Partnership in Technology Access (PTA)

Helping Governments Achieve Development Goals

Microsoft® Partnerships for Technology Access (PTA) helps governments achieve policy objectives through public-private partnerships (PPPs) that deliver technology solutions to underserved communities.

PTA's guiding principle is that technology can be a powerful enabler of development goals when driven by country stakeholders, embedded in public services and delivered through a network that leverages the strengths of the public and private sectors.

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Mission

The mission of Microsoft PTA is to make PCs relevant and affordable to citizens everywhere through public-private partnerships (PPPs).

Relevance: delivering products and services that meet the client's specific needs.

Relevance means that the needs of our clients drive the nature of PTA solutions, including the products and services that are offered. All PTA solutions are based upon a thorough understanding of client needs, challenges and opportunities. Partners from the public and private sector are selected according to the value they contribute to a solution that helps governments and communities succeed.

Affordability: tailoring a package of value-added products and services that are appropriate to the specific client's income capacity.

PTA solutions tailor a package of value-added products and services to our client's income capacity. An affordable solution package includes access to credit, convenient payment methods, and consideration of the ongoing cost of implementation.

Public-Private Partnerships

Both government and private sector investments are necessary for creating sustainable development. PTA’s public-private partnership (PPP) mechanism enables the public sector to harness the know-how, innovation, and resources of Microsoft, other private companies and civil society to improve the quantity, quality, cost and relevance of the products and services delivered.

How PPPs work

A PTA solution is driven by an engaged government sponsor tasked with achieving a policy goal. Public sector leaders work with Microsoft PTA to broker a public private partnership that can best meet the specific requirements envisioned by government. With broad experience in creating these types of partnerships, PTA provides governments with the blueprint for identifying and convening the various partners, aligning goals and incentives and creating a vision of shared success.

Each PPP balances individual goals, risks and rewards to benefit each stakeholder: government, private sector partners and citizens. Through complementary efforts, partners combine their strengths and work together for an impact that no one partner could achieve alone.

Solution Areas

Through PTA solutions, governments around the world are optimizing their IT investments, transforming the lives of citizens and laying the foundation for long-term economic growth

PTA solutions combine software, hardware and services to improve technology skills and access in the following development sectors:

Solutions for Education

Education is one of the top three public policy priorities for governments worldwide. Education policies aim to prepare young people and teachers for the future through standards for teacher readiness, curricula design and learning opportunities for rural and urban students and teachers. Most governments support personal computing access for students, teachers and schools, seeing digital skills as essential in preparing students to contribute to dynamic and competitive economies.

Government challenge

In 2007, there were 1.3 billion young people between the ages of 12 and 24 worldwide—the largest cohort of youth the world has ever seen. Educating them well requires that governments meet a range of challenges including:

·         Graduates who are unprepared to compete in job markets requiring information technology skills.

·         Outdated teaching methods and difficulty reaching all students with updated instruction—especially in remote areas.

·         Meeting standards and complying with mandates.

·         Funding issues that limit ability to provision teachers and students.

·         Engaging parents in their children's education for a better-rounded approach that reinforces the resources that are used and includes home, school and social learning.

Personal computing solutions are part of the solution. According to the World Bank, "The Internet provides a powerful tool for learning, work and the spread of ideas and information. As an opportunity enhancer, the Internet can facilitate, but never replace, teaching and learning, particularly in more remote areas. It also provides a wealth of information on health as well as work and education opportunities, thus enabling young people to make better decisions."

Partnering for results

Private partners for PTA education solutions typically want to expand their market presence to student and teacher groups with limited ability to pay. PTA solutions are made affordable through micro-financing or other financial arrangements, which help facilitate access to credit and increase customers' buying power. Software, training, hardware and other elements of the solution are designed for the specific set of customers and made available with the participation of governments or government partners. Partners can offer innovative solutions by combining technologies with other private sector vendors, embedding the solutions in the right government program, and helping educators in the public sector to innovate on their mandate to empower students through knowledge.

Solutions for Entrepreneurship

Small business is the mainstay of economies worldwide. In the United States, small business employs half the private sector workforce and generates up to 80 percent of net new jobs each year. Governments worldwide support entrepreneurship to buoy economic prosperity, political stability and sustained employment. One way to encourage small business is by supporting transformation through computer ownership. Personal computer-based technologies and skills tend to lead to higher productivity and profitability for small businesses, while supporting national compliance standards, business transparency and economic strength.

Government challenge

Governments take different approaches to supporting small business, including financial aid, tax incentives, export promotion and many other programs. However, governments face certain challenges when engaging with small business including:

·         Difficulty assessing and collecting taxes due to inaccurate reporting of commercial activity in small businesses.

·         Low export revenues due to lack of international market knowledge by small companies.

·         Difficulty bringing informal economic activity into compliance with tax, safety, and quality standards for regulatory reasons and for attracting investors.

·         Unemployment where entrepreneurial activity is low.

·         Difficulty prompting e-government services when few citizens have computer access and are not online or registered with the government.

Partnering for results

Private partners for PTA entrepreneurship solutions are typically local and multi-national hardware, software, connectivity and finance partners who want to expand their markets but have difficulty selling efficiently to small businesses due to relatively high sales and support costs. Because the small business segment is underdeveloped, these audience members need to find ways to efficiently reach out and create market opportunities. PTA helps partners to grow the market for their products and services by providing access to new customers. PTA also helps to increase customers' buying power by facilitating access to credit and increasing earning potential.

Solutions for the New World of Government

The information age is transforming the business of government and its relations with civil society. Governments everywhere are striving to understand how best to harness its value to enhance the delivery of public services, raise productivity and improve the lives of citizens. Electronic-government (e-government) can generate significant efficiencies for government and also enrich the lives of citizens by providing access to information, global business opportunities, health advances, learning opportunities and other services essential for advancing the public good.

While e-government can generate enormous benefits in contributing towards an enabling environment for social and economic growth, its success requires a fundamental change in the organizational structure, practices and capacities of public agencies. One of the key lessons of e-government initiatives worldwide is that the transition to online government services should first and foremost prepare government personnel to operate the IT systems on which e-government depends. Civil servants need to be made active participants in the implementation of reforms that ask them to retool, replace familiar business processes with unfamiliar ones, share domain expertise across agencies and accept a radically new bureaucratic culture where innovation is the norm. Ensuring that the civil service is fully engaged in change should be a public policy priority for all governments that are undertaking a transformation in public administration, including a transition to e-government online service delivery.

The Government Challenge

The revitalization of public administration promises to make it more proactive, efficient, transparent and service oriented. However, resistance -- a natural response to change in all environments -- represents a fundamental barrier to e-government success. In less developed countries, in particular, government workers frequently lack IT skills and fear that they will be replaced by IT-literate employees or made redundant by labor-saving technologies. Even in countries such as the United States with advanced e-government initiatives, fully a third of e-government projects fail on account of insufficient attention to civil servants. Even when outright failure is not the outcome, underestimating the "human element" aspect surrounding the implementation of change -- for instance, neglecting processes that help people absorb new applications, information flows, and technologies -- can significantly reduce the business value of IT investments.

The fundamental challenge for governments is to develop a viable strategy that can bring the organizational and people side of change together and thereby transform civil servants from change dissidents into change agents for e-government. Successful transformations of public administration have put a premium on socializing civil servants to change by making them key partners in the planning, design and implementation of reforms. Technology adoption in the government is also optimized when it is accompanied by digital literacy campaigns that provide to civil servants access to computers, skills and tools to empower them with a sense of digital efficacy. Building digital capacity within the government ranks also strengthens the delivery chain of e-government and increases service demand. More and more, policy makers recognize that attending to these "back office" human and technical processes that facilitate administrative receptivity to change and improves e-government performance needs to be made a public policy priority.

Partnering for Results

Public partners and civil society identify needs, bestow legitimacy, direct resources, and ensure efforts are channeled to meet government goals to build technology capacity among civil servants by helping them obtain a personal computer and the requisite software and skills.

New World of Government solution helps ensure government employees are adequately trained to use new technologies by offering PC-based solutions that civil servants can use at home – allowing them to continue working productively while they learn. Government's power to offer tax incentives and pretax payroll deductions help make these solutions affordable for their employees.

PTA training can also help governments work with civil servants to embrace technology and change as an opportunity for personal growth. Activities can include:

·         Develop a participatory approach. Change management strategies should involve stakeholders from all levels of the agency, including senior and middle managers and frontline employees.

·         Communicate strategy to stakeholders. Create comprehensive strategy for engaging civil servants to share the vision and rationale of e-government, explain the activities to achieve that vision with a clear articulation of responsibilities, and discuss areas where challenges may arise and agree on ways to mitigate risk.

·         Identify e-government champions among civil servants who can advocate for initiatives, raise awareness about benefits, and provide a feedback loop to higher management.

·         Tie performance evaluations to cross-agency success and develop a learning and reward system that reflects employee needs and concerns.

·         Provide opportunities for growth and cross-agency learning, including training, workshops and seminars.

Solutions for Public Health

Public health is one of the basic commitments of governments to citizens. In developed countries, higher expectations and longer life spans put strains on public and private health care systems. In some emerging economies, low investment in public health systems over time has resulted in a crisis of quality in healthcare delivery. There is widespread consensus that technology is or should be part of the reform package.

As IT-led health reforms improve institutions, the need for a broader PC penetration footprint among doctors, nurses and consumers becomes clear. Healthcare professionals have a need for digital skills and access to track medical advances and improve patient care. Healthcare information portals can help consumers as well as doctors with information and preventive care options—but only if PC access and appropriate solutions are available. Wider access to public health information has the potential to relieve over-burdened hospitals, help medical professionals do their jobs more effectively, and support a healthier, more productive population.

Government challenge

Public health leaders face daunting challenges as populations grow and age and healthcare technology evolves. Concerns typically include:

·         Rising cost of healthcare delivery limiting treatment availability.

·         Difficulty gathering data from disparate providers and systems restricts scientific findings for effective health policy.

·         Paper-based systems making compliance with healthcare regulations difficult.

·         Lack of digital skills among public health workers impeding ability to leverage digital information and keep up with rapidly changing treatment methods.

·         Isolated medical professionals who get little knowledge transfer, and fall behind professionally.

Partnering for results

Private entities typically engage in PTA solutions where they face market challenges due to inconsistent government standards for data, low PC penetration for patients and medical professionals and disparate IT healthcare systems.

Through PTA, partners can improve brand awareness and expand their presence in large but hard-to-reach markets. An added benefit is the opportunity to stimulate growth in the local software economy as demand for healthcare-related technology and services grow.

Solutions for Senior Citizens

Senior populations worldwide are rising as life spans lengthen. Worldwide, the number of people 65 or older is expected to double by 2030. As senior constituencies increase, governments are increasingly concerned with issues of aging such as cost of healthcare and quality of life in retirement. Many governments are exploring the use of technology to serve these growing populations.

However, senior citizens are among those least likely to own a personal computer. Without a larger footprint of technology, governments can make little progress in reaching seniors through electronic services.

Government challenge

Public policies related to aging are often overseen by social security or public health agencies, and tend to focus on issues such as:

·         High cost of healthcare and other services delivery to growing populations of seniors.

·         Challenge of caring for older populations disconnected from family and friends.

·         Those who wish to return to work, needing digital skills.

·         Enabling independent living for less mobile seniors.

·         Helping seniors stay connected socially and economically.

·         Providing financial support for longer periods of living on fixed incomes.

Personal computing solutions are part of the answer. Yet helping seniors cross the digital divide takes special focus, as first-time users face a steep learning curve. Difficulty when choosing and installing a complete personal computing solution may overwhelm novice users and prevent them from starting. Governments are challenged to overcome these obstacles in order to serve this growing and influential constituency electronically.

Partnering for results

Partners typically want to expand their markets where traditional marketing may not be effective. Senior citizens tend to need a complete solution with installation assistance and specialized training and support to gain skills. Seniors living on fixed incomes may have affordability issues.

PTA solutions amplify senior-focused public policies by making computers affordable and relevant to senior citizens and helping them to overcome the technology learning curve. PTA public-private partnerships for seniors sometimes include a non-governmental organization which can help define and deliver solutions that are compelling for seniors.

Solutions for Workforce Competitiveness

Governments are paying increasing attention to the importance of a workforce with high tech-skills to develop, maintain, and manage the modern information technology infrastructure upon which citizens and businesses depend. An estimated 60 percent of existing jobs and 90 percent of future jobs require some form of technology skills. Technology-based employment reforms and policies are essential for ensuring a ready workforce and a responsive, flexible, and competitive national economy. Governments in developing and developed countries alike are making workforce development a public policy priority.

The Government Challenge

In today’s increasingly globalized economy, workforce development and economic development are inextricably linked. A lack of qualified and appropriately skilled workers is among the most common concerns of employers. Yet government policy makers face a host of challenges to develop a competitive workforce. These range from costly subsidies for unemployed citizens and low productivity among existing workers who lack computer tools and IT skills, to connectivity issues that limit information and hence opportunities available to workers and those seeking work. Improving the workforce requires job training programs that incorporate technology as a core component of learning. Implementing computer-based technology programs that deliver computer training and access is the foundation of successful employment and training policies.

Partnering for Results

PTA solutions that target worker retraining and workforce preparedness policies help governments unlock the transformative power of technology for the citizen and the nation. PTA solutions in Chile, Guatemala, Argentina and other countries have all been set in motion by a government ministry with a mandate and commitment to improve the delivery of a public good, such as opening opportunities for the unemployed by investing in an IT capable workforce. Key beneficiaries of PTA solutions are citizens for whom a public-private partnership (PPP) brings together technology training, workforce skills, employment portals, and an affordable PC purchase option for personal use. Provided with access to relevant and affordable skills and tools, unemployed men and women can identify and qualify for job opportunities previously out of their reach and thereby build opportunities to enhance their personal futures. Other partners in the PTA solution also derive value from the PPP as they reach new customers with complete solutions that enhance the value of their products and services. Together, PTA and consortium partners amplify public policies that strengthen economic growth through advancing workforce competitiveness, lowering unemployment rolls and helping businesses fill job vacancies.

Capacity Building

Microsoft PTA strengthens the national capacities of developing countries to achieve their development goals

Microsoft PTA works with governments to build country capacity to undertake and sustain reforms in education, government, health and other key sectors on which economic and social development depend.

Through one-on-one skills training, staff workshops, technical assistance and a business model that prioritizes shared responsibility, government leadership and country ownership, PTA solutions enhance the capacities of individuals, institutions and societies to carry out development mandates in an ongoing way.

PTA provides a package of products and services that promote skills transfer, professional development, and change management strategies as well as long-term structural change by mobilizing communities to engage in development solutions. In this way, PTA builds capacity across a spectrum of sectors from education and workforce development to small businesses and within the government itself. All PTA solutions are designed to strengthen national capacity, stimulate sectoral advances and generate productivity gains through the effective deployment of information and communication technology (ICT).

Building capacity in the use of information and communication technology (ICT) for the purposes of socio-economic development.

·         PTA solutions build human resource capacity by equipping individuals with the understanding, skills and access to information, technology and training that enable them to perform effectively. For example, a PTA education solution in Guatemala put affordable, computer-based technology solutions and training in the hands of teachers and students to transform the educational system.

·         PTA solutions build institutional capacity to implement change by incorporating organizational sustainability in the solution design. For example, "New World of Government" solutions combine individual digital literacy training with institutional change management processes that build the collective capabilities of staff. By making civil servants key partners in the planning, design and implementation of reforms, NWOG solutions enable administrative receptivity to change, strengthens the delivery chain of e-government and increase service demand.

Resources

The organization and approach of Partnerships for Technology Access is informed by experience and research. For example, past experience shows that public-private partnerships (PPPs) yield more successful and sustainable outcomes when they map to a specific population segment, such as teachers or small businesses, rather than the broader population.

Research also demonstrates that public-private partnerships are more durable when program designers think through the value to be realized by all partners--government sponsor, private-sector partners, and citizens.

Studies show that well-conceived PPPs can be a highly practical and effective way to deliver sustained citizen benefits that support government goals.