Agriculture – Page 9

Agriculture, Mobile, Mobile Money, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Western Cape taxis to use smart cards

The Peninsula Taxi Association (PTA) in the Western Cape will become the first taxi organisation using electronic payments in South Africa.

The Peninsula Taxi Association (PTA) will become the first taxi organisation to use a smart cards system for payment (image: Gateway)

The end of January saw the launch of the Tap-I-Fare card payment system. Five thousand cards were distributed to passengers. These cards are compatible with the MyCiTi bus service and Johannesburg’s Reya Vaya bus service too.

With a fleet of 250 vehicles, the PTA is testing the system on a number of taxis for now. “As a pilot project at the moment, the card system was being implemented in 42 vehicles which ran the city to Victoria & Alfred Waterfront route but would be rolled out to other routes in future. The 42 vehicles had wireless hand-held devices upon which the cards were swiped,” the New Age wrote.

“As the most progressive taxi association in the country, it was always the vision of the PTA to look ahead and pre-empt the ever changing needs of the commuter. This meant that changes had to be made to keep up with the times, and this card payment system was but one option that was explored,” said Ghaalid Behardien, association spokesperson .

The first 1000 passengers to buy a new card will get it at 50% discount, while card holders’ fares from Cape Town central to the V&A Waterfront are reduced by 50c.

Charlie Fripp – Online editor

February 8, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Health, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

A Course on e-Health and m-Health: Using Information Technology to Improve Health in Low and Middle-Income Countries

E-HEALTH AND M-HEALTH:
USING INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY TO IMPROVE HEALTH IN LOW AND MIDDLE-INCOME COUNTRIES

Course URL: http://bit.ly/xo0DG9

International Health – online – Location: Internet

Course Instructors: Edward Bunker – Bill Weiss

Description:

Explores eHealth and mHealth in Low and Middle-Income Countries (LMIC). Students consider practical approaches to assess appropriate application of information and communication technologies to solve public health problems and improve health.

Students also identify and discuss challenges for developing and deploying eHealth and mHealth systems.

Through analysis of case studies and interactions with practitioners, students assess and articulate requirements for eHealth and mHealth systems.
Covers current topics and issues, including: “lessons-learned” from recent mobile health initiatives; challenges of creating, developing, and supporting systems within low-bandwidth or no-bandwidth environments; electronic health records (EHRs); role of mobile data collection within program monitoring and evaluation; and role and use of open source systems.

Although not exclusively, faculty and guest lecturers will draw upon their work and experiences related to HIV/AIDS in Africa.

Student Evaluation: Individual assignments (10%); Quizzes (10%); Exercises (10%) participation in group work and discussion (20%); two case study write-ups (30%); exploration of one emerging ICT, eHealth, or mHealth initiative (20%).

Learning Objective:

(1) articulate basic definitions and terms relevant to eHealth, mHealth, and Health Informatics;
(2) apply frameworks and other tools in the assessment and evaluation of eHealth and mHealth projects;
(3) consider how to elicit health-related needs and goals and determine if and how information technology can help meet those needs and goals;
(4) consider how information technology is or could be used to address health needs in LMIC;
(5) assist public health agencies and donors to develop or select information and communication technology to better solve problems and achieve objectives in LMIC;
(6) critically participate in discussions about basic system requirements for proposed systems by writing “Use Case” narratives and requirement statements;
(7) prepare Work Flow and/or Data Flow diagrams;
(8) identify the main drivers for the deployment of mHealth services in LMIC;
(9) describe and be familiar with the basic functions of an Electronic Health Record (EHR) Systems and discuss the potential role an appropriately applied EHR System might play within an eHealth ecosystem;
(10) examine and describe a variety of current mHealth and eHealth initiatives; and
(11) critically discuss and debate current eHealth and mHealth issues, challenges, and opportunities.

February 7, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Mobile Agriculture to feature at the Mobile World Congress 2012

A panel on “Mobile Agriculture: The Market Opportunity” will be one of the highlights at the upcoming Mobile World Congress 2012 scheduled for Barcelona, Spain at the end of this month.

This intensive panel session will cover issues on the immediate opportunities for the mobile industry to launch commercially driven services for farmers, and the emerging best practices and insights from existing service providers on overcoming challenges and launching Agricultural Value Added Services (Agri VAS). It will showcase the market opportunity for Agri VAS in emerging markets, and expected to be patronized by mobile network operators (MNOs), VAS providers, content providers, agricultural organizations, NGOs, development practitioners and academics interested in the opportunity to develop innovative new services.

The panel will include experts and thought leaders from the mobile agriculture industry. Below is the event information.

Event: Mobile Agriculture: The Market Opportunity

Date: Tuesday 28th February 2012

Time: 17.30- 18.30 CET

Venue: GSMA Seminar Theatre, Hall 2.1, Fira Montjuïc, Barcelona, Spain

Mobile technologies are enhancing access to information across the world and impacting lives in remote rural communities. There are nearly six billion mobile subscriptions in the world today. Four out of five new connections are happening in the developing world. Yet these markets suffer from numerous challenges in the agricultural sector, from low yield amongst smallholder farmers to supply chain inefficiencies.

The rural sector represents the largest customer base in emerging markets and is a significant growth area for the mobile industry. In response to this opportunity, the GSMA launched the mFarmer Initiative in 2011 to support mobile operators and agricultural organizations in launching commercially viable mobile information services for farmers. The GSMA mAgri Program identifies opportunities where mobile can have the most impact to mitigate these problems.

Mobile World Congress 2012 will celebrate the current state of mobile and offer a glimpse into where mobile has the potential to go next. For more information and to register for Mobile World Congress 2012, please click here. To reserve your place at the Mobile Agriculture panel event please contact the GSMA mAgri program at mAgri@gsm.org.

For more information on the GSMA mAgri Program, please visit: http://www.gsma.com/magri/

February 6, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Environment, Environment, Forestry, Land Management, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

The Amazon as Never Seen Before

Last week The Guardian announced that we’re now able to see the Amazonian rainforest as never seen before. A group of scientists, using LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) took images from a plane called the Carnegie Airborne Observatory. The images were taken by bouncing a laser beam off of the forest canopy at 400,000 times per second. The resulting images are vibrant, showcasing variation in biodiversity at unprecedented detail. The new technology will be used to manage the ecosystem, monitoring for signs of deforestation and degradation.

February 2, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Health, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Best Practices in Creating and Maintaining mHealth Partnerships

During the most recent mHealth Working Group, Kelly Keisling, Co-Chair, passed out a publication of mHealth cases studies developed by GBC Health. Entitled “Building Partnerships that Work: Practical Learning on Partnering in mHealth” and created in collaboration with Dalberg Global Development Advisors and the mHealth Working Group, its goal is to provide best practices for future mHealth partnerships. GBC Health sees partnerships as playing a key role in expanding mHealth into the mainstream of global health.

Photo Credit: The University of Akron

The case studies focused on diverse set of organizations, ranging across multiple sectors – technology, NGOs, and multilateral institutions. Those included were the Carlos Slim Health Institute, Deloitte, HP, Intel, Nokia, Novartis, the Stop TB Partnership, UNICEF, USAID, and Vodafone. The research revealed overlapping topics and ideas that could be used to create sustainable partnerships for mHealth programs. Below is a list of best practices that the publication pulled from the case studies:

Partnership Selection

Shared Agenda and Vision: Look for partners whose vision is aligned with yours.

Organizational Capacity: Make sure that your prospective partner will be able to adequately support the initiative at all stages of relevant involvement – from development and implementation to scale-up.

Local Expertise: Work with partners who are already working in-country and possess relevant local expertise.

Complementary Assets: Identify partners who can bridge gaps in your organization’s expertise and knowledge.

Reputation and Integrity: Consider referrals from trusted partners to identify new partners with a good reputation in the market.

Structuring for Success

Clearly-Defined Problem and Solution: Solidify and remain transparent about objectives from the beginning of your conversations with potential partners.

Roles and Responsibilities: Ensure that each partner has unique core competencies to contribute.

Shared Value: Create shared value by ensuring a ‘win-win’ for all partners.

Leadership: Identify a “champion” in each of the partner organizations to lead the campaign within their organization.

National Priorities and Program: Align projects with government priorities at the outset to help with scale and rollout.

Community Involvement: Engage the end-users in the design and on-going feedback loop to continually refine the program.

Multi-stage Planning: Establish a clear and committed plan for funding, implementation and maintenance among partners, from the beginning.

Strict Project Management Process: Develop a structure project management plan with supporting documentation.

GBC Health is a worldwide coalition of over 200 companies and organizations focused on using their resources to improve global health. Dalberg Global Development Advisors is a strategic consulting firm that works to raise living standards in developing countries and address global challenges. mHealth Working Group is a collaborative forum composed of 150 global organizations and more than 500 individual, for sharing and synthesizing knowledge on mHealth.

February 2, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Sustainability Lessons from HSS: Implications for FS & ICTs Projects

Eric Sarriot @ the Talk - Photo Credit: Ben Addom

“I suspect that the world you’re dealing with is even more complex than the world we’re dealing with in health…health is dealt with by doctors, a very simple minded people, but your field is probably more complex.” Those are the words of Eric Sarriot, Technical Director, CEDARS at ICF International.

Eric was speaking on the topic “Emergence of Sustainability in a Complex System: Are Lessons From the Health Sector Applicable to Food Security?” during January 2012 USAID’s Microlinks Breakfast Seminar in Washington DC.

Eric brought two challenging concepts together – “sustainability” and “systems” to help understand the question whether sustainability strategies for health system strengthening (HSS) can be applied to food security. He noted that development programs in general intervene on specific problems, gaps in performance, and deficits in capacity. And to do so, there is the need for workable plans and log frames. These imply a very rational use of linearity but when it comes to dealing with sustainability and the number of actors—‘stakeholders’—at play, it just gets too complicated or rather ‘complex’.

Photo Credit: CEDARS Center

So beginning with his view of a system, he argues that a complex, adaptive systems by some definitions will have a large number of agents/actors that are diverse and try to adapt to each other. The adaptation process to each other results in the complexity of the system. He went on to define sustainability in HSS as an (emerging) property of a system embedded in a larger environment in which interdependent actors through negotiated and coordinated social interactions, allow the expression of their respective and collective capabilities to maintain and improve the health of vulnerable population.

Using the sustainability framework developed at CEDARS through research with communities and practitioners, Eric shared their experiences with the health sector from Bangladesh. The health system in Bangladesh at some point was in equilibrium with interactions among diverse actors.

Process Towards new Equilibrium by CEDARS

This equilibrium was punctuated as a result of an external intervention that sent shock to the system leading to the shaking of the equilibrium. And by the end of the project, there was a new equilibrium which as achieved through things that were planned for and others that were not planned for. In effect, the actors found another way to interact that created the new equilibrium.

From this experience made available through a detailed report, the study posited that at least some of the lessons that have been learned about how health systems actually behave as “systems”—complex adaptive systems—may be relevant to the world of food security and value chain interventions. Also, observed is that complexity increases rather than decreases when it comes to sustainable food security and the role of value chains.

Can elements of this model help value chain efforts better plan for and evaluate the ultimate sustainability of food security of households?

Yes, I believe the elements of the sustainability framework for HSS can help agriculture and food security value chain system to better plan for and evaluate the ultimate sustainability of food security of households.

I totally agree with Eric on his statement that the world of food security, agriculture and value chain is more complex than the world of health. Firstly, I think the nature of the agricultural value chain – actors from research and development, input manufactures and suppliers, producers, transportation and logistics, processors and manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers, and the consumers – really makes it more complex than health.

Secondly, while “health services” aim at ensuring healthy lives of its users, “agricultural services” are aimed at building the capacities of its users to increase their productivity. For example, farmers are provided with agricultural advisory service to know when to sow their crops, when to spray, and when to market their products; and agricultural commodity traders are informed of the prices and locations of potential commodities to be able find the right market.

Thirdly, even though the health system is complex, all the actors have a common goal of providing health services to a vulnerable population in order to maintain and improve their health. So the users are more or less “passive recipients” of these services. Within the agriculture and food security value chain system, however, there are multiple recipients of the services as well as producers, making it more complex than health system. Farmers provide and receive agricultural services just as researchers, traders, and extension officers.

These features of the agriculture and food security value chain “system” and its larger environment with multiple interdependent actors, demand for a well coordinated and negotiated social interactions as required in the health system, to keep it sustained.

The place for ICTs

The complexity of the system and its associated interactions calls for effective communication networks, and this is where the importance of information and communication technologies (ICTs) could be realized. The sustainability framework presented by CEDARS, recognized the importance of a consistent data use to allow information-based decision-making and action. ICT for agriculture and food security projects should therefore be seen as value added services to ensure that actors within the system have access to timely and appropriate information for sustainable food security.

ICTs could be used in the following ways for increased information flow among the interacting actors:

Capturing technologies for actors to interact among themselves to understand potentials and diagnose needs such as data collection, monitoring and evaluation tools could be very useful within the system.
Communication tools to facilitate relationship building, and social network development such as social media tools that inform partners about services and users are good examples.
Processing and system management tools to ensure sustenance of the relationships built through network formation can also keep the system in equilibrium.
Communication and display media are also excellent ICTs for awareness creation and informing users about new products and their importance within the value chain.

How do we balance results and learning from these two systems?

I believe the key is collaboration. Realization of the ‘sustainability framework’ within the health system in any given community depends on the food security situation of that system. A closer look at the actors within the health system will reveal one or more ties with the food security and agriculture value chain system. Disturbing the equilibrium within the food security and agriculture value chain system will invariably disorganize the orientation of actors within the health system. Therefore to ensure that new equilibrium is maintained years after the intervention, actors must not see themselves as isolates but as components of the larger environment comprising of a number of systems.

Microlinks and its activities

Microlinks Staff Introducing the Breakfast Seminar - Photo Credit (Ben Addom)

Microlinks captures new learning in microenterprise development, disseminates it among practitioners, USAID mission staff, and other donors, and connects those actors to each other in order to improve development outcomes around the world. Using a knowledge-driven approach to microenterprise development, Microlinks aims to extend and multiply the impact of the learning and innovation developed through microenterprise research and practice. Visit Microlinks for more information on this presentation – the screencast and the transcript of the presentation, as well as future events.

The USAID’s Microenterprise Development office supports Microlinks and a broad array of knowledge-sharing tools, strategies, and events through the Knowledge-Driven Microenterprise Development program, implemented by The QED Group, LLC and its sub-contractors, International Resources Group and Training Resources Group .

February 2, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Mobile, Mobile Money, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Uganda’s Airtel launches mobile money

Uganda’s Airtel officially launched its mobile money scheme on Tuesday with Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi making the first transaction to a local journalist. The new platform should enable Ugandans to access their real money and convert it to e-money in order to pay bills and accounts, top up mobile credit and receive money across the country’s telecom networks.

Uganda’s Airtel officially launched its mobile money scheme on Tuesday (image: Blogspot)

Mbabazi said that telecom operators in the country are now giving users more options and adding value to their operations, which the PM said would have a “positive social impact and economic growth” for the country, singling out rural areas as having the greatest potential.

Airtel’s launch means the country now has four operators serving mobile money, after MTN, Uganda Telecom and Warid Telecom already had launched their services.

Airtel Uganda Managing Director, V.G Somasekhar told guests that the company invested sh300-million ($130 608) to upgrade its network services at 300 sites countrywide.

He said this enabled at least 1.5-million more customers to be accessed, bringing its total customer base to 4-million.

Andrew Matapare

February 2, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Mobile, Mobile Money, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Kenya’s Cellulant and Barclays partner for digital services

Kenyan mobile services provider Cellulant has inked a deal with UK’s Barclays Bank in order to provide digital services across the African continent.

The two companies will partner on a new platform aimed at connecting banks (image: stock.xchng)

According to the deal, the two companies will partner on a new platform aimed at connecting banks with third-parties, including mobile network operators to boost the efficacy of mobile money services across the continent.

“Cellulant’s platform will be deployed in stages in Ghana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Egypt, Mauritius, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, Seychelles, Botswana and Kenya,” the companies said.

Cellulant’s chief business officer, Paul Ndichu, said in a press release that “we have built a mobile commerce network connected to different platforms across different value chains in Africa such as [mobile] wallets, banks, merchant bill payment gateways and content delivery channels to deliver a transformational experience on mobile.”

According to John Gachora, Barclays Africa’s corporate banking MD, the digital drive is part of Barclay’s One Africa strategy to increase channel access for both retail customers and corporate clients.

“For corporate clients, this offers an efficient and cost-effective channel to bill and receive payments from their customers,” he added.

Janan Yussif

February 2, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Food Security, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

The Myth of E-Voucher Schemes for Enhanced Fertilizer Use

Photo Credit: Ben Addom

The future use of the information and communication technologies (ICTs) such as e-vouchers in delivering subsidized fertilizer (or other inputs) to farmers in the current information age is blurred due to the very high cost involved in setting up such systems and the anticipated power/energy problems. This was one of the revelations made by experts from the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC) and the World Bank during the January 2012 USAID’s Agriculture Sector Council Seminar held in Washington DC.

Ian Gregory, a consultant from IFDC spoke on the subject “Voucher Schemes for Enhanced Fertilizer Use: Lessons Learned and Policy Implications” and David Rohrbach, a Senior Agricultural Economist at the World Bank shared his experiences from eastern and southern Africa remotely from Tanzania on the subject “Opportunities and Risks of Fertilizer Voucher Programs.”

The speakers argued that based on their earlier experiences, using ICT-based systems to facilitate fertilizer delivery through the subsidy programs can be very expensive. This includes the initial cost of establishing such a system as well as maintenance cost due to the absence of ICT infrastructure and low ICT human resource level in their respective areas of operation. Also anticipated is the lack of power or energy (electricity) in the communities that these inputs are distributed.

This revelation came in at the time when the World Bank had just launched an eSourcebook on ICTs in Agriculture with a comprehensive list of innovative practice summaries that demonstrate success and failure in interventions. Among them is the use of an electronic voucher system in Zambia, an initiative that was reported in 2010. The system is currently being piloted by the United Nations World Food Program (WFP), CARE International, and the local Conservation Farming Unit (CFU) with support from Mobile Transactions (a company specializing in low-cost payment and financial transaction services). The e-voucher system empowers smallholders to obtain subsidized inputs from private firms (giving the firms, in turn, an incentive to expand and improve their business).

Fertilizer subsidy programs

Giving the background to the fertilizer voucher schemes, Ian stated that while the traditional fertilizer subsidies were an integral policy tool of the Green Revolution in the 1960’s, excessive fiscal costs and risks, late delivery, rent-seeking, political economy and patronage, rationing, lack of equity and efficiency, and displacement of the private sector led to the demise of these subsidies in the 1980s. But the fertilizer subsidy programs have resurfaced in the last ten years as a results of high international fertilizer prices.

David from the World Bank Tanzania also identified some of the risks associated with the program as vouchers (or fertilizer) being distributed late; vouchers redeemed by agents distributing the fertilizer; counterfeiting vouchers (or fertilizer); vouchers redeemed for cash; price inflation: greater demand than fertilizer supply (top-up or subsidy grows); number of target recipients grows faster than population; and over-reporting of production.

Is there a need for e-vouchers?

On the future direction of the fertilizer subsidy programs, David Rohrbach mentioned smart vouchers and ICT based systems as one of the possible reforms. Also possible is the effort to improve fertilizer use efficiency; find alternative strategies for strengthening competitive input markets; test alternative exit strategies; and explore the option of third party monitoring for improved management. These are areas that information and communication technologies could be strategically deployed for an efficient system.

Photo Credit: Mobile Transactions

According to the eSourcebook, the mobile transaction system in Zambia is enabling electronic monitoring of the e-voucher system, documenting which vouchers have been redeemed, where, and for which products, thereby improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the input subsidies. Also because farmers are registered with the system, they can be identified more effectively for specific training programs with input- and productivity-enhancing components. The e-voucher system also supports private agribusinesses by making them the direct source for inputs; as more private input dealers choose to participate, competition may increase.

With the success of the Zambia’s e-voucher pilot case, and the immense benefits that both farmers and the private sector providers can gain from such a system, I wonder why cost should still be an obstacle to its implementation in other countries. It may be true that an e-voucher system may not be easily accessible to these rural poor communities at this time, but the steadily decreasing costs of ICTs and the Internet infrastructure all point to a promising future. I believe this is a great opportunity for the private sector and the young entrepreneurs in these parts of the world to explore.

Cases of fertilizer subsidy programs

The two experts also compared fertilizer subsidy programs like the Sustaining Productive Livelihoods through Inputs for Assets (SPLIFA) of Malawi, Agricultural Inputs Support Program (AISP) also in Malawi, Ghana Fertilizer Support Program (FSP), Zimbabwe Agricultural Input Project (ZAIP), and National Agricultural Input Voucher Scheme (NAIVS) of Tanzania.

Photo Credit: Inform Africa

Some of the lessons learned include the fact that fertilizer subsidy programs do work for poverty reduction if targeted to vulnerable, potentially viable farmers and maintained for 3-5 years; they will also improve food security but at a huge cost and with leakage, crowding out, and mainly crop-specific; based on mixed evidence from 1980s, not sustainable; and they may work as a short-term fix for price spikes but distort markets, and at-source subsidy is a lower cost alternative.

Agrilinks is a new space for agriculture specialists and practitioners to access current information and resources on important agricultural and food security related topics and issues. The space leverages an array of experiences, resources, and expertise to encourage and promote knowledge flow among practitioners, USAID, partners, and other organizations specializing and working on current agricultural development issues. Visit Agrilinks for more information on this and future events.

January 31, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Education, Education, Education Partnerships, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Learning, Freedom and the Web: Mozilla’s eBook Explores and Offers How-Tos

Mozilla published a book last month that offers a glimpse at how open-source technology is shaping the field of education. The book entitled Learning, Freedom and the Web written by Anya Kamenetz and some of the 400 participants of the first Mozilla Festival held in Barcelona in 2010, explores possible answers to the questions: How can the ideas of the open source movement help foster learning? What are the most effective ways to bring learning to everyone? How does openness help the spread of knowledge?

The book contains session notes from the festival, quotes and blogs from leading experts, key-findings from current projects, as well as several how-tos including how to create your own ebook. The format of the book itself follows the ethos of the minds which collaborated to create it so that printed copies are available for purchase but it can also be downloaded as a PDF for free or accessed in an easy-to-use web version that includes video clips.

Exploring ideas such as the concept of industrialized education, the future of the physical library, and the quality and sustainability of open content, contributors include promising new ideas and tools that can be used to develop and share educational resources. For people who are unfamiliar with these concepts or are interested in developing their own open educational resources (OER), the book’s easy-to-follow instructions and format make it a great introduction to open-source technologies and their applications.

Helpful how-tos include difficulty level, amount of time to develop, who they involve and benefit, as well as steps. Topics include:

Creating an open education resource
Contract grading
Adopting an open textbook
Creating your own how-to
Creating your own ebook
Creating your own festival
Teaching and learning with Wikipedia

Learning, Freedom and the Web, both the book and the festival, might well serve as a barometer for the level of involvement and development of this new open source movement. When faced with the question of the movement’s future, authors leave the reader with a need to contribute and collaborate. “What really keeps a community going? Shared work, shared goals, shared fun, shared vocabulary, and shared rituals. There doesn’t have to be one ultimate unified vision. The idea of what learning will mostly look like in ten years, 50 years, or 100 years remains fuzzy, and that’s by design, because one definition of an improved future is one that has a greater diversity of choices than in the past.”

January 31, 2012/by actualize

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