Photo Credit: Republic of South Africa

The South African Department of Communications in partner with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), hosted the inaugural ICT Indaba 2012 conference June 4-7, 2012 at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, South Africa.

The 2012 ICT Indaba showcased how South Africa’s strong ICT infrastructure can benefit strategic sectors of the African economy such as education, healthcare, infrastructure and extractive industries. With a strong focus on socioeconomic development and job creation, Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe reminded attendees that on average, a 10% increase in broadband connectivity for developing country leads to a 1.4% increase in GDP. Furthermore, international delegates and ICT industry leaders stressed the importance of developing and implementing an ICT strategy, to act as a catalyst for the other African economies.

The conference gathered international stakeholders to create a continental agenda to expand the growth of the ICT sector, and establish a networking platform for like-minded industry leaders. Expected to run annually for the next five years, the ICT Indaba will be used to discuss ICT policies geared towards poverty reduction and the creation of a knowledge based economy across the continent. This year, four speakers from Rwanda, China, Cuba and India presented papers on different development models for ICT industry. Additional keynote speakers included but were not limited to the President of the Republic of South Africa, Mr. Jacob Zuma; Deputy Secretary General of the ITU, Mr. Houlin Zhao; Lead ICT Policy Specialist of the World Bank, Dr. Tim Kelly; and Managing Director of Microsoft South Africa, Mr. Mteto Nyati.

Taking a collaborative approach to ICT development and welcoming relations between countries and regions, African leaders aim to fast track their policies for increasing broadband access across the continent. Using a theme entitled “Bridging the Digital Divide”, a target was set by the Ministries involved to have 80% of the African population online by the year 2020. Speakers stressed the importance of using sustainable, affordable green technologies to foster socioeconomic development throughout the continent. The need to reach rural areas was discussed as well, by presenters like Motlanthe who stated, “We must also not forget that 55% of the Africans live in rural areas. As a result, it is our responsibility to ensure that they are integrated into the Knowledge-based society”.

Not without its challenges, one obstacle to ICT development addressed during the conference was the comparatively high price of broadband. Acknowledging this obstacle, new licensing plans have been enacted in order to increase competition in the data market, decreasing prices and making access more affordable. As South African Communications Minister Dina Pule stated, “These Internet Service Providers (ISPs) big and small are also expected to offer affordable broadband services to poor South Africa’s and people living in rural areas”. On a regionally wide scale, five more undersea cables to be constructed by 2014 will also reduce costs associated with universal access.

In addition to setting the 80% broadband penetration target, a team will also be set up to monitor the implementation of Indaba’s resolutions. While simultaneously serving broader development objectives, such as attaining the Millennium Development Goals, the ICT Indaba created a forum through which the continent can openly discuss and subsequently address, complex issues surrounding ICT strategies. The declaration prepared by the Ministries involved also reaffirms Africa’s commitment to ICT for development, and the ongoing implementation of ICT polices already in effect. Given the large amount of stakeholders that attended the inaugural conference, it will be interesting to see how Africa’s progress takes shape in the years to come.

You are invited to submit a proposal for a presentation, open session or poster at the…
2nd Annual mEducation Alliance
International Symposium:
2012- Partnering for Scale & Impact
September 5-7, 2012
Washington, DC.

For this year’s mEducation Alliance International Symposium, we want to highlight your experiences and insights on partnership. What does a successful partnership mean for your work? What are the challenges and opportunities evident in partnerships designed to improve learning outcomes through the use of mobile technologies? What kinds of additional or expanded partnerships could your work benefit from, and what could the mEducation Alliance do to support this?

Under the broad theme of partnerships, we’ll be looking for presentation and open session proposals involving the following themes:
Public and Private Sector Partnership Engagement
Mobiles for Reading
Mobiles for Inclusive Education and Assistive Technology
Mobiles for Education System Strengthening
Mobiles for Youth and Workforce Development
Mobiles for Education in Crisis and Conflict Settings

The Mobiles for Education (mEducation) Alliance is an international collaborative effort between bilateral and multilateral donors, NGOs, foundations, private sector partners, academic researchers, and implementing organizations. Our collective agenda is to explore cutting-edge intersections between mobile technologies, education and development, to reduce duplicative efforts, and promote collective knowledge-sharing. The increasing ubiquity of mobile phones and coverage and the current and possible utilization of other mobile devices, including e-Readers, tablet computers, flash memory, micro/ “pico” projectors, and audio/visual devices among other technologies, provide valuable opportunities for supporting quality education impact in developing countries.

The mEducation Alliance has formed a symposium planning committee, composed of representatives of a number of supporting organizations, which will select 10-15 presentation proposals and 20-25 poster proposals based on a rating system which takes into account: 1) topical relevance to Symposium themes, 2) leading edge research or piloting of highly promising mobile technology utilization for improving quality education impact, and 3) highly participatory and interactive format to encourage networking and partnership development. The planning committee will work with selected presenters to promote interactive presentations to maximize dialogue with the audience. The Alliance will also accept a number of Open Session proposals, which will be reviewed based on the format of proposed session and level of interaction with participants, in addition to the session topic’s relevance to the overarching goals and mission of the mEducation Alliance.
Guidelines on Presentation and Poster Session Objectives
Preferred approaches to sessions include:
– Emphasis on innovative and/or cross-sectoral approaches to partnerships, and on “yet unsolved” challenges in education and the use of mobile devices;
– Innovative, interactive formats, preferably with live demonstrations whenever possible;
– Focus on lessons learned, findings, and project and research designs that have broad applicability to the education sector;
– Highlighting outcome- and impact-level results in education in developing countries; and,
– Sharing useful tools, guidelines, and methodologies that could be immediately applied elsewhere.

Guidelines on Open Session Objectives
Preferred approaches to these informal learning opportunities include:
– Highly participatory dialogs relevant to the Symposium themes;
– Creative formats which encourage networking, partnership building, and knowledge sharing (such as a FailFaire, or other format sharing lessons learned);
– Open sessions organized around a specific focal area of interest, such as geographic regions, educational level, mobile device or languages (sessions conducted in languages other than English are welcome in this regard);
– Sessions designed to delve into reflections on cross-cutting issues and the state of the field, such as ethics, gender, evaluation, or a session looking at relevant technological developments.

Proposal Template
The following items should be covered in proposals not exceeding 2 pages (excluding CVs and examples of handouts, tools, etc.).
– Presentation, Poster or Open Session title
– Type of session (panel presentation, demo, poster, quiz show, debate, discussion, etc.)
– Short abstract of the presentation, poster or session, including 2-3 learning objectives
– Presenters and their relationships to the session content (attach CVs)
– Detailed session outline
– Examples of handouts, tools, guides to be shared with participants
– Contact person and email and phone

Session proposals should be sent by Friday, May 25, 2012, to: mobilesforeducation@gmail.com.

Important Dates
Session proposals due to mEducation Alliance
Friday, May 25, 2012

Selected presenters invited to present
On or before Friday, June 22

Presenters submit all A/V requests
On or before August 1

Final Presentations, Posters, Sessions due
On or before August 8

mEducation Alliance International Symposium
September 5 – 7

Please feel free to share this letter of invitation with relevant units within your organization or to other partners or researchers who work with mobiles in the context of education, but please note that participation will be by invitation only. There are no registration fees for the Symposium, however presenters and participants will be responsible for all travel costs associated with attendance. More information is available at www.meducationalliance.org. Please address any questions to Rebekah Levi (rlevi@jbsinternational.com) and Scott Kipp (skipp@jbsinternational.com).

Relation between Farming, Research, Extension, Gender & ICTs (Photo Credit: Ben Addom)

The main obstacle to food security (the availability, access, and utilization of food) in most agricultural-based developing economies is lack of human, technical and institutional capacity  to produce and distribute the food. In this post, I bring together two arguments as the basis for addressing the challenge of capacity building in agriculture through the emerging value chain approach, and the role Information Communications Technologies (ICTs) can play to increase food security in some of these economies. Below are the arguments:

1)    In the Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) Gender and Rural Employment Policy Brief, No. 4 (2010) issue, the editors asked an important question – whether the agricultural value chain development could be a threat or opportunity for women’s employment? The authors argued that the value chain development can provide opportunities for quality employment for men and women but at the same time perpetuate gender stereotypes that could keep women in lower paid, casual work and not necessarily lead to greater gender equality.

2)    At this years’ International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) annual Governing Council meeting in Rome, the Microsoft founder Bill Gates stated, “One of the most important priorities is connecting the poorest farmers in the world to breakthroughs in agricultural science and technology. Right now, a digital revolution is changing the way farming is done, but poor small farmers aren’t benefiting from it.”

From these two arguments, I discuss below what I believe agricultural value chain is, its relation to gender, the importance of capacity building, and the role of ICTs in strengthening the capacity of the actors to ensure food security.

Agricultural Value Chains

So what is all about the agricultural value chain? Before the 2008 hike in world food prices that created a global crisis and caused economic instability and social unrest across the globe, the agricultural sector was given very little attention by the donor community compared to other sectors like services and industry. With the revelation by the World Bank’s World Development Report (WDR) 2008 that GDP growth originating in agriculture is about four times more effective in raising incomes of extremely poor people than GDP growth originating outside the sector, a new stream of interest emerged to avoid such a global disaster again.

An Agriculture Value Chain Framework (Image Credit: GBI)

The value chain approach to agricultural development is one of the models, which basically places an emphasis on recognizing the relation between the various actors within the agricultural innovation system for smooth flow of resources and value adding process as products move from source of production to consumption. It aims at streamlining production and marketing activities to ensure that resource flow is coordinated and roles are well organized from the farm to the consumer. It identifies a set of actors and their respective activities that are aimed at bringing basic agricultural product from research and development, through production in the field, marketing and value adding processing to the final consumer.

Value Chain and Gender in Agriculture

So how can this model perpetuate gender stereotype? The traditional agricultural innovation system generally operates in isolation in terms of actors allowing them to exchange resources and transact businesses without any definite coordination of activities. As explained by the above policy brief, the modern value chain model may be key to food security, but can also be channels to transfer costs and risks to the weakest nodes, particularly women with the rapidly globalizing agricultural markets where the value chains are often controlled by multinational or national firms and supermarkets. In the modern value chain system, the paper pointed out, men are more concentrated in higher status, more remunerative contract farming, while women predominate as wage laborers in agro-industries. Also women workers are generally segregated in certain nodes of the chain (e.g. processing and packaging) that require relatively unskilled labor, reflecting cultural stereotypes on gender roles and abilities. FAO gender and food security statistics figures show 44.70% in 1950, 45.87% in 1970, 47.34% in 1990, 48.10% in 2000 (estimated) and 48.74% in 2010 (estimated) share of female labor force in total agriculture labor force.

Capacity Building and Value Chain in Agriculture

The gendered nature of agriculture  – research, extension, and farming (as depicted by the figures in the previous section) does not only show how important it is to consider women in making decisions concerning the global agricultural development but also tells how their involvement will continue to rise despite all the stereotype. For both men and women to benefit from the modern value chain, the public and private sector approaches to agricultural research, development and extension has to be reconsidered. Capacity building for all the stakeholders must be directed at three components:

i) Institutionally, efforts must be made with the current value chain approach to seek gender-oriented, demand-driven research and extension activities. Institutions that give opportunity to stakeholders to contribute, share ideas and engage in constructive discussions will lead to sound innovations. Women put together have voice. Value chain projects must focus on farmer cooperatives with gender specific groups. Involvement of women must not be limited to only farming but extended to research and extension with more females motivated to take up key roles in these institutions.

ii) Humanly, while I believe there is so much efforts to improve the human capacity level of research and extension in some of these economies, my observation is that over 90% of this effort is targeted at the symptoms of the problem instead of the actual root cause. In other words, how much effort is being made to re-evaluate and re-structure the current educational institutions that produce the researchers and extension officers in these economies? That is the root of the problem. In-service training activities are short term strategies. Therefore long term strategies to help overhaul the existing educational systems in some of these economies will help address the human challenge.

iii) To achieve both the human and institutional capacities, there should be regular external technical support with material and human resources through sharing of best practices in agricultural research, extension and farming from other developing economies or developed countries. Efforts must be made also to capitalize on the strengths of receiving economies to be able to give the right technical advice.

ICTs for Capacity Building in Agriculture Value Chains

The second argument above argues that even though there is a digital revolution in farming, smallholder farmers are not benefiting. I will agree with the fact that smallholder farmers in some developing countries have seen increased access to agricultural information for production and marketing in the past decade, but this cannot be likened to a “revolution.” This increased in information to and from farmers cannot be compared to the speed at which the technologies are being developed. So there must be a problem somewhere.

The emerging communication technologies, social media and Web 2.0 tools are of no doubt critical in increasing capacity for timely data gathering, knowledge production, and information exchange even among illiterate farmers in developing economies. But how can this be done to benefit the target clients? Whose responsibility it is to spearhead the digital revolution among the smallholder farmers?

I believe much of the responsibility is on the donor community, the technology developers and the project implementers. As pointed out by the Bill Gates, the  approach being used today to fight against poverty and hunger by the donor community – International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD), the World Food Program (WFP), and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and others is outdated and inefficient.

In other that the new communication tools such as mobile phones – feature and smartphones, iPad and other tablets, social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, podcasts, audio and video conferencing, etc. to have impact on researchers, extension officers and farmers, new strategies have to be developed. Whether the National Agricultural Extension Services (NAES), the private sector extension services, or national research institutions, once the necessary capacity is built and tools provided, delivering information, technical advice and agricultural skills and training to farmers will follow.

Rural villages around the world lack reliable access to water and technology. Like a broken record, a common mistake made my aid groups that go into such communities is the failure to properly teach local groups how to properly care for, use, and integrate complex, expensive equipment. It breaks and becomes a physical reminder of broken promises.

Kayarani, a small village in Bolivia made up of subsistence farmers is one such example of a locality where past campaigns to improve sanitation has produced mixed results. The NGO Water for People is attempting to avoid previous mistakes by working with local community and government officials for effective engagement in building a sustainable water system and latrines.

A critical aspect of Water for People’s approach in remote villages like Kayarani is its Android feature that uses GPS and GoogleEarth software. The feature program is called FLOW (Field Level Operations Watch). FLOW offers an easy way to collect data, aggregate photos, conduct surveys, and communicate information via mobile phone within the area. FLOW was built by Water for People in 2010 to provide accountability and transparency to donors and the public.

FLOW is different from other programs in that it’s much easier to maintain accountability through its instant feedback electronic database. This accountability allows Water for People and the local community to find creative, collaborative solutions using data that challenge anecdotal norms. FLOW is adaptable, allowing users to create surveys on any topic in order to best reflect the impact of the project. The fact that it’s a phone feature means that data can be collected anywhere and later automatically uploaded if there isn’t a mobile connection.

In 2011, Kayarani built a gravity-fed water system with assistance from Water for People and the local government. This system provides reliable and safe water for the fifty families in the community. The infrastructure was co-financed by the local community to encourage maintenance. The local government also provides hygiene education through a worker who regularly visits every household to collect data throughout the different phases of the water and sanitation project. A FLOW worker will continue to monitor and evaluate the project for ten years, ensuring that everyone in the village has adequate access to water and sanitation forever.