Paper short abstract:

Senegal put significant resources into the digital transformation. The goal is to show how it is transforming the socio-economic dynamics of an unequal territory and concentrating an important strategic competition between the telecommunications actors, in the name of a certain idea of development.

Paper long abstract:

The « Digital Senegal 2025 » strategy, must serve as a catalyst for modernizing the economy and improving the competitiveness Senegal Emerging Plan.

Digital technology is seen as a way to make up for the lack of traditional infrastructures thanks to online services and the speed of adoption of these solutions. This sector is a way to create new jobs and goods that demonstrate the Africans’ capacity for innovation.

However, access to networks and online services are conditioned by electric access, the economic interests of the operators, as well as the financial and technical capacities of the populations to use Internet.

While there are important demographic and socio-economic inequalities in a territory with important constraints, what are the new territorial dynamics induced by the digital transformation ?

The aim here is to show how competition in the telecommunications sector conditions the discourse, the representations and the spatialization of power between public and private players, between historical economic partners (France) and more recent ones (China).

This competition pushes each player to deploy multiple strategies to assert its influence and power. For private players, the strategic interest is justified by demographic growth, the use of digital solutions and the weak regulations on data. For public players, digital development of the territory is the return of the planning state, while offloading its responsibilities to private players. It is also a way to enhance political action and promote an idea of « development » of the country through digital technology, to attract more investments.

Paper short abstract:

Cette recherche abordé la problématique de l'introduction du numérique dans le secteur de l'Education (volet orientation universitaire). Elle met aux prises des intérêts antagoniques des acteurs qui du reste sont mus de part et d'autre par une "rationalité" au sens bondonienne du terme.

Paper long abstract:

L’enseignement supérieur burkinabè qui compte quinze (15) institutions d’enseignement publiques réparties dans

les treize (13) chefs-lieux de région du pays, permettait au nouveau bachelier d’étudier dans une université de son

choix. Cependant, avec l’avènement de la plateforme Campus Faso, celui-ci a l’obligation de faire un dépôt de

dossier dans au moins deux universités différentes en choisissant au total douze filières. Cela pose un double

problème. En plus du choix de filière se joint le choix d’université. C’est dans l’optique d’analyser la

problématique du choix d’université que la présente recherche intitulée : « Gouvernance universitaire et

rationalité du choix d’université des bacheliers orientés par Campus Faso à l’Université Nazi BONI » a été menée.

A travers une méthode qualitative et une posture théorique basée sur la théorie du choix rationnel (TCR), nous

avons réalisé trente entretiens individuels et un focus group auprès de deux catégories d’acteurs (responsables de

Campus Faso et étudiants de l’UNB). Il ressort que de part et d’autre la problématique de la rationalité est mise

au-devant. Pour les bacheliers, il s’agit des raisons personnelles, sociales, économiques, mais toutes rationnelles

au sens de R. Boudon (1979) qui justifient leur choix de villes (Universités). Du côté des autorités universitaires,

la rationalité s’entend comme la gestion rationnelle de la capacité d’accueil de chaque université.

Mots-clés : Orientation, Gouvernance universitaire, Campus Faso, Choix d’université, Nouveau bachelier.

Paper short abstract:

This talk offers empirical insights into experimental practices of an East African tech-firm for digitalisation in agriculture. Developing a technology while promoting entrepreneurship by setting up an e-extension system in a Tanzanian village raises questions about trust, data and profits.

Paper long abstract:

Given the widespread lack of alternatives in post-colonial and post-development debates, digitalisation raises hopes for a future path to development. In contrast to a history of unfulfilled promises by the state or NGO projects, the testing of digital technologies by the private sector is seen as relentlessly honest and hard business, leading to sustainable development. Instead of mere transfer, knowledge and technologies are now to be developed directly at the sites of their application and in collaboration with local communities. In this presentation, I will illustrate how the development of a profitable technology and the promotion of smallholder entrepreneurship will be linked through the establishment of an e-extension system in the Tanzanian village of Mandera. Through my ethnographic insights into the work of the East African technology company M-Shamba, as well as the use of the I-Plus information platform for knowledge sharing among Tanzanian farmers, it becomes clear that digitalisation in agricultural development does not necessarily escape its technological and epistemic fixation. Cooperation between private and non-governmental actors, the production and use of data, and individualised and regional knowledge exchange are developing in contradictory ways. Questions arise about honest intentions, trust and sustainable business models around digital technologies. This contribution suggests that the experimental use of digital technologies can only reinvent agricultural development to a limited extent.