The SADC Databank: The Role of Data Exchange in Empowering Local Institutions
Renato
Matusse
Secretary General for Culture, Information and Sport
The Southern African Development Community
Maputo, Mozambique
Let me begin by thanking UNESCO and the Smithsonian Institution for having extended this invitation to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and to me personally to attend this important conference on "Global Assessment of the 1989 Recommendation on the Safeguarding of Traditional Culture and Folklore: Local Empowerment and International Cooperation." For us in SADC, this conference comes at a very appropriate time: following the approval by SADC of the Sector for Culture, Information and Sport Regional Policies, Priorities and Strategies, we have embarked on consultations aimed at developing a Regional Protocol on Culture. We are also in the process of preparing a Regional Ministerial Conference on Culture and Development, an event that will bring together government officials drawn from ministries responsible for culture, finance and tourism, education, NGOs, international cooperating partners, and institutions involved in funding culture. This event is scheduled for late November of 1999.
The organizers of this conference have asked me to address the documentation, transmission, and revitalization of culture and the implications of working with grassroots and tradition‑bearing communities and with responsible state institutions (archives, regional associations of folklorists, etc.) in the Southern African Development Community. To do this, I will relate the experience we have had in moving towards the establishment of our own regional databank, the Southern African Cultural Information Systems (SACIS), a project aimed at collecting, processing, and disseminating cultural information as a way of enhancing cooperation, interaction, and complementarity.
The Southern African Development Community is an organization of fourteen sovereign states established in 1992 and aimed at promoting regional cooperation and integration. SADC Member States are, by virtue of their membership in the organization, committed to working together towards a common future. SADC Member States are expected to derive benefits on an equal basis.
The creation and strengthening of regional cooperation blocks is part of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) strategy as laid down in the first stage of the 1991 Abuja Treaty. This treaty states that "the [African] Community shall be established gradually in six stages of variable duration over a transitional period not exceeding 34 years." The important role that culture plays in the Regional Integration Agenda has been recognized within SADC as one that can successfully bring grassroots involvement. The SADC Declaration of Heads of State and Government issued in 1992 states that "regional integration will continue to be a pipe dream unless the peoples of the region determine its content, form its direction, and are themselves its active agent." The treaty itself declares that one of the objectives of this regional organization is "to strengthen and consolidate the long standing historical, social and cultural affinities and links among the peoples of the region.” Since its inception, SADC has taken the political view that its Regional Integration Agenda must be driven by the people and their will to live together and share in a common destiny. Administratively, SADC has taken a decentralized approach in which each Member State is given a sector to coordinate. Mozambique is responsible for the Sector for Culture, Information and Sport, the sector mandated to strengthen and consolidate the social and historical links among the people of the region. As I have already indicated, this paper concentrates on our own experience, which we hope will empower and involve local participation in arts and culture databanking, exposition, and protection. This experience rotates around SACIS.
The Southern African Information Systems (SACIS)
Rationale, Objectives, and Content
For a country or for a region like SADC to plan ahead, there is a need to know what obtains on the ground and how the available potential and resources can fit in a larger national or regional system. It is often disappointing to learn that local, national, and regional initiatives and infrastructures exist but are not fully exploited by others simply because those capacities do not come to their notice. It is also disappointing at times to observe that each artist, institution, or government attempts to reinvent the wheel with meager resources, skills, and capacities. An inventory of the initiatives, facilities, and infrastructures will get the region to know what obtains where and how such resources or potentialities can be utilized for the benefit of a single country or the entire region. To begin the process of developing such an inventory, SADC launched in 1996 the regional cultural databank known as the Southern African Cultural Information Systems. As indicated above, the idea of establishing a regional databank stems from the fact that the region felt that it would be difficult to launch regional cooperation without first having established an inventory of what obtains in each Member State. Therefore, the main objectives of SACIS are:
Following from the objectives above, it is clear that SACIS is intended to be an information and management tool for all those concerned with documenting, processing, and disseminating culture, its products, and events. This explains why the initial focus of SACIS will be on the following areas:
As will be explained later on, the collection of information on these subjects will not be the responsibility of governments alone. The governments will initiate the identification and sensitization of institutions – be these parastatal, private, or non-governmental – to enter into the SACIS network by providing information about them and their activities or by undertaking activities identified in the database.
Beneficiaries, Administration, and Products of SACIS
Right from its launch, SACIS had to identify its beneficiaries. These are intended to be those working in arts and culture both in the development of cultural activities (e.g., artists, arts promoters, researchers, and cultural institutions) and at the level of administration or facilitation of cultural development (e.g., government agenciess, NGOs, and cooperating partners). SACIS will thus contribute to filling in the gap about cultural information in the region, for the region itself and for the rest of the world. Perhaps at this point a question may be asked as to how SACIS will contribute to the work of libraries, archives, local associations, and communities. In my view a number of factors will make those goals realizable. First, SACIS data collection is meant to be participatory, drawing into the network more and more institutions and individuals. SACIS is coordinated by the Sector Coordinating Unit (SCU) in Maputo, Mozambique. In each Member State a national coordinator has been appointed and takes charge of coordinating data collection from the various national institutions that can provide the data relevant to the contents defined regionally. Once processed nationally, the data is then sent to the regional coordinating unit, where it is consolidated and then sent back to each contributing institution through the national coordinator. This means that national and local institutions begin to have a more complete picture of what happens nationally and regionally. They become aware of the potentialities that can be exploited for their own good, be these facilities, events, or opportunities, say, for training. Furthermore, SACIS offers the opportunity for institutions and individuals to experiment with what they learn from others in the SACIS network. Even from the difficulties and mistakes committed by others we learn.
I have been speaking about the participatory nature of SACIS. I now want to bring the other dimension: that SACIS is also a multi-tiered project catering to both the grassroots and academic levels. Let us consider the thinking being developed for greater grassroots participation and involvement.
A project aimed at the development of telecenters has been drafted by the SCU to serve local communities. Through these telecenters, local communities, cultural associations, and groups could be trained to collect, process, and retrieve data electronically. They would also be trained in basic methods of data collection and database maintenance. This way the region can expand on its capacity to generate and exchange information and contribute to regional cooperation and development.
On an experimental basis, the SCU launched its first catalogue on cultural information of the region last May. This catalogue contains information only from some Member States, but it does give an indication of the wealth of data that would be available to the telecenters. While funding is not available for the development of such telecenters, the SCU is working towards making the information that is being collected available electronically. The other side of the coin is the contribution that SACIS can make to universities, libraries, archives, and professional, hobbyist, and other voluntary associations.
With funding from the Icelandic International Development Agency (ICEIDA) and UNESCO, we have begun to experiment with this. Following the successful staging of the SADC Theatre Festival in Maputo in June 1997, the SCU approached representatives of each SADC country to write a piece on the status of theater in their home country. Working with the Southern African Broadcasting Association (SABA), the SCU has also begun a process of identifying contributors to another book reviewing the history of use of local languages in the media. The sector is also in the process of establishing links with the Linguistic Association of SADC Universities (LASU) to undertake the production of a SADC Linguistic Atlas. The underlying idea in all these projects is that by bringing those individual contributions together a regional picture is generated. This is important for individual contributors and readers, who begin to realize the potential, the problems, and the opportunities that are available in the region. This is also in line with SACIS’ intent to present SADC as a regional cultural unity and to use culture as a central ingredient in regional grassroots participation and involvement with the regional integration agenda.
In our view, the SACIS project will grow to have the ability to link local communities and institutions involved with collection and dissemination of cultural information such as archives, libraries, and cultural associations in the region. Apart from the catalogue mentioned above, we are also commissioning papers that will give readers a regional picture of events. We have just completed editing a book on theater.
The first major problem to be addressed is a lack of information collection and information exchange. We need to drive it home that information is power and a tool for development. We need to enhance the urge for collection and make information available in a timely manner to others who may benefit from it -- not keep it to ourselves, sometimes only in our heads.
Trying to encourage the region to collect and exchange more of the available information, the patron of SACIS, Deputy Vice‑Chancellor of Eduardo Mondlane University and Informatics Engineer Massingue, wrote in the first catalogue of SACIS, "When we keep our money under the mattress it may fill our hearts with joy that we own it. But at the same time the risks of it being eaten away by mice or devoured by fire are not to be discounted. When the same money is deposited in a bank it earns us interest, but more importantly it is shared by a wider society."
The second problem to be addressed is that of infrastructure. There is a need to provide equipment and appropriate working conditions. Sometimes, the problem may not necessarily be the availability of such facilities but may have its root in the rationalization of what is already available. In order to optimize what is or what is to be available, there may be a need for expert advice, which may be called upon from within other partner sectors.
The third area to be addressed is that of human resources. Already SACIS national coordinators have been appointed. However, if the network is to expand, training will become a necessity. This training, as I have indicated, will include both basic skills in data collection and computer and database use and maintenance. Such training should impress the members of the network on the need to work together for mutual benefit.
The final point to be made relates to international cooperation, which will complement the regional and national efforts. It is critical that SACIS receive the necessary support from the international community. With this in mind, the recent meeting of the Ministers of Culture, Information and Sport took the decision to request the UNESCO Director-General to support this project.
Taking into account the fact that SACIS, working on its own or with other institutions at the regional level, consolidates information emanating from national databanks, individuals, or institutions, we are of the view that those involved will in the end have a clear picture of what is available where, and thus will initiate direct contact with those institutions and organizations. The interest for such contact can be generated by some publications, events, training facilities, or exchange programs. The point is that with availability of information, it is possible for each institution to plan ahead to take advantage of the infrastructure, skills, and possibilities within the country and in the region. SACIS is an example of a regional cooperation mechanism set up by SADC in order to collect and exchange cultural data. Through this mechanism, local communities and organizations as well as governments will be able to develop a regional picture and take advantage of the facilities, skills, and possibilities that obtain in the region. SACIS is also expected to benefit those from other regions including other cultural organizations.
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