Originally posted on the GBI Portal – Page 12

Data Discovery and Access: WMO Opens Up

WMO Information System boosts data exchange for disaster risk reduction, forecasting, predictions and service delivery for food security and health

Last month the World Meteorological Organization released a new, more accessible and free international system that improves upon the current exchange of weather, climate and water data. The WMO Secretary-General, Michel Jarraud, said that “the WMO Information System is the pillar of our strategy for managing and moving weather, climate and water information in the 21st century.”

The WMO Information System, or WIS, connects and integrates information from three types of data centres:

National Centres collect and distribute data on a national basis. They generate quality controlled analysis and forecast products, and services, including archiving national climate information. The National Meteorological or Hydrological Service coordinate or authorize the use of the WIS by national users.

Data Collection or Production Centres are similar to National Centres but focus on thematic, regional or global collection and/or production of sets of data, forecast products, processed or value-added information, and/or for providing archiving services.

Global Information System Centres connect to each other through a high speed private network. They rapidly share information meant for routine global dissemination that they collect from National Centres and Data Collection or Production Centres in their area of responsibility . They also serve as distribution centres into their areas of responsibilities. Global Information System Centres provide entry points, through unified portals and comprehensive metadata catalogues, for any request for data exchanged within the WIS. They also provide the connection to other information systems such as the Global Earth Observation System of Systems.

February 29, 2012/by actualize

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

Ericsson and MTN partnership boosts m-wallet

Ericsson, leading mobile phone company, and MTN, Africa’s largest telecom operator, announced a strategic new partnership to boost the m-wallet services in Africa and the Middle East.

Christian de Faria, MTN Group Chief Commercial Officer, delighted to partner with Ericsson on expanding m-wallet. (image: file)

Announced at the Mobile World Conference in Barcelona, Spain on Monday, MTN will become the first operator to officially deploy the Ericsson’s Converged Wallet platform. Both companies said the service is “a new complementary service to the integrated pre-paid charging system and mobile financial services solution for MTN consumers in those regions”.

The new m-wallet reportedly delivers a fast track route for MTN to introduce relevant, new and differentiated m-wallet market offerings to its Mobile Money customers.

As part of the co-operation, Ericsson said it would offer a prime integrator engagement model encompassing “software, systems integration and managed operation services”.

Christian de Faria, MTN Group Chief Commercial Officer, said, “Optimizing the Mobile Money consumer experience directly impacts consumer stickiness, and with Ericsson Converged Wallet we can now address our strategic priorities by enabling rapid response to our consumer’s preferences and expectations”.

MTN said it currently has more than 5 million mobile money subscribers in 12 African countries.

“2012 will be the year of partnerships across the emerging m-commerce eco-system. MTN has long been an early adopter in mobile money, and this new partnership builds on our ongoing relationship of collaboration,” said Hans Vestberg, Ericsson President and CEO.

“Driving accelerated time to market for operators and linking wallet accounts to purchases across multiple payment systems is a clear next step in next generation mobile financial services.”

Joseph Mayton

February 29, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

AMIS-Cameroon for UN’s MDGs 1, 3, 7, and 8

Photo Credit: AMIS-Cameroon

AMIS-Cameroon is bridging information gap in the African country of Cameroon by connecting farmers with vital information through SMS thereby boosting sustainable agricultural activities that promote the UN’s Millennium Development Goals 1 (Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger), 3 (Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women), 7 (Ensure environmental Sustainability), and 8 (Develop a Global Partnership for Development).

AMIS-Cameroon uses information and communication technologies (ICTs) to create connections between farmers and agricultural technicians to encourage them to support each other through mutual advice and knowledge sharing. Through information hubs that are located in the rural farming communities, AMIS-Cameroon gathers product information and send via SMS to consumer groups who buy at farmers’ prices.

The project is using a fully coded, fully automated 24/7 information feedback loop which farmers and consumers can consult for their different needs. The concept has undergone a thorough field investigation sponsored by SPIDER.ORG and currently seeking financial support to carry out a massive outreach that would enable scaling to serve the over 12 million Cameroonian farmers. The model is simple and is replicable.

GBI followed up with AMIS-Cameroon to understand how such a simple SMS innovation can help address the United Nations Millennium Development Goals 1, 3, 7 and 8. Below is the response from Tambe Harry Agbor, the Executive Director of Amis-Cameroon.

Photo Credit: UN MDGs

AMIS-Cameroon and MDG 1: Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger
The problem of Cameroonian farmers is a small reflection of what African farmers in general suffer from – acute lack of information. This lack of information means that from planting, to harvesting through location of markets to sell their products, farmers are not expose to information that predisposes them to carry out informed investment decisions to create wealth for them and their families. Given that the shelf-life of most of these agricultural products is very short, any unsold products end up as waste within the immediate vicinity of the farming population, since they do not have information about far flung markets where their products are in demand for a better price. Thus both farmers and consumers remain confined to a vicious cycle of poverty (for the farmers-since they cannot sell their products to create wealth) and hunger (for the consumers-who do not get these products which the farmers dump or give to animals)

At AMIS-Cameroon, we use SMS technology to target these alienated groups with information that brings them together in a mutually beneficial relationship where farmers can sell their products profitably and use the money to take care of life’s basic necessities such as the health and education of their children on the one hand, and on the other hand the consumers get information about where to locate nutritive products which can keep starvation and hunger at bay.

AMIS-Cameroon and MDG 3: Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women

AMIS-Cameroon democratizes the process of information dissemination. Most of our cultural values in Africa relegate women to the role of passive observer even if it is “she” who has the ideas that would take her family out of the stigma of poverty. Thus when we send the same information to both men and women, informing them how to plant crops formerly reserved for males, we are in effect giving both groups the impartial possibility to make use of the information at their disposal to best advantage. Some women farmers have till date not been able to carry out the production of certain food crops which are considered crops for men.

Furthermore, the possibility to earn stable incomes from agriculture has caused some parents to rethink their position on girl child education. When the family is poor, everything is done to make sure that the girl child stays at home and work so that her brother can get an education. But when we send out information which has the ability to connect farmers to markets, and increase the revenue streams of the family, parents then tend to feel more comfortable to invest also in the education of their girl child. Hence educated women can also vie for public office based on the possibility of their families to crawl out of the $2 per day curse to earning higher income returns that prioritizes girls’ education on the same level with boys’ education.

AMIS-Cameroon and MDG 7: Ensure environmental Sustainability

For the past decades, farmers have essentially been farming in the dark. Through ignorance, they have continued to deplete irreplaceable ecosystems and damaging the essential web of life so central to our very existence. It is not uncommon in most Cameroonian villages today for families to walk for very long distances before getting wood to cook their food, or even fauna to spice their delicacies. The fast encroaching desertification in most of our Sub-Saharan countries is a testimony of the extensive damage done to the environment through irresponsible farming practices where whole forests are destroyed, soil-enriching microorganisms killed, and loosed sub soils washed away by erosion.

In collaboration with sustainability experts and agronomists, we deliver timely advice via SMS to new entrants into the farming profession so that they can carry out responsible practices that preserve the fragile ecosystems which have been stretched to their limits by centuries of uncontrolled practices that harm none other than the farmers themselves.

AMIS-Cameroon and MDG 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development

When we started the AMIS-Cameroon Project, one of the most recurrent complaints we encountered in the field was that experienced farmers have always refused to share their know-how with younger inexperienced farmers. We instituted an information exchange forum for farmers whereby farmers in region A tell us what must be done for a particular crop in order to enhance its productivity. When we visit Region B we shared this information with them, and those in Region B in turn become more willing to share their own experiences which we take back to farmers in region A. Through this practice we got farmers to understand that they are winners when they share agricultural technologies with one another, and that they stand to lose everything if they hide their knowledge. By encouraging them to ‘Think Development locally’ we let them see just how possible it is for them to ‘Develop Globally’.

Through our portal at www.amis-cameroon.org, we receive product requests for farmers in Cameroon from consumers from abroad. We then blast such SMS locally and farmers are rallied at short notice to supply their nearest product depot where our chain of organized transporters pick them up and deliver for onward delivery to clients.

Impacts of AMIS-Cameroon

In conclusion, AMIS-Cameroon has developed 10 business models which if sponsored shall generate direct employment and create sure revenue streams for all actors involved along the value chain. Some of the significant achievements of the project so far include increased in subscriber base from an initial 200 farmers in 2009 to well over 1500 by 2010 by providing 4 SMS per week to these users. In 2011, bee farmers in Kumbo village in Cameroon were connected to new markets enabling them to increase their sales by over 50% in markets that knew nothing about their natural honey. The project has also created a very important partnership with KIP Solutions, a firm based in the USA that is helping to define better strategies to further the vision of the project.

For more information and to support this vision of bridging information gap for African farmers, visit AMIS-Cameroon.

February 29, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Can ICTs help reduce side-selling? Challenges with financing the Ag Value Chain

Photo Credit: Microlinks

I was part of a recent USAID After Hours Seminar Series (even though this particular one was a breakfast event) sponsored by the Microenterprise Development office on the topic “Viewing Value Chain and Household Finance From a Demand Perspective.”

The discussion was led by Geoffrey Chalmers, a senior technical advisor at ACDI/VOCA and Jason Agar, Director of Kadale Consultants Limited who joined from the UK. The speakers identified among others challenges to the value chain financing from a demand side perspective. These include ‘side-selling’ which acts as disruption for agricultural value chains; enterprises and households facing production, price and market risks; the difficulties involved in obtaining finance for fixed asset; farmers losing value through forced early sale; exploitative power relations between producers and buyers; and weak working capital and cashflow within the value chain.

The speakers cited a case from Malawi where they identified governance structure – open (market based) vs. closed (directed) as one of the causes of side-selling and recommended “hungry season payments” to help farmers meet household demands for food, school fees at times of low income inflow. In Nicaragua, they observed that supervision of the harvesting process and provision of additional services by the union cooperatives and local microfinance institution (MFI) to the farmers could help reduce the side-selling.

So what is Side-Selling in the context of the agricultural value chain financing?

One of the features of the value chain approach to agriculture is the contractual arrangements between firms such as microfinance institution (MFI) and the farmers or producers. Farmers under contract are provided with inputs, training, technical assistance, credit, and other services as well as having a guaranteed market for their produce. These farmers are expected to sell their produce to the financing firm with guaranteed, and most of the time pre-determined price.

But at harvest time when the prices of the produce are higher in the external market compared to the pre-determined price with the financing firm, farmers have an incentive to sell to the spot market instead of selling to the firm that financed them. This practice is known as side-selling or diversion. Side-selling may take forms such as diverting inputs from firms to non-contracted crops; by not adhering to the production schedule agreed upon with the firm; by directly side-selling the produce to other buyers; or by failing to deliver the agreed volume and quality on time.

The root cause of side-selling in Ag Value Chain may be “communication”

So could the challenge with side-selling have anything to do with communication between the actors? If yes, how can the new information and communication technologies (ICTs) help in reducing side selling?

Information asymmetry between two parties in contract such as farmers and MFIs where one party has more or better information than the other could be the root cause for side-selling in agricultural value chains. In this case there is an information gap between the two parties, where farmers have less access to information and poor knowledge of the entire process assumed that there is imbalance of power in transactions and therefore resort to such practices as side-selling.

My personal experience with side-selling, a practice which was referred to as “Diversion” in the cotton industry in Ghana far back in the early 2000, confirms the communication challenge. The cotton sector in Ghana at the time was with little regulation leading to poor or lack of communication among the cotton companies as well as between the companies and the farmers. Farmers took advantage of the situation to defraud the companies through some of the practices associated with side-selling described above.

ICTs and Communication in the Ag Value Chain

Photo Credit: cartoonstock.com

ICTs are “communication tools” that are enabling access to information by rural farmers located in remote communities. These tools are facilitating activities associated with access to inputs by producers, the actual productions process by farmers, marketing and processing by retailers, and monitoring and evaluation of the transaction by the financiers and other donors. Integrating ICTs into the production, marketing, and M&E components of the value chain will ensure rapid flow of information between the stakeholders which will minimize misunderstandings, and allow for risk management, and provide higher levels of transparency.

Creating better communication environment between farmers, input suppliers, and buyers and also among the MFIs or sponsoring companies could reduce side-selling. Specifically, ICTs can be used in some of the following ways to reduce side-selling:

a) E-vouchers are excellent and more trusted systems for better transactions between farmers and input suppliers and can be integrated into the Ag VC,
b) Field staffs of MFIs and other firms could integrate ICT solutions into their production processes for precision agriculture that help farmers increase their production thereby minimizing side-selling,
c) iPad/iPhone applications are widely used now for data gathering and for making policy decisions,
d) ICTs could be used to gather accurate demographic information about farmers, their farm sizes, produce information on the field before harvest,
e) Specific traceability applications are being used to monitor produce from the field through to the final destination of consumption thereby minimizing fraud,
f) Market information systems are now available even in remote communities to get farmers informed of the global market as well as the local market,
g) With fast data gathering, ICTs can allow farmers to be paid faster to reduce the side-selling for other “urgent” needs,
h) ICTs can facilitate automated processes at the collection centers to minimize damage of perishable goods and increase the value of the produce for farmers,
i) Using ICTs to make farmers aware of the dangers and repercussions with side-selling due to improved and accurate data with the MFIs might help reduce side-selling,
j) ICTs are collaboration tools and could be used to facilitate collaboration among the sponsoring firms and ensure smooth flow of information among them to prevent destructive competition among them. Such competition among MFIs and sponsoring firms enables producers to rob one company for another.

ICTs are not the magic wand to the side-selling challenge with the financing of agricultural value chain. They are technological tools that can be used to catalyze the social processes by the stakeholders to help address the challenge.

Visit here for detailed information and resources on this event and future events by Microlinks.

February 28, 2012/by actualize

GBI Highlights, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

GBI, Compartel to Take Colombia’s USF to the Next Level

Three men on a panel discussing telecommunications in Colombia

Sebastian Mendes from UNE at the Compartel workshop in Bogota

Representatives from GBI traveled to Bogota this month to participate in a stakeholder’s workshop, held by Compartel, the Colombian Ministry of Information and Communications Technology’s universal service administrator. The February 15th workshop was designed as a means of gathering stakeholder input to Compartel’s strategic planning process. Compartel is planning to restructure itself to effectively address the next generation of challenges for the use of ICTs in Colombia, and it invited GBI and key personnel from Intel Corporation’s World Ahead program to participate in the workshop.

Following the workshop, Compartel and GBI went into an intensive 2 day work planning session that laid out a six month plan of cooperation to define ICT sector goals and objectives, map strategic activities of Compartel, and to provide technical assistance on strategic plan implementation. David Townsend, Daniel Espitia, and Robert Otto represented the GBI team in Bogota.

Compartel, the Colombian Ministry of Information and Communications Technology’s universal service administrator, has already accomplished many important milestones with its Vive Digital program to connect most of Colombia to Internet and voice services. Among their accomplishments are completion of 2,000 kilometers of terrestrial fiber optic channels, 800 kilometers of undersea fiber optic cable to its offshore island of San Andres. Projects underway include an 18,000 kilometer national fiber optic network to serve some 753 municipalities, provision of broadband to 6,700 public schools, in-home broadband connections for 115,000 low income households, and seven projects designed to provide 10,000 more broadband connections for public schools, small villages, and community telecenters.

February 28, 2012/by actualize

Democracy & Governance, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Updated: African leaders on Facebook (February 2012)

Closeup of Africa from a FB map indicating location of users

Image credit: http://www.myweku.com

This post is an update of October 2011′s list of African leaders with a Facebook presence. The numbers and a couple of links have been adjusted. Stats from July 2010, December 2010, March 2011, and June 2011 are still available.

As always, the challenge is determining what share of fans of these pages are diasporans. A solid number of nations – most notably Liberia, Senegal, and Gabon – have seen extraordinary Facebook fan page growth in the past 4 months. Pages for leaders in these nations have shown 144%, 110%, and 92% growth rates, respectively, in the number of fans. Abdoulaye Wade’s fans have grown tremendously in advance of this month’s presidential elections. Cameroon’s Paul Biya witnessed similar interest on his Facebook page last year during the election season (his page has grown by 18% since). Other updates for February 2012 include:

Burkina Faso: Blaise Comparoré has a very official-looking page, even if it may not be official.
Rwanda: The widely-popular unofficial page for Rwanda’s Paul Kagame is gone – it boasted nearly 20,000 fans. Perhaps this was a move by leadership to reduce confusion?
Zambia: We found the official page for Zambia’s Rupiah Banda.
Gabon: Ali Bongo’s page continues to grow by huge margins after becoming official less than a year ago.
Egypt: Added community page for Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, although there is limited social interest around him.
Madagascar: Added community page for Andry Rajoelina.
DRC: The “official page” for Joseph Kabila, with previously 4,000 fans, has been removed. A profile with that many still exists however.
Chad: One of the two public profiles for Idriss Deby has been removed.

Growth trends & countries of interest:

Median fan growth rate: 10% over 4.5 months (was 15% for 4 months from June-October 2011 and 23% for 3 months from March-June 2011)
Given a consistent page, only the leaders of DRC and Seychelles lost fans over the time period.
Fan count growth of leader pages with greater than 10,000 fans has slowed substantially since last October. Growth is positive, but is only in the 5-10% range: Algeria 14% (was 17%), Ghana 8% (was 10%), Kenya 4% (was 5%), Morocco 2% (was 5%), Nigeria 7% (was 13%), Tanzania 9% (was 8%), Zimbabwe 3% (was 3%).
Less than 5% growth in Benin, Guinea, Mauritania, Somalia. Benin, and Guinea also were in this range last year.
The page for Libya’s Col. Gaddafi grew by another 23%
Mauritania still only has 4 fans of the community page for Ba Mamadou Mbaré. Guinea-Bissau is not much better with 14 fans for Malam Bacai Sanha.
Solid (40%) growth in Angola, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mali.
Ethiopia’s fan base has doubled from 700 to 1,400 since June 2011 suggesting either a growing interest in politics by diasporans or a domestic adoption of Facebook.
In order of sheer fan base there is no change in order: Nigeria (699k), Kenya (98k), Morocco (86k), Zimbabwe (67k), Tanzania (35k)

The list as of February 25, 2012:

Country	President (or other title)	Facebook Page Type (hyperlinked)	# of Likes	% Change since October 2011 (4.5 months)
Algeria	Abdelaziz Bouteflika	Official Page	23071	14%
Angola	Jose Dos Santos	Community Page	3067	40%
Benin	Thomas Yayi Boni	Official Page	6577	4%
Botswana	Seretse Khama Ian Khama	Unofficial Page	8237	25%
Burkina Faso	Blaise Compaoré	Unofficial Page	10167	8%
Burundi	Pierre Nkurunziza	Community Page	355	13%
Cameroon	Biya Paul	Official Page	11393	18%
Cape Verde	Pedro Pires	Community Page	958	10%
Central African Republic	Francois Bozize Yangouvonda	Personal Profile?	191	7%
Chad	Lt Gen. Idriss Deby	Public Profile 2	612	16%
Comoros	Ahmed Abdallah Sambi	Community Page	82	9%
Congo, Republic of	Denis Sassou-Nguesso	Official Page \| Private Profile	7254 / 1244	10% / -2%
Congo, Democratic Republic of	Joseph Kabila	Private Profile	4003	-4%
Cote d’Ivoire	Alassane Ouattara	Unofficial Page	16132	9%
Djibouti	Ismail Omar Guelleh	Unofficial Page?	4626	7%
Egypt	Mohamed Hussein Tantawi	Community Page	286	n/a
Equatorial Guinea	Brig. Gen. (ret) Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo	Community Page	98	27%
Eritrea	Isaias Afeworki	Unofficial Page	7658	5%
Ethiopia	Meles Zenawi (PM)	Community Page	1435	38%
Gabon	Ali Bongo Ondimba	Official Page	13023	92%
The Gambia	Yahya Jammeh	Unofficial Page	6241	7%
Ghana	John Evans Atta-Mills	Unofficial Page	21782	8%
Guinea	Sékouba Konaté	Unofficial Page	3702	2%
Guinea-Bissau	Malam Bacai Sanha	Community Page	14	27%
Kenya	Mwai Kibaki	Unofficial Page	97765	4%
Lesotho	King Letsie III (King)	Unofficial Page	5303	6%
Liberia	Ellen Sirleaf Johnson	Community Page	2698	144%
Libya	Col. Mu’ammar al-Qadhafi	Unofficial Page	9199	27%
Madagascar	Andry Rajoelina	Community Page	484	n/a
Malawi	Bingu wa Mutharika	Community Page	269	37%
Mali	Amadou Toumani Toure	Unofficial Page	322	46%
Mauritania	Ba Mamadou Mbaré	Community Page	4	0%
Mauritius	Sir Anerood Jugnauth	Unofficial Page	860	8%
Morocco	King Mohamed VI (King)	Unofficial Page	86353	2%
Mozambique	Armando Emilio Guebuza	Official Page?	4044	15%
Namibia	Hifikepunye Pohamba	Community Page	714	20%
Niger	Salou Djibo (Head of Military Junta)	Unofficial Page	1380	5%
Nigeria	Dr. Goodluck Jonathan	Official Page	699073	7%
Rwanda	Paul Kagame	Community Page	2184	n/a
Sao Tome & Principe	Fradique De Menezes	Community Page	14	17%
Senegal	Abdoulaye Wade	Unofficial Page \| Community Page	1882 / 1263	107% / 115%
Seychelles	James Michel	Public Profile	4750	-2%
Sierra Leone	Ernest Bai Koroma	Community Page	1448	13%
Somalia	Sharif Ahmed	Unofficial Page	3594	4%
South Africa	Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma	Community Page	5411	37%
South Sudan	Salva Kiir Mayardit	Community Page	910	21%
Sudan	Omar Hassan al-Bashir	Community Page	158	14%
Swaziland	King Msati III (King)	Community Page	76	15%
Tanzania	Jakaya Kikwete	Official Page	34727	9%
Togo	Faure Gnassingbe	“Fan Club”	4684	6%
Tunisia	Fouad Mebazaa	Unofficial Page	46	18%
Uganda	Lt. Gen. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni	Unofficial Page / Profile	7085 / 1332	10% / -1%
Zambia	Rupiah Banda	Official Page?	3332	n/a
Zimbabwe	Robert Gabriel Mugabe	Community Page	7962	48%
Zimbabwe	Morgan Tsvangirai (PM)	Official Page	67190	3%

The above table lists all top African heads of state (usually President) and provides a link to the one or two most popular Facebook pages, groups, or profiles for a given leader. The final column shows how many users are interested in the particular leader. Loose definitions of the page-types:

Official page: A page run by the actual leader.
Public profile: A presidential account with a public wall and information about the leader.
Private profile: An seemingly real account without a public wall or information about the leader.
Unofficial page: A user-created page that serves as the leader.
Group: A user-created group dedicated to a leader.
Community page: A placeholder courtesy of Wikipedia for cases when no user-generated page exists.

February 28, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Education, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Delivering a Library of Books with Every E-Reader: How Worldreader is Improving Literacy in Africa

Worldreader, a market-oriented, not-for-profit NGO, is making subsidized e-readers available in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa and already seeing improvements in literacy rates. That’s just one of the many positive results that Dr. Jonathan Wareham, a member of Worldreader’s board of directors and Vice Dean and professor of Information Systems at ESADE – Ramon Llull University in Barcelona, Spain, discussed last week during a presentation at the World Bank headquarters here in Washington, DC.

Dr. Wareham and others at Worldreader are concerned about the growing book famine in Africa. According to a World Bank study conducted in 19 sub-Saharan African countries, only one of those countries, Botswana, “had anything close to adequate book provision in schools”. Using e-reader technology which can hold more books than most school libraries have in such countries — and with no added distribution costs — Worldreader has launched several pilot studies in schools in Ghana, Kenya, and Uganda. As of now, over 75,000 e-books have been distributed wirelessly to over 750 students.

The pilot study in Ghana, called iREAD, which received financial and research support from USAID, compared the rise in literacy rates over the course of one year for three groups of students: a group given e-readers without training on how to use the devices, another that was given out-of-classroom pedagogical interventions, and a control group without e-readers. Literacy scores for students with e-readers and no training improved 12.9% vs 8.1% of the control group, and students with e-readers and additional training improved 15.7% vs 8.1% of the control group.

Results from the study have proven the efficacy of the technology with the programs to support it and Worldreader plans to expand the Uganda initiative by doubling the number of students with e-readers within the next year. Besides improving student literacy scores, the project team also expects to see improvements in adult literacy rates since many of the students share the devices with their families and communities.

Unlike device-based projects such as the One Laptop Per Child program, Worldreader doesn’t produce its own e-reader — so far, it only distributes Amazon’s Kindle. Dr. Wareham describes Worldreader as device agnostic. “There’s no real need to be publicly aligned with either Apple, or with Amazon, or with Android — it doesn’t matter. What matters is bringing literature into the classrooms and as the devices converge and the prices drop, there will be more options to choose from.”

Also unlike most device-based projects, Worldreader invests manpower and on-the-ground support to ensure project sustainability. With the approval and support of government officials and the Ministry of Education in each country, the project so far works with teachers, students, and community leaders to provide training on how to use the the devices and make certain that the technology is fully understood and valued. Though high breakage rates and incidents of theft remain a concern for project implementation, Worldreader believes that providing more training on how to care for the devices, building relationships within each community to promote the device’s educational value, and discouraging theft will help to lower these rates.

Worldreader is looking to build on the success of the pilot studies by partnering with other organizations to expand to an estimated total of 10 projects in 2012. Dr. Wareham said that scaling remains to be a major challenge for the project but plans are underway to provide organizations with what he termed “Worldreader-in-a-box” — kits that will enable training programs to be developed where Worldreader project implementers are not able to go. In addition, the organization is working to expand an ePub platform that allows local authors’ works to be published and accessed on e-readers, creating opportunities for local authors and offering literary works that can help to foster national identity.

February 28, 2012/by actualize

Connectivity, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Official internet statistics from African telecoms regulators

Image credit: computernewsme.com

Data is tough to come by in the African telecommunications market. The options are annual ITU report, demand-side releases (from a government ministry or a regulatory body), telecom operators’ annual reports, expensive market reports from sources like Budde Comm, or the rare demand-side questionnaire carried-out by researchers on the ground.

The ITU statistics lack focus and their perils have been discussed ad nauseam. There are simply too many operator annual reports to sift through. We cover the demand-side questionnaires as they become available. What’s left to cover are reports from the telecoms operators and government ministries.

East African regulators have actively published datasets as of late. Kenya’s CCK and Tanzania’s TCRA both recently released Internet and mobile subscription numbers from Q3 2011. So, with the suggestion of Wayan Vota of ICTWorks in mind, we attempted to discover what information each African telecommunications regulator releases.

Fortunately, most nations have an operational regulator, even if that regulator is not yet independent of the government. And, most regulators are expected to present an annual report to the government and to the market. In most cases, an annual report from 2009 or 2010 was available (and was released the following year). These reports often cover the number of citizens on the internet, a breakdown of how users access the internet (institution/household/individual/cafe), the number of mobile subscribers, type of internet (mobile wireless/fixed wireless/VSAT/cable), and growth over time. Some list a subscriber break down by operator. Most nations, however, do not have such current or robust data. Still, any data is better than no data. The table below lists the most recent public data made available by each national telecom regulator.

Most recent data from African telecoms regulators:

Country	Regulator	Most Recent Data	Site Last Updated/Notes
Algeria	Autorite de Regulation des Postes et Telecommunications (ARPT)	2009	jan 2012, modern site
Angola	Institut Angolias des Communications (INACOM)	2009 (partial data)	oct 2010
Benin	Transitory Authority for the Regulation of Posts and Telecommunications (ATRPT)	2009	2012
Botswana	Botswana Telecommunications Authority (BTA)	2010	may 2010
Burkina Faso	Autorite Nationale de Regulation des Telecommunications (ARTEL)	2009	feb 2012, new cyber security section
Burundi	Agence de Régulation et de Contrôle des Télécommunications (ARCT)	2008	under construction, data from TeleGeography link
Cameroon	Agence de Regulation des Telecommunications (ART)	2006	jan 2012
Cape Verde	National Communications Agency (ANAC)	2008 (partial)	feb 2012
Central African Republic	Agence chargée de la Régulation des Télécommunications (ART)		no site
Chad	Office Tchadien de Regulation des Telecoms (OTRT)	2002	2005
Comoros	Autorité Nationale de Régulation des Tics (ANRTIC)		dec 2011, some tech issues
Congo	L’Agence de Régulation des Postes et Communications Electroniques (ARPCE)	2011 (partial)	2012, founded 2009, very modern, Facebook
Cote D’Ivoire	Agence des Telecommunications de Cote d’Ivoire (ATCI)	2011 (video)	oct 2011, under construction
Dem. Rep. of Congo	Autorite de Regulation de la Poste et des Telecommunications du Congo (ARPTC)		not found
Djibouti	Ministere de la Communication et de la Culture, chargé des Postes et Télécommincations, Porte-Parole du Gouvernement (MCC-PT)	2011	dec 2011, monthly data!
Egypt	National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA)	2009	feb 2012
Equatorial Guinea	Órgano Regulador de las Telecomunicaciones (ORTEL)	2011 (partial)	jan 2011
Eritrea	Communications Department		no site
Ethiopia	Ethiopian Telecommunications Agency (ETA)		2009
Gabon	Agence de Regulation des Telecommunications (ARTEL)		won’t connect
Gambia	Gambian Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA)		2011
Ghana	National Communications Authority (NCA)	2008	2010
Guinea	Regulatory Auhtority for Posts and Telecommunications (ARPT)	2010	feb 2012
Guinea-Bissau	Ministry of Telecommunications		no site
Kenya	CCK – Communications Commission of Kenya	Q3 2011	feb 2012, good data, Facebook
Lesotho	Lesotho Communications Authority (LCA)	2010	2011
Liberia	Liberia Telecommunications Authority (LTA)	2010	feb 2012
Libya	n/a	n/a	n/a
Madagascar	Office Malagasy d’etudes et de Regulation des Telecommunications (OMERT)	2008	mar 2009
Malawi	Communications Regulatory Authority (MACRA)	2010	jan 2012
Mali	Comité de régulation des télécommnunications du Mali (CRT)	2010	oct 2011
Mauritania	Autorite de Regulation (AR)	2010	jan 2012
Mauritius	Information and Communication Technologies Authority (ICTA)	2009	feb 2012
Mayotte	ARCEP (France)
Morocco	Agence Nationale de Réglementation des Télécommunications (ANRT)	2010	2012
Mozambique	Instituto Nacional das Communicacoes de Mozambique	2007	feb 2012
Namibia	Communications Regulatory Authority of Namibia (CRAN)	2010	feb 2012, Facebook
Niger	L’Autorite de Regulation Multisectorielle (ARM)	2006	jul 2011
Nigeria	Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC)	2011	2012, Facebook, good data
Reunion	ARCEP (France)
Rwanda	Regulatory Agency for Public Utility Services of Rwanda (RURA)	2011	2012
Sao Tome And Principe	ARCEP (France)
Senegal	Agence de Régulation des Télécommunications et des Postes (ARTP)	2009	oct 2011
Seychelles	n/a	n/a	n/a
Sierra Leone	National Telecommunications Commission (NATCOM)		late 2011
Somalia	n/a	n/a	n/a
South Africa	Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA)	2011	2012
St.Helena	Ofcom (UK)?
South Sudan	Ministry of Telecommunications & Postal Services		2009
Sudan	National Telecommunications Corporation (NTC)	2011	nov 2011
Swaziland	Swaziland Posts & Telecommunications Corporation (SPTC)	2011	2011
Tanzania	Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA)	2012	2012, good data
Togo	Autorite de Reglementation des Secteurs de Postes et Telecommunications (ART&P)	2010	2012
Tunisia	l’Instance Nationale des Télécommunications de Tunisie (INTT)	2010	feb 2012, Twitter
Uganda	Uganda Communications Commission (UCC)	2011	2012
Western Sahara	n/a	n/a	n/a
Zambia	Zambia Information and Communications Technology Authority (ZICTA)	2012	feb 2012, Twitter
Zimbabwe	Postal & Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (POTRAZ)	Q3 2011*	2011, official stats from TechZim post

Noteworthy insights:

No telecoms regulator: Libya, Seychelles, Somalia, Western Sahara
No regulatory website found: Central African Republic, DRC, Eritrea, Guinea-Bissau
No data found: Comoros, Ethiopia, Gambia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan
2011 data is available from regulators in: Congo, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe
Social media presence: Zambia, Tunisia, Nigeria, Namibia, Kenya, Congo
The most outdated data: Cameroon (2006), Chad (2002), Niger (2006)
Burkina Faso’s ARTEL has recently added a section of the site devoted to cyber security efforts.
Djibouti’s MCC-PT surprisingly has monthly Internet user data through October 2011.
The majority of regulator websites (37 of the 49 that exist) have been updated in the past year.

Even if insights exist at the top, they are usually delayed by a full year – tough considering the extreme growth rate of Internet services. Data on the use of ICTs by individuals will be limited for years to come. Although more countries are conducting their own surveys of individual ICT trends, resources are still limited.

In the meantime, we plan on searching individual communications ministry websites for additional telecoms data. Most African nations have at least one government ministry dedicated to communications. The question is whether the ministries source their own data or if they adapt annual reports from regulators and operators.

The list of regulators and their URLs can be found at Africa & Middle East Telecom Week.

February 28, 2012/by actualize

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

FNB integrates mobile banking with Facebook

A view of the mobile account screen shot on the FNB app (image source: file photo)

FNB today announced that its customers can now buy FNB Vouchers using Cellphone Banking and send to friends on Facebook. FNB Vouchers on Facebook is another first by a bank in South Africa.

A view of the mobile account screen shot on the FNB app (image source: file photo)

FNB Vouchers are targeted at Facebook users in South Africa. This innovative product enables FNB customers registered for Cellphone Banking to send gifts to their Facebook friends — the recipient of the FNB Voucher can redeem it as Prepaid Airtime or convert it to cash by using the bank’s eWallet service.

CEO of FNB Cellphone Banking Solutions, Ravesh Ramlakan says, “Constant Innovation is what drives us at FNB. It is through innovation that we are able to design and deliver solutions that add convenience to the lives of our customers. FNB Vouchers is such a solution.”

Safety is an important element of this new feature. During the buying process, the customer creates a unique PIN for each voucher. This unique PIN is then used by the customer to post the voucher onto a friend’s Facebook wall. Only Facebook friends with a South African Cellphone number can redeem these vouchers. FNB Cellphone Banking customers can buy these vouchers from R25 – R300, with limit of R1500 per day.

“The face of banking as we know it is continuously changing and as a bank we have seen the benefits of keeping abreast with the move towards the virtual world. With increasing numbers of people joining and using social networks daily, this move was natural for us in terms of extending our reach and customer base,” concludes Ramlakan.

Staff writer

February 28, 2012/by actualize

Mobile Money, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Mobile Money Security: What is the Answer – Regulation or Technology?

Photo Credit: Tony Karumba/AFP/Getty Images

Recently there have been more reports of digital theft within the M-Pesa mobile money transfer service. In Embu, a M-Pesa agent was tricked into sending Sh50,000 (~$600) to an unknown account. It occurred when an individual received a message that he received an incorrect transfer and then he went to the agent in order to have the mistake corrected. Other examples include thieves posing as customers or Safaricom staff and calls or SMSs from unknown numbers informing the individual that they won a prize. With the large amount of money being transferred on a daily basis, it is easy to see why M-Pesa has been the target of fraud. From July to September in 2011, $683 million was transferred over mobile phones in Kenya.

The interesting aspect to this fraud is that mobile money is shown to be a safer alternative to traditional money transfer services. But as the number of fraud cases increases, it could start to be perceived (true or not) as an unsafe way to both transfer and store money. This could diminish adoption rates, especially at the bottom of the pyramid as they tend to be more risk adverse. Since their account totals are much lower, one fraudulent transfer could wipe out their entire account. Fraud could also cause the telecom providers to be further regulated by governments. Since they are not banks, they are not regulated under the same rules as banks. This includes the Know Your Customer (KYC) laws. After 9/11, there was a great push by the United States for banks globally to gather more information about their clients and further verify their identity. But since the mobile money services provided by telecoms (when not partnering with banks) are not classified as banking services, the telecoms are not required by law to follow the KYC laws. As shown in the examples above, once the money had been transferred, there was no way to get it back. The reason for this is that many mobile accounts are unregistered. Because an individual can simply purchase a SIM card at a local store, there is no way for mobile providers to track who received a fraudulent transfer. But some governments have started to require citizens to register their SIM cards. In Ghana, the National Communication Authority (NCA) has made this requirement mandatory by March 3^rd. If a SIM card is unregistered by then, the account could be deactivated. This means that roughly 7.5 million users could have their phone cut off. This is an extreme example of how to further regulate the mobile market. But is it the right answer?

Or can technology provide the answer? Further regulation is probably needed to slow down the amount of fraud, but there is a fine line between being too invasive on the end user and providing greater protection. One of the benefits of mobile money is that the lack of registration required which allows those who do not have a bank account or proper documentation to receive financial services. This is especially true of those that live in rural regions. But along with regulation, how can technology be used to solve the problem? Extra security steps can be taken to verify the validity of the transfer. But, again, it cannot be too intrusive as it could cause a decrease in usage by customers. While regulation and technology could possibly help, one of the main problems is the social knowledge of the end-user. Especially in the “You Have Won” messages, the cons are banking on the end-user lacking knowledge about these types of frauds. As shown in the articles, individuals are starting to catch on as are the authorities. The police have been trying to inform citizens that they need to avoid these messages and take extra steps to confirm the transfer. There is no clear and easy answer to solve this problem, but it must be on the front of the minds of MNOs and government regulators. Mobile money is too strong of a tool to let security issues slow the expansion of financial services to those who never had access to them before.

February 27, 2012/by actualize

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