Etta F.E. and Parvyn-Wamahiu S. (eds) (2003) Telecentres in Uganda, in Communication Technologies For Development In Africa: Volume 2 The Experience with Community Telecentres, Ottawa: IDRC

Online: http://web.idrc.ca/en/ev-56552-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html

Cfr table, rows 6, 7, 8, 9 and 11

The founding ideologies for the two types of facilities also differ markedly. Whereas the telecentres have a development, social, and economic empowerment motive, the cybercafés are primarily profit-oriented market ventures. To spread their services thinly over a wide service arena would therefore seem antithetical.

Seventy-six percent of the sample stated that they use neither the telecentre nor the cybercafé and indicated that the preferred method of sending and receiving information was by word of mouth through human messengers and informers. This seems to suggest that for a large number of rural folk the telephone or newer forms of information and communication have not become commonplace.

Information needs expressed by community members placed education and the acquisition of new skills topmost followed by health information, production information, and information about governance and government information. However, the communities preferred sources for this information were often not the telecentres. An analysis of the sources of information used by community members revealed a high dependence on sources external to the telecentres or cybercafés, although the telecentres fared better than the cybercafés in this regard.