Originally posted on the GBI Portal – Page 42

Agriculture, Cross Cutting, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

What have we learned from all this ICT4D chatter?

I have been blogging about ICT4D consistently for two months. This seems an opportune time to highlight my main thoughts on ICT4D, many of which are shared by others in the ICT4D space.

Here’s a list, feel free to add to it.

Countries with clear ICT policies tend to do better
ICT policies must be integrated within a broader national development plan
Good infrastructure and an enabling regulatory framework are needed
ICTs are merely tools, the potency of which is largely dependent on context and systemic domains
ICTS are not within and of themselves an end
There’s immense potential for economic growth, social cohesion, security, political stability, provision of education, healthcare, agricultural services etc
Look elsewhere for development’s silver bullet—if it exists, you’re looking in the wrong direction
Like development, technologies also have “side-effects” no matter the dosage.
We know very little about the impact of ICTs on economic expansion
Building and boosting capacity of a critical mass of people is integral (access and use are not synonymous!)
Public-private partnerships will be crucial for the sustainability of most initiatives
As most successful projects do, start small, take M&E seriously and scale up
The slickest tech isn’t always the best option

The latter is perhaps the point that I have examined the least, over the last few weeks. But, I have consistently made the point that traditional ICTs, including radio, television sets and so on, should not be abandoned in favor of the latest tech. Context is everything! Connectivity woes, illiteracy and minimal access to the newest gadgets, among other things, demand that we think in terms of complementarity, cultural appropriateness and the financial constraints of proliferating some tools.

Finding ways to make better use of traditional ICTs like radio is important on two fronts. First, radio is the most potent tool to use for the dissemination of information globally—it’s ubiquitous, even in the most far-off and undeveloped parts of the world, due to its portability, reach and affordability. Second, this era of low cost mobile phones, MP3 players and so on offers new and exciting opportunities to use ‘radio’ and radio techniques innovative to improve livelihoods and enterprise.

Next week, I will review the findings of the African Farm Radio Research Initiative (AFRRI), an action research project—funded by the Gates Foundation—that assessed how radio can improve food security in Africa…

July 29, 2011/by actualize

Civil Society, Democracy & Governance, Governances, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

E-participation Engages Worldwide Participation

Hilary Clinton at the Open government partnership

Photo Credit: U.S. State Department

Nation states, civil society groups, and private sector representatives from around the world, convened earlier this month at the Open Data Partnership (OGP) in Washington D.C. to discuss the best practices of open data e-government tools.

On July 12, more than 60 governments and 60 civil society groups joined the United States and Brazilian governments to pledge support on initiatives encouraging citizen’s participation, putting voters at the heart of solving their own society’s complex social issues.

The OGP is a new, multilateral initiative aiming to secure and define commitments from governments worldwide to promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption, and harness new technologies to strengthen governance.

The formal launch of the OGP is set for this September, when participating governments will embrace an Open Government Declaration, and announce their country action plans to promote OGP principles.

Last September at the United Nations General Assembly, President Obama challenged countries to embrace open government saying:

When we gather back here next year, we should bring specific commitments to promote transparency; to fight corruption; to energize civic engagement; and to leverage new technologies so that we strengthen the foundation of freedom in our own countries, while living up to ideals that can light the world

The new technologies that President Obama refers to are starting to be used throughout the globe—including Kenya’s Open Data Initiative and Huduma. These tools enable citizens to use their mobile phones or web browsers to bring public service problems that they encounter everyday to public discourse.

Viviane Reding, Vice President of the European Commission once stated that, “participation is the real goal of e-government,” and city administrators from Washington to Bangalore actively are recognizing that citizen reporting tools can help highlight some of the worst social and public service issues within their cities.

This acknowledgment infers that top down designation of funding will no longer be the course that that future governments around the world will take.

Notably, countries such as Mexico, Brazil, Indonesia, India, Mexico, Norway, Philippines, South Africa, United Kingdom, and the United States and several large civil society groups—took part in the OGP pledge.

This is a huge step towards civil society empowerment, enabling the tax paying citizens to take collaboratively take charge of the changes they want to see in their communities—truly giving power back to the people.

July 29, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Economic Growth & Trade, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Africa’s mobile economic revolution…half way there?

The UK Guardian’s Killian Fox recently described the rapid rate at which cellphones became ubiquitous (and are used) in Africa as a “mobile economic revolution”.

Some people easily dismissed this assertion as another hyperbolic pronouncement, but there’s truth to it. The expansion of mobile telephony services and access over the last decade did more than merely open up avenues for efficient social inter-action among Africans. It reinvigorated, structured and even cultivated a more efficient culture of enterprise, across banking, agriculture, healthcare, education and governance, in some countries.

But, if this “mobile economic revolution” is to be fully realized, much more ought to be done. Deeper integration of technology into commerce, and greater expansion of telephony access and service provision are two things to consider, among others like financing and marketing that I have looked at in other blogs. The fact is, a half of all Africans still do not have access to a cellphone, despite the rapid expansion observed. This means the enormous economic benefits mobile phones bring to less developed parts of the world is still untapped in much of Africa. According to the London Business School, “for every additional 10 mobile phones per 100 people in a developing country, GDP rises by 0.5%”. So, the expansion in GDP experienced on the continent in the last decade, due to telephony expansion, is, at the very least, half of what it could be.

Furthermore, the depth to which the instrument (cellphone) has been leveraged for commerce is still limited, which means the economic potential is much greater than what obtains. The success of Safaricom’s M-Pesa in bringing banking services to the previously unbanked, for instance, is still limited to a minority of Africans. Further to that, global mobile money transactions is slated to exceed a trillion dollars by 2015. African economies are likely to benefit from cheaper transfer of remittances, and reduced transaction costs across borders, but those benefits will be much greater if more people have access to mobiles. Therefore, boosting the number of people on the continent with access to mobile banking must be a priority for policymakers, to safeguard the “mobile economic revolution”.

The deepening of the “mobile economic revolution” should be contextual. The provision of mobile-enabled financial services such as micro-credit is great, but it doesn’t always function in the poor’s economic interest. The use of mobile phones to offer traditional options, such as layaways, to help the poor improve their entrepreneurial endeavors is negligible. KickStart, a nonprofit that sells human-powered irrigation systems to entrepreneurial farmers, seems to be an exceptional case. The organization introduced an SMS powered layaway program in Kenya that allows buyers to set aside tiny increments via M-Pesa.

KickStart‘s approach to aiding farmers to finance their entrepreneurial endeavors seems much more sustainable, compared to existing micro-finance options, although the time factor is a drawback. However, the main point here is that, the “mobile economic revolution” must never leave the poor behind. The ways in which the individual’s long term economic livelihood is affected is key, if the larger objective remains that of sustainable development.

July 28, 2011/by actualize

Economic Growth & Trade, Economic Policy and Governance, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

The Debated Economic Impacts of the Internet

Photo: chrisharrison.net

Many international development projects promote national Internet infrastructure with the assumption that increased connectivity will lead to economic growth which will in turn increase the quality of life for citizens in the recipient nations. However, what is the measured impact of Internet penetration on economic growth?

The World Bank
- 10% increase in Internet penetration leads to a 1% increase in GDP
ITU Broadband Commission
- 10% increase in broadband penetration in China contributes to a 2.5% growth in GDP
- 10% increase in broadband penetration in low and middle-income countries contributes to a 1.4% increase in economic growth
- Access to broadband in Brazil has added approximately 1.4% to employment
- Broadband will create 2 million jobs by 2015 in Europe
Kenyan Economic Update
- Person to person mobile money transfers equated to about 20% of national GDP, with about two-thirds of adults engaging in transfers
- ICTs are responsible for 0.9% of the 3.7% annual economic growth in Kenya over the past ten years. In other words, ICTs accounted for one-fourth of the GDP growth in Kenya the past decade.

In addition to these statistics, the Broadband Commission released the following table on the impact of broadband on employment:

Table: Broadband Commission - A Platform for Progress

Despite these promising statistics, there are critics of broadband’s correlation with economic growth. Charles Kenny from the Center for Global Development recently attacked the World Bank’s claim that 10% increase in Internet penetration leads to a 1% increase in national GDP. Kenny argued that the study was not peer-reviewed or ultimately published (both of these claims are correct).

Overall, however, studies on national economies and Internet penetration seem to demonstrate a positive correlation between the two. Hopefully, the ITU’s Broadband Commission will be able to produce more definitive studies in the future, though given their political stance in favor of broadband adoption, it may be more difficult for the ITU to be objective.

July 28, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Health, HIV/AIDS, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Fight against HIV/AIDS in India gets helping hand

Argusoft, a Fremont, CA start-up that’s combines video, instant messaging and Internet telephony in a platform for “e-health” programs in the developing world, is ready to implement a mobile phone application that will enable field workers to register HIV-positive mothers and provide regular updates on their care.

The application, called mAID, runs on any java-enabled phone and utilizes the SMS interface. It is designed primarily for health workers that go out into rural communities to inform citizens on different health issues.

Using the application in the field is simple. Cell phones are given to health workers who communicate through the phone to a central database. The health workers are sent daily instructions in the morning via SMS on where to go and which houses to visit. The health workers collect relevant data on HIV/AIDS prevalence and awareness and report the data back to the central database via SMS.

The new program is overseen by the Indian government with financing from the Global Fund, a nonprofit in Geneva that targets AIDS in developing countries. IL&FS, an infrastructure development conglomerate based in Mumbai, is handling logistics.

mAID underwent a pilot test where 35 health workers reached over 2500 patients using the application. The pilot phase ended last month, and based off its results, the Indian government wants to inject 3600 more health workers into the field with the mobile app for a nationwide scale up. There are even talks about using the application in Africa.

Argusoft's Ram Gopalan. Photo Credit: mercurynews.com

The CEO of Argusoft, Ram Gopalan has cited the difficulties of preventing HIV/AIDS as the impetus of his application. “It’s fully preventable, but one of the highest killers of children in the Third World,” Gopalan said.

Gopalan echoes the same sentiments of the Indian Government who have been working to prevent prenatal HIV transmission since 2002, using counseling and testing centers around the country. The Indian Government also cited issues with health worker capacity. Regarding that Gopalan said, “There was a lot of inefficiency, workers misinterpreting instructions, and paperwork getting lost.”

Argusoft is no stranger to implementing eHealth initiatives. In the eastern Indian state of Tripura, Gopalan linked isolated villages with a hospital in the state capital where doctors can remotely diagnose simple but life-altering problems such as cataracts. This telemedicine project has provided eye care for more than 100,000 patients over the past five years.

In the future, Gopalan wishes to introduce a network of accredited family-care doctors from India who could be available 24/7 for live video chats with patients. This is similar to the meradoctor project which already exists in India. In the meantime, the HIV/AIDS burden in India needs some attention as it is the third highest burden in the world in terms of sheer numbers living with HIV.

July 28, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Cross Cutting, Economic Growth & Trade, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Did you make the Tandaa Grant shortlist?

Kenya openData

Nearly 150 company and individual submissions made the shortlist for Kenya’s Tandaa Digital Content Grants. The Tandaa Digital Content Grant competition, a campaign to unearth and finance web and mobile-phone apps developers, was unveiled last year by the Ministry of Information and Communication, through the Kenya ICT Board.

At its inception 15 grantees benefited—companies, individuals and groups of varying sizes. But this year the Kenyan government will double direct funding through grants.

The renewal of this successful initiative will see 30 awards being doled out to shortlisted candidates in varied categories. The Ministry of Information and Communication says the highly attractive Tandaa Digital Content Grant is worth up to US$50, 000 for companies, US$10, 000 for individuals and teams, plus a matching grant of US$150, 000 for established companies.

The grant is further evidence of Kenya’s bold and thoughtful ICT policy framework, which is increasingly backed by solid initiatives. It will further stimulate ICT innovation and could spur greater economic growth. ICT already account for five cents in every dollar of Kenya’s annual income. The policy is solid to the extent that it tackles the key hindrance to the expansion of Kenya’s ICT sector: financing. Companies, particularly start-ups, that specialize in web and mobile solutions face major hurdles in their quest to access funding. The risky nature of their ventures, getting innovation to market successfully, also heightens the perception of risk in financial circles.

However, the challenge of financing mobile-innovation must be tackled in a more meaningful way: a sustainable solution, not simply grants. A mixture of subsidized loans, and targeted finance for micro and medium size technology firms is necessary for a potent long-term strategy to find a toehold. Grants have a place in the overall strategy, but they are not central to the long-term financing challenge.

For further information, please go here.

July 27, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Embrace mMoney, cautiously

Photo: Institute for Money, Technology, and Financial Inclusion

We all use money everyday. Cash, checks, credit, debit… mobile? Outside of the U.S. people are making payments on their mobile phones daily. What you wouldn’t guess is how ingenious they are at inventing new ways of using money. What do the innovative uses of money mean for banks, regulators, and nations? Does mobile money restructure the role of money in society altogether?

Bill Maurer, from University of California-Irvine’s Institute for Money, Technology, and Financial Inclusion, spoke at a USAID sponsored Microlinks event yesterday, July 25, 2011. I attended the event and was intrigued by Maurer’s anthropological approach to mobile money, a subject dominated by economists. Maurer emphasized the cultural complexities of money in all its forms, and then spoke especially about mobile money.

To summarize, Maurer first explained that money is perceived differently in different cultures of the world. In Nigeria, family members engage in money spraying, tossing money at brides during the wedding dance. In East Asia, mothers send their children on long trips with money inside of small hand sown pockets, believing that the money will protect them, and that they can use it to get settled once they arrive.

Photo: Institute for Money, Technology, and Financial Inclusion

The various uses of mobile money are equally diverse. For one, those who make mobile money transfers using SMS technology skip traditional banks altogether, as their telecommunication service providers act also as banks. Second, what about people who own multiple mobile phones or SIM cards in order to maintain different accounts? Some hide certain accounts from others; others separate the accounts for organization. Third, there are some cross-border money transfers. Often, if the service provider is the same, then the transfer may be made. Fourth, there is a possibility of mobile money remittances, as Ericsson launched two weeks ago? Still others trade their money from one currency to another to another, eventually “getting to the dollar,” and ensuring the value of their money. All of these actions change relationships between banks, individuals, government regulators, and telecommunication service providers.

Photo: Institute for Money, Technology, and Financial Inclusion

In a way, the elimination of banks from money transfers makes it appear that transfers should be a “public good,” freely and widely available. The policy implications for regulators, then, are immense. Who can take a cut of transaction costs? What rules should be in place about currency transfers? How are regulatory agencies from different nations going to communicate with each other? These questions, with a host of others, set the stage for mobile money’s impact on the global economy.

Though I was thoroughly engaged by Maurer’s presentation, I could not help but wonder what the policy implications were. When Maurer responded to one attendee request for a summary of the lessons learned about mobile money, he originally responded, “I have shied away from the lessons learned because I am open as to what they may be.” Thankfully, though, he followed up this response with three key regulatory innovations that he recommended for policymakers: proportionate due diligence, non-bank e-money issuance, and non-bank deposit taking.

USAID and other international organizations, then, should be careful in their rollout of mobile money projects. Though over 80% of the world has access to a mobile phone, the impacts of mobile money programs are far-reaching—they affect the financial, political, and social sectors, either for the better or the worse. If nothing else, the anthropological research by Maurer shows the complexities of mobile money. Before a list of best practices and lessons learned can be compiled, policymakers should tread carefully, but they should still step forward. As evidence and data is gathered through experiments, best practices can be ascertained. Once best practices are identified, then USAID and other aid organizations should scale mobile-based development projects.

July 27, 2011/by actualize

GBI Highlights, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Participatory Mapping Event Recap

Linda Raftree speaking at GBI Brown Bag Lunch

Photo Credit: Laurie Moy

Last Friday, GBI sponsored a Brown Bag lunch at USAID featuring Linda Raftree (@meowtree), Senior ICT4D Advisor at Plan International USA, to discuss her experiences on her digital participatory mapping project in Cameroon, lending insight on how the team got it off the ground.

Utilizing the mapping platform Open Street Map and crowd-sourcing tool Ushahidi, Raftree and Plan International’s Youth Empowerment through Technology, Arts and Media (YETAM) project, aims to reduce violence against children and increase youth participatory governance.

During her discussion last week, she referenced how digital community maps have replaced the need for paper-based diagrams since they can be shared or updated, to put rural areas like Ndop, Pitoa and Okola, “on the map”.

The more pragmatic purpose of being, “on the map,” Raftree alluded, is to see where infrastructure and services are being provided by local councils. Maps illustrate the uneven distribution of funding and services, and show what areas need more inclusion, holding governments to their development responsibilities.

Linda Raftree speaks at GBI Brown Bag Lunch

Photo credit: Laurie Moy

To ensure local participation and encourage youth empowerment for the three principal components of her project—maps, video, and art—Raftree advised some of these following elements:

Ask community leaders, and youth the information they want to put on the map. Raftree found that the youth wanted to know where all of the chieftain of the surrounding villages lived since traditionally greeting them first when arriving to a village is a respectful custom. What an international organization, or its stakeholders, want does necessarily line up with what the community needs or finds relevant.

Hire local ICT experts. She had found a local GIS expert named Ernest on Twitter and through Limbe Labs (now Activspaces). Without him, Raftree admitted, the project would not have been nearly as successful, or predicted to be as sustainable. Local ICT experts know the language, law of the land, and projects can be easily supported by them teaching others in the community how to maintain the mapping systems long after outside organizations leave.

Engage decision makers. There is usually a hierarchy within communities, so involving big players is imperative for successful deployment. Both to evade bribery—the team had youth carry around a letter signed by the local mayor stating it was okay for them to collect information—and to make leaders accountable for gaps in funding and services.

Record it. The Cameroonian youth went around with video camcorders, and recorded interviews they had with leaders of certain institutions, and members of the community. For example, they went around to schools and interviewed the headmasters about what resources they had at the school, and with women on why they did not register their newborn children. The benefit of this is two-fold. They raised the headmaster’s awareness on for the importance of keeping data on key indicators of the school (numbers of students, benches, attendance, teachers), Raftree stated, while making politicians accountable to the imbalanced circulation of disbursement.

Mix technology with non-technology. The art portion of the project, where the youth draw pictures of social issues existing within the community—such as alcoholism, drug use, and domestic violence—raised problems that were uncomfortable to record on film or talk about. Despite a lack of sound or words, art is still a powerful visual empowering the community to engage in a dialogue about taboo subjects.

The end result of all these steps in the 3 districts in Cameroon? Leaders acknowledged giving funds to central areas, and began to allow youth to take part budget meetings. The youth were given a voice in a place where they were never even part of the discussion.

Linda Raftree speaking to attendees after the event

Photo credit: Laurie Moy

Although Raftree covered a lot of problem areas that could have arisen in a community mapping project, she recognized that issues such as connectivity and ICT training, are still barriers to entry that need to be addressed for a project’s overall sustainability.

How about the next steps for the Plan International’s YETAM project in Cameroon?

Having youth continue to follow-up with database collection, making community councils accountable for their findings, and integrating information into Plan’s overall decision making.

For more information regarding upcoming events, subscribe to our newsletter, The Spectrum.

July 27, 2011/by actualize

Connectivity, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

African operators kick off LTE trials

Magnus Mchunguzi, MD Ericsson SA

Ericsson is currently conducting Long Term Evolution (LTE) trials with a number of African mobile operators including Econet, Movicel and Unitel.

This is according Magnus Mchunguzi, Ericsson South Africa Managing Director.
“It is interesting that for the first time in Africa a lot of operators are asking for LTE, perhaps not on a large scale but as a trial offer. A lot of companies are trying to offer LTE on a network shared level,” says Mchunguzi.

“There is definitely a lot of movement in the LTE environment, he adds.”

Ease of deployment

Ericsson’s base stations have reduced the cost of deploying new broadband technology.

“One can get 2G, 3G, HSPA, and LTE on one base station. In the past if you wanted to offer new technology, you had to remove the hardware and install a new one. The cost of deploying new technology was very high. Today this will be driven purely by software updates. The platform remains the same and you simply update the software,” says Mchunguzi.

Ericcson is fully LTE ready according to Magnus: “Our new base stations, known as multi-standard radios, that are already offering 3G and HSPA have been deployed, we just need to update the software and they will be LTE ready.”

MTN pilot implementation

In early July 2011, MTN South Africa in partnership with Ericsson launched its LTE network in the Gauteng area of South Africa.
MTN SA’s Chief Technology Officer Kanagaratnam Lambotharan said the launch would give selected MTN customers a glimpse of the future.

“Being the first operator in Africa to launch an LTE pilot network of this scale is a reaffirmation of MTN’s vision to be the leading telecoms operator in emerging markets and emphasises our technology and innovation leadership in mobile communications.

On MTN’s investment in technology he says: “Full deployment of LTE in future will allow MTN to maximize its infrastructure investment to provide its subscribers with a quality experience that is richer, faster and with significantly more capacity than that provided currently.”

Bontle Moeng

July 27, 2011/by actualize

Connectivity, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Smart cards to boom in MENA market

New research predicts that the smart card market is to grow rapidly (image: stock.xchng)

New research predicts that the smart card market is to grow rapidly in coming years. The market research firm Frost and Sullivan released new research predicting that the smart card market in the Middle East and North Africa is to grow to $328.5 billion by 2014, according to the Middle Eastern News business service Bawaba.

The telecommunications industry will account for the majority of growth, comprising 64.4 percent of all smart card sales.

Smart cards are small microprocessors that hold information related to their user. Most people are familiar with smart cards’ application in mobile phones, where they are mostly used to hold contact information.

In the period from 2011-2013, the Middle East and North Africa will see fast growth in the smart card market, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.8 percent, it still lags behind the global market that is estimated by Frost and Sullivan to grow at a CAGR of 12 percent.

Smart cards are also used in cell phones, insurance cards, credit cards, and debit cards, but Frost and Sullivan attributed the growth to demands for digital security. Smart cards can be used in national identity cards.

Jahd Khalil

July 27, 2011/by actualize

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