Originally posted on the GBI Portal – Page 45

Morocco’s attractive broadband network

Morocco has a rather attractive broadband network

Morocco’s growing broadband network and an increase in competition for video has placed the region at the forefront for regional ICT investments.

“Whether it be VOIP providers, broadband Internet repackaging, or pay-TV installers, the smaller companies will be called to duty and therefore present a viable option for investors looking to capture a share of the projected $1.44-billion data segment by 2015, or other promising indicators,” says Majd Hosn, a telecoms analyst for Pyramid.

The North African country’s telecom sector revenue will see a 4.1% annual growth rate over the next five years. The telecommunications projections position the industry at $5.47-billion in 2015.

Moroccan communications ministry official Ibrahim Saeed told ITNewsAfrica that he is hopeful that these projections will maintain excellent prospects.

“We have worked hard to build a strong IT and telecom sector and hopefully Pyramid’s report will turn out true,” says Saeed.

“The leadership changes and popular uprisings that have spread in North Africa will take their toll on the stability and growth of Morocco,” adds Pyramid.

“However, (the country will) maintain a strong position compared to other Middle Eastern and North African communications markets.”

Jonathan Terry

July 18, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Connectivity, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Power to the (rural) People!

Photo: SANGONeT

In my recent interviews with telecoms, NGOs, and governments working in Africa I’ve noticed a common theme. In a very generalized sense, Internet infrastructure is in place (or under construction) in urban centers throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. Even in places where connectivity is still lacking, like in South Sudan and Somalia, initiatives are underway to light up those nations. I think it is appropriate to say that this stage of communication development, which I will call connectivity 1.0, has the necessary foundation for completion.

Connectivity 2.0, then, is focused on rural Africa. Specifically, it entails:

(1) how to bring connectivity to rural areas in financially sustainable ways

(2) how to make the Internet and mobiles useful and relevant tools for rural lifestyle

Others in the ICT4D space have recognized this need as well. Infodev’s Program Manager Valerie D’Costa recently spoke on the urgent need to use ICTs especially for rural development projects. One of the ITU’s new flagship initiatives is to bring ICTs to rural schools and villages. And USAID leaders repeatedly emphasize the power of mobile phones for agricultural development in rural areas.

SANGONeT, an umbrella NGO specializing in ICT expertise and agricultural development, is taking advantage of this momentum, and is planning an upcoming conference in South Africa on ICT4RD (ICT for rural development), slated for November 1-3, 2011. The South African Departments of Communication and Rural Development, the Gates Foundation, Cisco, Microsoft, and InfoDev are sponsoring the conference. They hope to attract national USFs in Sub-Saharan Africa, NGOs, and telecom companies.

The collaboration between these entities is vital to creating sustainable solutions, SANGONeT Program Manager Matthew de Gale explains. With commitments from government USFs in Zambia, Uganda, and South Africa to attend, de Gale hopes that additional USFs and international organizations like USAID and the World Bank will also send representatives, helping African governments to make the most informed policy decisions regarding rural development. Hopefully, then, policymakers will meet the challenges posed by connectivity 2.0.

July 15, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Extension Service, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

eRAILS2, FARA’s push to better inform farmers

The Ghana-based Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) will form a Knowledge Management Service (KMS) in the second phase of its eRAILS platform. The technology is an information system that mobilize farming communities and farmer advisory service providers to generate questions so that agricultural experts can provide actionable responses.

The second phase of the FARA initiative, eRAILS2, will focus on content management. The research institute says this should speed-up the flow of information from agricultural experts to farmers by eliminating intermediaries.

The KMS phase of the project is widely seen as an opportunity to improve the agricultural sector in a myriad of ways, particularly through better data collection. Improved data collection processes will give scientists and policymakers a better understanding of the farming communities’ needs. This should result in better policies and programs, including early warning systems and impact assessment processes across the agricultural sector. This also bodes well for efforts to promote more targeted decision making, as agricultural management is localized.

Learn more about FARA’s effort to launch the second phase of the eRAILS project here.

eRAILS is funded by the African Development Bank (AfDB).

July 15, 2011/by actualize

Basic Education, Education, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

3 Million Malawi Children

This post was co-written by Jeffrey Swindle

To improve education quality in Malawi, USAID Malawi implemented the Tikwere Interactive Radio Instruction (IRI) program. The IRI program has affected over three million children and 22,000 teachers since it began in May 2007. Furthermore, management and financing of the program is now moving to the hands of the government, letting USAID allocate its efforts to additional endeavors.

Despite promising increases in primary education enrollment (54% to 70% from 1999 to 2006) in Sub-Saharan Africa, the quality of education is quite low. High teacher and student absence rates, as well as low achievement scores, plague education systems. When researchers make unannounced visits to schools, teachers are absent on average 19% of the time, with higher rates in rural areas.

In Malawi, the situation is particularly grim. According to the Southern Africa Consortium on Monitoring Education Quality (SACMEQ), fewer than 25% of eligible Malawian children remain in school by grade 8. In addition, only 9% of primary school students were found to have reached a minimum level of mastery in reading in English, and a mere 2% of pupils possessed skills beyond basic numeracy.

Teacher at the chalkboard speaking with students. Radio on a chair nearby

Photo credit: USAID/Malawi

To address these challenges, USAID Malawi began the IRI program. In the program, schools are provided with radios, and they listen to a thirty-minute national broadcast each day. Teachers receive text messages on their phones telling them the weekly schedule for the in-service broadcasts prior to the beginning of the term, and through lesson plans produced by Tikwere teachers are informed about what materials they will need to prepare beforehand (posters, pencils, textbooks, etc.). The broadcast focuses on one of three topics: the local language Chichewa, English, and life skills. The broadcasts are prepared professionally and incorporate ideal teaching strategies, including group work, learner-focused discussions, and gender balanced teaching. By listening to the broadcast, teachers learn how they can be most effective. And the students benefit because they receive training from an optimal teacher via radio each day.

Amongst these learners there have been increases in test scores for standard 1 learners in literacy (17% points higher in English and 9% points higher in Chichewa compared to non-participating students) and mathematics (12% points higher than non-participating students).

Teacher pointing at chalkboard, while radio plays.

Photo credit: USAID/Malawi

Additionally, they are particularly engaged during the radio broadcasts; the students anxiously look forward to this special time each day and enrollment has been rising in Tikwere schools which cover over 95% of the 5,300 schools nationwide.

To implement the program, USAID purchased 13,000 freeplay radios which are solar powered at a total cost of $386,400 over a course of three years. Additionally, printed materials to accompany the activities and radio airtime required additional funding. Using conservative estimates, over 2,000,000 children listening to the broadcasts for the first three years. If the same rate of expansion of the project continued, the IRI program affects far more than 3,000,000 million children in Malawi. The total cost per student per year is $0.16, a bargain for improved educational achievement and teacher effectiveness. Currently, the USAID mission to Malawi is working with the government to incorporate the program into the national education plan and finances, making the program financial sustainable without further support from USAID.

Table: Project Total Estimates from Macro International

The final impacts of the IRI program, however, are yet to be measured. Macro International conducted a mid-term evaluation of the project in 2009. Though the IRI program was able to reach approximately 75% of schools in Malawi, at least 10% do not have the connectivity for the radios to work, and the costs were too high and complicated for USAID to provide alternative technologies for IRI. In an ingenious strategy, Tikwere uses this 5% as a control comparison for the learner assessments of the IRI program. Thus far, schools with the Tikwere IRI program show a 17% gain in scores over the control schools.

Photo credit: USAID/Malawi

Originally Zambia implemented the IRI methodology for the out of school program. Because of IRI’s potential for success, the government there adopted it in the conventional schools. Malawi’s experience is adopted from the Taonga Market in Zambia, and other USAID missions have implemented similar programs as well. Hopefully, more missions around the world will implement similar radio programs and see equal impacts.

July 15, 2011/by actualize

Anti-corruption, Civil Society, Democracy & Governance, Elections, Governances, Originally posted on the GBI Portal, Rule of Law

Gov 2.0: Open Data Shaping Kenya’s Future

The President of Kenya, Mwai Kibaki, watches a demonstration of the Huduma platform at the Kenya Open Government Data Portal launch, looking on is Dr. Bitange Ndemo, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information and Communication

The President of Kenya, Mwai Kibaki, watches a demonstration Photo Credit: Ushahidi

Last Friday, Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki inaugurated the Kenya Open Data Initiative (KODI), an online resource to catalog and display the government’s expenditures—launching the ICT pioneering country into a new epoch of transparency and accountability.

The new initiative is a crucial step for Kenyan citizens to monitor public spending amid previous corrupt practices, including the alleged manipulation of the 2007 elections.

Kenya ranked 154 out of 178 total countries in Transparency International’s 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index.

Screenshot of Kenyan open data initative

Screenshot of KODI

The KODI contains 160 datasets arranged by country-level and county, and is organized within various sectors, including: education, energy, health, population, poverty, along with water and sanitation. Information for the datasets were taken from national census, government ministries, and information from the World Bank.

Prior to creating this information platform, the Kenyan government seldom made statistics and information on these sectors publicly available, or would postpone their release.

Now, however, they are taking a participatory approach to following the new 2010 Kenyan Constitution requiring the government to make information on the country publicly accessible.

On its homepage, the KODI website asserts the new transformation taking place:

Our information is a national asset, and it’s time it was shared: this data is key to improving transparency; unlocking social and economic value; and building Government 2.0 in Kenya

The platform allows citizens to actively engage on the information they want, and need to know.

Users of the open data portal can create interactive charts and tables, and developers can download the raw data to build applications for web and mobile. Additionally, users can press a “suggest a dataset” icon, which aggregates the requests for new information and sorts them according to relevance.

According to the Guardian, Kenyans have already made mass requests for data on youth unemployment, libraries, crime, and the locations of primary and secondary schools.

The data portal is managed by the Kenya ICT Board in partnership with the World Bank, and is powered by Socrata.

In addition to managing the data, the Kenya ICT Board plans to award groups and individuals who configure the data advantageously, intending to give out up to thirty grants to those with the best ideas.

A series of valuable initiatives have already been taking place.

Huduma (Kiswahili for “service”), derived from Ushaidi, has already started to use statistics collected on health, infrastructure, and education to compare the provision of aid across different districts of Kenya. Business Daily, a Nairobi-based news service, had announced plans to publish a series of articles on the newly released applications and services. Virtual Kenya built an application mapping counties where Members of Parliament declined to pay taxes.

Screenshot of Ushahidi's Huduma

Kenyan entrepreneurs are now in charge of publicizing this information and making it user-friendly.

Though the Kenyan government has been lambasted for a lack of transparency and accountability in the past, this open source data program allows Kenyan citizens to recognize development challenges and foster their own solutions—leading themselves and their county into a new era of progressive growth.

July 15, 2011/by actualize

Connectivity, Democracy & Governance, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Kenya opens government data portal

Kenya’s President Mwai Kibaki

Kenya has launched Africa’s first government open data portal. President Mwai Kibaki announced the new portal at the Kenyatta International Conference Center in Nairobi, Kenya.

The new portal will enable Kenya to release data for research purposes, which the government hopes will empower the nation’s information economy. According to the ministry of communications, the data in digitized electronic format will be available through the web address opendata.go.ke

Kibaki says this portal contains data in a flexible and user-friendly format that will allow users to view and compare information at national, province and county level.

The Open data portal provides information on six main categories: education, energy, health, population, poverty as well as water and sanitation.

“I call upon Kenyans to make use of this Government data portal to enhance accountability and improve governance in our country,” says Kibaki.

Janan Yussif

July 15, 2011/by actualize

Connectivity, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

How Broadband Will Get To Somalia Before You Know It

Child participates in USAID's Interactive Radio Instruction education program, the only possible ICT project currently in Somalia.

Last week, I interviewed Mohamed Ahmed Jama, CEO of Dalkom Somalia and board member of Frontier Optical Networks Ltd (FON) in Kenya. Mr. Jama described four potential Broadband cables that could be a part of a terrestrial backbone throughout East Africa, including in Somalia. A fifth was announced yesterday in Somaliland.

Though all three of these proposed links are just that—proposals—they are indicative of the rapid growth of Broadband connectivity in the region. Most East African governments are actively engaged in rolling out backbone terrestrial networks, while four years ago the World Bank called East African connectivity the world’s only “missing link.” South Sudan is working with the CTO to develop an ICT strategic plan, Burundi recently received funding from the World Bank, and Uganda has also invested as well. And private companies are facilitating the expansion of Broadband cables as well; they are working with the national governments to lay the cables and to fund the projects. The East African Backhaul System, recently announced as a combined $400 million partnership between Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, South Sudan, Kenya, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo governments and a variety of private telecoms. The unique partnerships between the public and private sector make the ICT space in East Africa distinct from other regions.

Potential backbone networks in Somalia, Ethiopia, and South Sudan are listed here and can be seen on the following map (forgive the rough estimations, I did not draw this exact):

1. Somalia’s Connection to EASSy Cables (blue line)

According to Mr. Jama, Dalkom Somalia has built two cable landing sites in Somalia from the EASSy submarine cable, one in Somaliland and the other in Mogadisho, Somalia. Unfortunately, the government of Somaliland revoked Dalkom’s license last year before the cable was completed (scheduled to be finished in October, 2010). The Somaliland government claimed that they had already signed an agreement with a local company, SomCable. However, no additional work has been carried out since last year, leaving construction at a stand still and the region unconnected. In Mogadisho, on the other hand, the landing cable lays ready to be used, but remains unconnected due to security issues at the site. To make matters more frustrating, Dalkom has funding, contracts awarded and the regulatory approval to extend the cables from the landing site inward, creating a national terrestrial backbone. Security issues in the area are the only contingency.

2. Mombasa—Nairobi—Moyale, Ethiopia Cable (green line)

The EASSy submarine cable has been extended inland previously from Mombasa to Nairobi. For the past year, discussions have been underway been the Kenyan and Ethiopian government on possibly constructing a terrestrial cable from Nairobi to Moyale, on the Ethiopian border. However, with FON’s assistance, the cable has been built, but is yet to be lighted. The only remaining holdup is to sign an agreement of understanding with the Ethiopia government, which has historically been reluctant to work with private sector ICT companies.

3. Somalia—Kenya Connection (black line)

According to Mr. Jama, there is 560 km remaining between fiber optic terrestrial backbone cables in Somalia and the state of Mandera in Northeastern Kenya. Mr. Jama proposes that the Kenyan government bring the fiber to the border, and then Dalkom Somalia would complete the Somali side. This connection would connect Somalia to the African backbone network. However, there has been intermittent violence on the Kenya-Somalia border in Mandera, with the most recent issue being a land mine blast that killed eleven Kenyan officers. The volatility of the border could potentially lead to another security standstill before lighting the fiber, like in Mogadisho. Dalkom and the governments, then, need to concern themselves not only with the technical issues and construction of the remaining fiber, but also on the political instability of the region.

4. Juba—Lokichogio Link (red line)

Southern Sudan and Kenya plan to construct a fiber optic cable link between the two nations as part of a larger project entitled “four-in-one.” The project includes the construction of a railway line from Lodwar-Lokichogio to Juba, road rehabilitation, an oil pipeline, and fiber optic cables. Currently, the governments need to conduct a feasibility test given the mountainous nature of the route, especially the Great Rift Valley. In all likelihood, the project will not be finished before 2015.

5. Djibouti—Somaliland SomCable (orange line)

SomCable, supported by the interim government in the territory of Somaliland, reportedly signed an agreement to buy the necessary buildings and licensing in Djibouti to route the EASSy cable into Berbera and throughout Somaliland. The President of SomCable, Mr. Mohammed Gueti, announced his recent acquisitions just yesterday. Mr. Gueti has strong ties with the president of Djibouti’s family, arguably giving his company an advantage over Dalkom Somalia at winning the contract. However, as Mr. Jama points out, construction has yet to begin on this cable line, possibly suggesting that the announcement is merely a political move by the government of Somaliland as Mr. Gueti does has any rights to extend the EASSY Cable. Neither purchases any capacity from the members of the Consortium.

July 14, 2011/by actualize

GBI Highlights, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Applications being accepted for GBI Fall Graduate Internship

GBI is please to announce the 2011 GBI Fall Graduate Internship Program! The program provides a unique opportunity for graduate students in both International Development and Communications to gain valuable insight and experience in USAID’s ICT4D activities. This unique and highly competitive program will team approximately six interns together to conduct sector research and analysis, provide text and multimedia content to the GBI Portal, assist in marketing and outreach of the portal and GBI services, and develop institutional capacity for sector specific outreach.

Dates: September 12- December 9

Location: Washington, DC (McPherson Square)

Positions: ICT4D Research & Outreach Associate and Web and Multimedia Production Associate

Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis. Please pass along to your networks!

Details on the positions and instructions for application can be found here.

July 14, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Health, Health, Health Systems, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

MIT researchers link camera technology to healthcare

MIT researchers recently created a smartphone device designed to detect cataracts. Called Catra, the device uses “off -the-shelf components” as opposed to the highly expensive and highly space consuming technologies normally used to detect cataracts.

Using Catra device on smartphone. Photo Credit: EyeCatra

The research group is part of the MIT media lab that won the MIT Global Challenge competition back in May. Taking advantage of mobility through mobile phones and an inexpensive design, Catra was designed for use in the developing world.

The device, which attaches to the screen of a smartphone, costs about $2, whereas a slit lamp examination conventionally used to examine cataracts cost up to $5,000. And unlike conventional slit lamp examinations, Catra does not need a skilled human operator to administer the test and read the results, Catra does everything for the patient.

Catra utilizes a technique, which allows the user to respond to what they visually experience. It scans the lens of the eye section by section. The user then sees projected patterns and presses a few buttons to map the light attenuation in each section of the eye. This information is collected by the device creating an attenuation map of the entire lens. This allows individuals to monitor the progression of the severity of the cataract on their phones.

Catra vs. Slit Lamp technology. Photo Credit: MIT

This is not the MIT media lab’s first project to improve the health of the eye. They are working on a series of projects involving eye care. They developed and released Netra, an application and smartphone attachment for eye exams via mobile phone, last year.

Cataract is a condition where clouding builds up in the lens of the eye. It is the leading cause of avoidable blindness worldwide. Furthermore, ophthalmologists, doctors that specialize on the eye, are scarce in the developing world with one ophthalmologist per million people in some areas. When cataract leads to vision loss, it prevents people from being productive citizens in their community. It leads to high levels of illiteracy and poverty, and can impair a society’s economic and health sectors.

Using mHealth to tackle cataract is a crucial development. However, smartphones are not ubiquitous in the developing world. And it’s for a reason. Even though the Catra device may be cheap, the phones on which they operate are much more expensive. This needs to be considered when implementing Catra on a wide scale in the field. However, with the potential of this kind of technology, it is likely that MIT media lab will find a way.

July 14, 2011/by actualize

Environment, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

What about e-Waste management?

a pile of dumped computers and other electronics, including wires.

Credit: Megan via greenlifesmartlife

Technology diffusion dominates the discourse on ICTs, leaving little room for action on e-waste management in the developing world. This is an unfortunate trend, as the rapidly changing technological landscape, brought forth by changes in media, obsolescence and affordability, spurs a surplus of global e-waste that is poorly managed.

This is exacerbated by stringent regulations in the developed world regarding the disposal of electronics. Consequently, much of the world’s 50 million tonnes of e-waste ends up in the developing world, including China, India and parts of Africa, where the e-waste regulatory framework and collection system is non-existent or far too weak to ensure compliance and accountability.

E-waste, which UNEP asserts will rise five-fold over the next decade, contains hazardous waste that may cause damage (health, social and economic) in excess of the perceived economic value of e-cycling and e-dumping. But experts contend that there are ways to combat this, specifically the removal of hazards before shipment. That is subject to stringent regulation of e-waste and heightened concerns about environmental harm in the developed world. This creates an underlying legal and economic disincentive to remove harmful residues before export to the developing world.

However, developing countries are taking greater interest in e-waste management. For instance, Kenya adopted guidelines for e-Waste management last year that provides a policy framework for regulating the booming sector. As the East African country prepares to launch its e-waste management policy, efforts are underway to raise public awareness on sustainable management. Kenya, a leading ICT hub with high technology adoption rates, will certainly experience a spike in local e-waste as its robust innovators churn out new technologies, replacing other widely used instruments.

The emerging policy framework will enable the country to better manage and benefit from the global expansion in e-waste, as the policy will categorize waste, itemize disposal procedures and practices. But the wider concerns about dangers posed by the disposal of e-waste versus other obsolete technologies remains a major concern, and could thwart proper management globally.

July 14, 2011/by actualize

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