 per month. Start-up costs for computer and peripheral hardware, satellite dish and peripherals, installation and one week of training would be $123,650 for each country.
    ESTIMATED COSTS ( IN US$1000) OF OPTION E: COMBINATION PILOT PROJECT
    YEAR 1 YEAR 2 TOTAL NOTES
    NO ACCESS 13 1300 1300 2600
    PSDNP 3 300 300 600 INCLUDES CURRENT PSDNP
    ACCESS 10 1000 1000 2000
    PSDNP REG 200 200 400 INCLUDES CURRENT PSDNP
    GLOBAL 500 500 1000
    EQUIPMENT 750 750
    TOTAL 4050 3300 7350

    CONCLUSIONS

  43. In spite of the dramatic changes that have occurred since 1994, the need for SIDSnet is greater than ever before. The nature and function of SIDSnet have evolved with new developments such as World Wide Web but so has the potential of SIDSnet to support the sustainable development of the members of AOSIS.

  44. If there is any validity to the assumption that small island developing states can learn a great deal from each other, then it is essential to find effective and efficient means for sharing that information. It is not efficient if a government official from one island has to sift through the thousands of hits that occur with a general search of the Internet or go through a different maze of pages for each island which may be of interest. The need to organizes access to relevant information has been identified over and over again and significant resources have been devoted to setting up databases, GIS systems etc. but the use of such information in decision making has been lower than expected. The latest developments are major advances in facilitating access to information and offer the most promising opportunities for sharing information among the members of AOSIS.

  45. SIDSnet should provide what one might call a "virtual infrastructure". Just as people talk about virtual libraries in which people who do not have access to large local libraries can access information they need electronically, one can imagine small islands with limited resources being able to share information and expertise electronically thus enhancing the capacity of their limited infrastructures.

  46. It has become possible for many people and organizations to use a range of services from e mail to World Wide Web at a competitive cost. This does not mean that everyone in the state has access and one of the major concerns continues to be to avoid increasing the gap between the information rich and information poor within the country. In his paper to the Global SDNP Meeting in Mexico, Dr. Ramani stressed the importance of using traditional media such as radio, television newspapers and magazines to make the information more widely available within the country.

  47. For small island states with a limited market for Internet services, it may be better for an SDNP to contract with a local ISP for services instead of trying to run a competing service. Such an arrangement would permit the SDNP to concentrate on organizing access to relevant information and encouraging clients to make their information available There are several examples of such arrangements including the Natural Resources Conservation Authority in Jamaica which now uses Infochannel and the Caribbean Conservation Association in Barbados which uses Caribnet. In those islands where there is no reliable access either currently or in the immediate future, it will be necessary for the SDNP to provide the technological capacity required for full access to the Internet.

  48. Given the extraordinary amount of information about AOSIS members that is appearing on the Web, it is important for them to develop:

  49. Some of the challenges that still have to be met are:

    50. RECOMMENDATIONS

  50. Each member of AOSIS which has not already done so should establish a steering committee with broad representation to develop proposals for establishing a national SIDSnet node based on proven SDNP principles. Feasibilty studies should be undertaken as soon as possible to identify opportunities for cost sharing and otherwise reducing the actual amount of funding required.

  51. AOSIS should establish steering committees to develop detailed proposals for whatever regional and/or global support structures it decides are most appropriate. The cost estimates in this report are only estimates and might be reduced by finding ways to share costs.

  52. AOSIS should, as a group, negotiate better rates with PTT,s such as Cable and Wireless. Note that such negotiations are not the same as asking for a subsidy. Individual members may have to change their regulations to allow competition to bring down rates.

  53. AOSIS should begin a programme to increase the awareness of and appreciation for the potential of recent developments in information technologies and their impact on the nature of SIDSnet.

  54. AOSIS and the UNDP should develop a mechanism for coordinating applications for funding.

  55. AOSIS should proceed with Option E.

APPENDICES

1. Terms of Reference including list of members and observers of AOSIS and those included in the 1994 study

2. Connectivity and web pagesof the members and observers of AOSIS

3. Sample pages

These are some of the best pages that have been created about AOSIS members as well as examples of a prototype regional page for the Caribbean, the NET Search page and an example of an international database availabel throught the FAO. In addition to the links, one set of colour copies of the pages are provided on overheads.

4. List of people who have contributed to the ideas in this report in various ways.

5. Examples of Information that might be useful to have available through SIDSnet

6. Glossary of terms

7. Background material