The GSMA, a global body that represents the interests of over 1000 mobile operators and suppliers, launched the mFarmer Initiative Fund today, in Cape Town South Africa. The Fund, which will run until 2013, is backed by financial support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

If successfully implemented, the mFarmer Fund will enable the provision of more efficient farm extension services to 2 million of the world’s poorest farmers. The Fund will target “mobile communications service providers, in partnership with other public and private sector agricultural organizations, to provide information and advisory services to smallholder farmers in developing countries living under US$2 per day”.

The initiative will target 12 countries: India, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. However, the technologies developed and lessons learned will be shared globally. The mobile sector advocate said the initiative will function through competitive and deadline-driven grants. For more on the criteria for grants from the mFarmer Fund, please click here.

The Fund is part of GSMA’s thrust to fully deploy and integrate mobile technology into agricultural management, to boost productivity and ensure food security, under its flagship Mobile Agriculture (mAgri) Programme.

The GSMA project will further promote demand-driven, use inspired mobile tools for farmers. The rapid rise in mobile phone subscriptions, in even the outskirts of the developing world, presents opportunities to improve the lives of those at the bottom of the economic pyramid.

 

Nearly a year after the devastating floods in Pakistan, calls are being made by UNICEF health officials to expand capacities of mobile health clinics in the country. The clinics were first developed in response to the 2005 earthquakes in the northern region of Pakistan. Although the mobile clinics have touched hundreds of thousands of lives, more will be needed with expanded capabilities to ensure their long term impact.

In October 2005, the UNFPA joined hands with the Pakistani government and created mobile health clinics, whose main focus was on maternal health needs. By 2008, these clinics had treated over 850,000 patients, mostly for maternal and child health related issues. The clinics, still running, are staffed by women and are stocked with equipment and supplies for quality maternal health care. Since 2005, UNICEF has also become a key funder for mobile health clinics in Pakistan.

The UNICEF funded mobile health clinics tackle a variety of health issues, with an emphasis on maternal and child health. These clinics are staffed by three health workers, and treat up to 300 patients on a daily basis. After the emergence of the floods that affected 20 million people in Pakistan in July 2010, these health clinics became pivotal in reaching isolated populations.

Healthcare for women and children is better now than it was before the floods and the earthquake. However, despite the welcomed success of these mobile health clinics, there has been a call to expand the capacities for the mobile health clinics in order to make them more sustainable. This is where the world of ICT can step in and lend a helping hand.

The potential for impact is highest is rural and isolated areas where resources are poor and hardest to reach. According to a UNDP report, “ICT is yet to be widely mainstreamed to assist developing countries in addressing traditional development problems with innovative solutions and approaches that are both effective and more easily scalable and replicable.”

ICT services can complement existing initiatives such as the mobile health clinics in Pakistan to attenuate health burdens such as maternal mortality, which is what the UNFPA funded clinics focused on. This would be crucial in rural areas where ICT services would be invaluable. ICT services can potentially offer live video or audio feeds to health professionals when examining patients as well as educational classes to women from urban based instructors using the mobile clinics already in use.

Once ICT services are in place, NGO’s and government agencies can directly improve citizen access to information and at the same time, immediately strengthen their own capacities to help the citizens. Pakistan and other developing nations will only continue to reap the benefits for years to come.

The ITU’s newly formed Broadband Commission released its first full report Monday, June 6, 2011, entitled A Platform for Progress.  The report highlights the need for governments to adopt national Internet strategies in order to compete in the global market.  Broadband Internet access, the report states, should be universally available through the public sphere.  Others such as Charles Kenny, researcher at the Center for Global Development, argue that Internet access should be leveraged through the private sector, dictated by market needs.

The report reads, “To optimize the benefits to society, broadband should be coordinated on a countrywide basis, promoting facilities-based competition and with policies encouraging service providers to offer access on fair market terms… Developing isolated projects or piecemeal, duplicated networks is not only inefficient, it delays provision of infrastructure that is becoming as crucial in the modern world as roads or electricity supplies.”

Some ICT4D experts, however, are not so quick to believe the report’s broad-reaching claims.  Charles Kenny, from the Center for Global Development, explains in Foreign Policy that the evidence showing Broadband access increases growth is weak.  Looking at data from 1980 to 2006, one unpublished World Bank study estimates that for every 10% increase in Broadband penetration a 1.3% increase in national GDP can be expected.  This is a sandy foundation, argues Kenny, for the Broadband Commission’s recommendation that countries develop, invest in and subsidize national Broadband plans.  Other studies, not cited by the Broadband Commission, show limited if any growth as a result of increased Broadband access.

I personally corresponded with Mr. Kenny via email last week regarding the role of governments and private companies in National Broadband Networks.  His responses are listed here:

1.      In your opinion, what is the role of the Internet in fulfilling the MDGs?

The Internet is definitely a factor in speeding progress towards poverty reduction, lower mortality and more widespread educational opportunities.  At the same time, the Internet is neither necessary nor sufficient for such progress.  Take health: the interventions necessary to dramatically reduce child mortality are things like widespread vaccination, the use of bed nets, breast feeding, and sugar-salt solutions to counter diarrhea.  The Internet may be able to help in rolling out these approaches, but that role is decidedly secondary.

2.      Where can Broadband have its greatest impact – health, education, governance, economy, or agriculture?

To date, the biggest impact of broadband in developing and developed countries alike has been in entertainment—allowing widespread access to interactive gaming and streaming video.  Looking forward, there are surely applications across all of the areas you list, but it is far too early to suggest where the biggest impact will be.

3.      Should Broadband services be provided by governments, private companies, or a combination?

Private companies.  It is too early to say that there is a big justification for public financing of Broadband networks; we just don’t know if there is a considerable public good impact.  Regardless, if the telecoms industry has taught us anything it is that private competitive provision of information infrastructure has lowered prices and extended access far more rapidly than government provision.  So even if the government wants to finance broadband network rollout, it should work through the private sector.

4.      Should countries pursue a National Broadband Network or leave the market to organically construct networks?

Leave it to the market.  Command and control has sometimes, but rarely, worked as a development strategy.  But the fast-moving area of ICTs isn’t a good place to try it.  Given how little we know about Broadband’s economic and social impact, this isn’t an area where governments should be throwing money regardless.

Despite Mr. Kenny and others’ doubts, the Broadband Commission recommends governments develop their own National Broadband Networks.  Their report can be downloaded here.

 

Charles Kenny is a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development. His current work covers topics including the demand side of development, the role of technology in quality of life improvements, and governance and anticorruption in aid. He has published articles, chapters and books on issues including progress towards the Millennium Development Goals, what we know about the causes of economic growth, the link between economic growth and broader development, the causes of improvements in global health, the link between economic growth and happiness, the end of the Malthusian trap, the role of communications technologies in development, the ‘digital divide,’ and corruption.

 

GBI is pleased to welcome the 2011 class of Summer Interns! After a very competative selection process, four interns have been selected for the GBI 2011 Summer Program, which began on May 31. The group represents universities from the DC area as well as Massachusetts and Utah.

Katie Leasor is a M.A. candidate at American University for the International Media program with a focus on using information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) in Latin America.  Originally from New Jersey, Katie graduated from Roger Williams University in Rhode Island with a double major in Global Communications and Spanish.  During her time at Roger Williams, Katie studied for a semester at the University of Wollongong in Australia and spent a summer in rural Guatemala, working in an orphanage called Casa Guatemala and a biodiversity conservation center in Petén.  Katie speaks Spanish and will be contributing to the ICT4Democracy and Governance site.

Tyrone Hall Originally from Jamaica, Tyrone has recently completed his MA in International Development and Social Change at Clark University and has been accepted into the PhD Program in Media and Communications at the London School of Economics. Tyrone has worked as a journalist in Jamaica, Austria, Barbados and the United States and recently won the ACP-EU Innovations in ICT for Agriculture and Rural Development contest after defending his proposal to tackle Jamaica’s two main agricultural challenges: information asymmetrics and praedial larceny. Tyrone speaks French and Spanish and will be contributing to the ICT4Agriculture and ICT4Environment sites.

Jeff Swindle has completed a BS in Sociology at Brigham Young University and will be attending University of Cambridge in the fall to begin an MPhil in Development Studies. Originally from Arizona, Jeff has has traveled extensively studying development and particularly the relationship between rural connectivity and economic development. Jeff just returned from Mexico where he assisted in research for Concero Connect, a Grameen social business that brings high-speed Broadband internet access to rural villages. Jeff speaks both Spanish and Portuguese, and he will be writing for the Connectivity 4 Development and ICT4Education sites.

Shazad Ahmed (not pictured above) is currently studying at George Washington University, working on a Masters of Public Health, focusing on Global Health with an emphasis on design, monitoring and evaluation of programs. He has a BS in Neurobiology from University of Maryland and has studied at Universidad de Granada as well. He speaks Spanish and Bengali and has experience working for global nonprofits and community health projects, and conducting clinical and lab research. Shazad will be writing for the ICT4Health site.

Leaders from businesses, governments, NGOs, and non-profits gathered today in Washington D.C. for the opening of the Aid and International Development Forum 2011.  At the first workshop, Innovation in Information, speakers issued a universal call to the humanitarian sector: there is a need for technologies that are simple, usable, and pre-planned.

Adamant, unabashed, and bold, Joe Donahue, CEO of iMMAP, and Keith Robertory from the ICT department of the American Red Cross, both heavily criticized the technology industry for their counterproductive actions respecting humanitarian crisis.  Robertory advised, “Treat technology like a black box.  It doesn’t matter what goes on internally, but rather what goes in and what comes out.”  Donahue went further, “I’m tired of flying in sexy technologies…what looks good in Washington doesn’t look good in the field.”

Their call for simple technologies that match the technological astuteness of its users was particularly relevant at this conference, where the aid industry was in full swing.  Despite its backing by USAID, MCC, and the World Bank, the conference was primarily full of businesses, some more focused on selling their products than alleviating suffering and poverty.

Other presenters, however, reiterated that their focus was on helping people, not their bottom line.  Alf Ellefsen, from the UN World Food Program, highlighted the use of three Internet connectivity technologies used by his agency during humanitarian crisis.  One such technology, emergency.lu, includes the rapid deployment of satellite based Internet connections that can be delivered to natural disaster sites within 20 hours.  The satellites are then set up around the disaster zone, effectively restoring communication between key humanitarian and government agencies in order to organize relief efforts.

Key to the conference was the theme of innovation and public-private partnerships.  The diversity of organizations present at the conference demonstrated USAID’s commitment to global alliances across sectors in order to combat poverty.