Use of the Internet for development organizations in Africa
| ALCOM | GCP/INT/555/SWE |
| Aquaculture for Local Community Development Programme | GCP/RAF/277/BEL |
ALCOM Field Document No. 35
| Use of the Internet for development organizations in Africa |
Lieven Verheust
Fisheries Officer
ALCOM
Funding Agencies:
SWEDISH INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY
BELGIAN ADMINISTRATION FOR DEVELOPMENT CO-OPERATION
Executing Agency:
FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS
Harare, Zimbabwe, November 1995
This paper describes the different uses of the Internet for development organizations in Africa and specifically how ALCOM is taking advantage of this booming low-cost communications medium. Since the Internet is rapidly expanding its penetration in Africa, the time is ripe to introduce the medium to development organizations in a language that can be understood by regular PC-users.
ALCOM is a regional aquaculture and fisheries programme of the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations). Based in Harare, Zimbabwe, it covers all the member-countries of SADC (Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Mauritius, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe)
The aim of ALCOM is to assist member-countries improve the living standards of rural populations through the practice of aquaculture and fisheries. Toward this end, pilot activities are conducted in member-countries to demonstrate new techniques, technologies or methodologies.
The information service plays a very important role in ALCOM to disseminate information and to make information available to all those interested in aquaculture and small water body fisheries. It is in this framework that the following paper was realised.
The designations employed and the presentation of material in this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations concerning its legal status.
Although ALCOM has been using the Internet for E-mail purposes since late 1993 it wasn't until April '95, that it actually got an on-line Internet connection through a server in Harare, Zimbabwe. Now, less than six months later, ALCOM has established its own home page and made its quarterly newsletter and publications available to virtually every Internet-user in the world. For many people and organizations, there is still a big psychological barrier to the use of this growing communication medium. Use of the Internet however is not complicated, does not require very expensive infrastructure and is within the reach of most development organizations. Setting up a home page on the Internet and networking with other organizations and people is a simple and efficient means of communication.
Hyperlinks to non-FAO Internet sites do not imply any official endorsement of or responsibility for the opinions, ideas, data or products presented at these locations, or guarantee the validity of the information provided. The sole purpose of links to non-FAO sites is to indicate further information available on related topics.
This electronic document has been scanned using optical character recognition (OCR) software. FAO declines all responsibility for any discrepancies that may exist between the present document and its original printed version.
1. INTRODUCTION TO THE INTERNET
1.1 What is the Internet and how does it work?
1.2 What do you need to access and use the Internet?
1.2.1 Internet and E-mail providers
1.2.2 Necessary hard-and software for E-mail
1.2.3 Necessary hard-and software for an interactive connection
1.3 Advantages of the Internet versus regular communication channels (phone, fax and mail).
2. POSSIBLE USES OF THE INTERNET FOR DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATIONS
2.1 Sending messages (E-mail)
2.2 Participation in discussion groups or mailing lists (E-mail)
2.3 Search addresses and phone numbers (gopher and WWW)
2.4 Search library catalogs (Telnet, gopher and WWW)
2.5 Searching general information (WWW and gopher)
2.6 Home page and Advertising (WWW)
2.7 Transferring files to and from another computer (E-mail, FTP, WWW and gopher)
3. HOW TO SET UP A LOW-COST HOME PAGE
3.1 Contacting a server
3.2 Basic components of a simple home page
3.3 Getting the software
3.4 Basics of html
3.4.1 How do I compose and edit a html-file?
3.4.2 Basic formatting codes
3.4 Leading Internet users to your home page
Appendix 1: list of Internet providers in Africa (except South Africa)
Appendix 2: list of Internet providers in South Africa
Appendix 3: example of an html-file
Since most of the publications about the Internet are interspersed with insiders terminology and slang, it is useful to explain a few popular terms. Like in hypertext, words or phrases in the text of this paper which appear in italics can be looked up in the glossary below.
ASCII: American Standard Code for Information Interchange, this is a globally recognised character set which contains mostly regular text characters. Simple Internet tools as well as E-mail use only ASCII signs.
Cyberspace: Slang for the Internet space where people surf (wander from site to site) or communicate with each other. “Inhabitants” of cyberspace are sometimes called netizens.
E-mail: Electronic mail, mail that is sent from one computer to another.
FTP: File Transfer Protocol, this is used to transfer files from one computer to another. FTP allows you to contact another computer and send (put) or receive (get) files. It is also possible to ask the directory-list or to delete files on the other computer (if you have write-access of course!).
Gopher: is a non-graphical Internet browser, mainly used by academic institutions. Every page offers you a menu with a number of other menu items or documents. Unlike WWW you “climb” from the roots to the ends of the branches but it is usually difficult to jump from one branch to another.
Home page: a page on WWW which gives the Internet-user information on a person, company or organization and which can link that user to other pages. A home page gives also the possibility to start up a search engine, to E-mail, to download files, to view graphics, to listen to sound-tracks and much more.
Hypertext: text which includes references to other text. Some words in the text on the screen are highlighted or have a different color. By clicking on these words with a mouse, a new text or graphic appears which can on its turn contain new references. Hypertext language on the Internet is known as html, hypertext files have htm as extension in DOS.
Interactive Internet connection: connection with the Internet which is continuously “open”. In this way the user stays on-line and is able to receive or send information from and to any other computer on the Internet at any time. A non-interactive connection usually means that the server only connects to the Internet to collect and send E-mail after which it closes the connection again.
Internet: is an international network that links a large number of computers and computer networks by different means: glass-fiber cables, regular network cables and telephone lines. Because the computers of this network are using a common “language”, they can “talk” to each other. The network makes it possible for one computer to pass its information to another which can pass it to yet another until the information finally reaches its destination.
Modem: hardware device which enables the connection between computers over a regular phone line. It can be a card inside the computer or an external device linked to your computer by a communications port. Most of the modems that are sold nowadays have both data-transmission and fax capabilities. A modem is characterised by the speed at which it can transmit data and the eventual compression of data before sending them or after receiving them. A 14400 Bps means that it can transmit 14400 Bits per seconds.
OPAC: On Line Public Access: a number of institutions allow anonymous users to access their computers for various purposes. Sometimes you login as anonymous, sometimes you give your E-mail address as userid (user identification), sometimes there are a limited number of OPAC id's available (e.g. OPAC1-OPAC5).
Search engine: there are a number of search engines available on the Internet which can search information available on WWW (e.g. Yahoo, Infoseek), gopher (e.g. Veronica, Lycos) or WAIS. If you submit a query, these engines will not search the whole Internet but will use their own database. This database can be composed by automatic indexing of the Internet, which is usually the case for gopher: at regular intervals, the whole gopher-space is indexed by Veronica, Lycos and others. On WWW, the search databases rely mostly on people that submit interesting URL's.
TCP/IP address: Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol address which can consist of a series of numbers or letters, separated by points, e.g.:
harare.iafrica.com or 196.7.123.3
This is the address of a computer, with wich you can contact it from wherever you are in the world. Beware that when you are calling your server, it will attribute you an address (usually this is shown when you are logging in) which might be different every time you log in.
Telnet: This is used to work on another computer on the net from a remote computer. In a Telnet-session you can actually do everything on the other computer as if you were sitting at its keyboard. There are a few different kinds of Telnet applications (Telnet, tn3270,…) and it is important to know which one is supported by the computer that you want to contact. Telnet is very popular to browse library catalogs with OPAC on the Internet.
URL: Uniform Resource Locator, indicates the exact address of a resource on the Internet: a document, a homepage or a file. A URL is usually composed of tree parts: the internet tool reference, the address of the computer and the directory or file where the resource is located. In the case of ALCOM's home page in Zambia, http indicates an address on WWW, www.zamnet.com is the address of the computer in Zambia and zamnet/alcom/alcom.htm indicates the directory and filename. The URL is then: http://www.zamnet.com/zamnet/alcom/alcom.htm. A URL without a filename can also be valid, in that case the hostcomputer will direct you automatically to a default file.
WAIS: Wide Area Information Server, a non-graphical Internet browser
WWW: World Wide Web, Interactive Internet tool that allows you to browse through information on the net by the use of hypertext. WWW is the most popular Internet application. You can easily add your contribution or advertisement on WWW by means of a home page.