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Mobile Money to Pay Rwandan Teachers

Ange is a teacher at the Rubona Public School living too far from the nearest branch of the Rwandan Teachers’ Credit and Savings Cooperative, or the Umwalimu SACCO, to receive her monthly salary.

She relies on her payment each month to put food on the table.

To resolve this problem, Umwalimu SACCO announced last month commencing a mobile money transfer service to pay members living in areas where the cooperative has no branches.

Currently, the cooperative has 16 branches countrywide, with about 57, 000 members.

Teachers living in rural areas similar to Ange, complain of having to trek long distances to access their salaries and loans, which is costly and time consuming, so SACCO decided initiate a mobile money transfer system.

Umwalimu SACCO, is a Rwandan cooperative of credit and saving which gives out loans and salaries to teachers, allowing them to set up income-generating activities to complement their measly monthly pay

The typical salary for Rwandan teachers is $40 per month. To supplement this, requests for start-up loans to engage in activities such as making mandazis (donut-like pastries) and selling them to other teachers on school grounds, is standard.

Jean Marie Vianney Nzagahimana Photo Credit: Rwandan Patriotic Front

Jean Marie Vianney Nzagahimana, the Chairman on the Board of Directors of the cooperative, recognizes that mobile payments allow teachers to be paid on time, while spurring further economic development and growth.

“We knew about the problem and that’s why we came up with this system to further address teachers’ needs. We cannot do it at once but we will be addressing them beginning with priority areas,” Nzagahimana says.

Although MTN and Tigo are currently offering money transfer services in Rwanda, Nzagahimana said that the SACCO money transfer system is to be implemented in partnership with South African company, MFS. Teachers will be able to get overdrafts through the same process.

The cooperative is also looking to expand beyond merely providing fiscal provisions for the teachers, aiming to meet the demand for new services from one of the biggest cooperatives in the country.

The Umwalimu SACCO cooperative has experienced rapid growth. Their financial assets have nearly doubled in a year from 3b Rwandan franc (Frw) in 2009, to Frw 7.3 billion in 2010.

The cooperatives financial budget for the next fiscal year worth Rwf 11.7 billion, converts roughly to $US 18 million.

“We are committed to at least establish a permanent SACCO office in every district by the end of July,” Nzagahimana asserts “This (is) done to get close to teachers and facilitate access to our services, which we also want to expand beyond financial ones. We are working on one laptop per teacher and solar energy at every teacher’s house.”

The financial services provided by SACCO are encouraging more teachers to educate Rwandan children in the classroom, while the cooperative’s new mobile payment system ensures that educators receive the money they deserve—in the time and place they need it.

July 19, 2011/by actualize

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

Africa Gathering London – Is social media revolutionizing Africa?

Youth learning to use GPS in Pitoa, Cameroon (photo: Ernest Kunbega)

Last Monday I attended Africa Gathering London. The topic was ’Social Media Revolutionizing Africa: How is new media changing Africa, giving voices to the voiceless, improving governance and transparency, and changing narratives?’

The event stimulated thinking and brought up some hot discussions around technology, traditional and social media, aid and development, participation and governance. (Big congratulations to Marieme Jamme for curating a great line up that brought in an interesting and engaged group of participants and to William Perrin of Indigo Trust for keeping things on track and generating good debate!) See the program, the speaker bios and some short video interviews.

Some quotes, thoughts and debates from the day:

If your purpose is to bring more people into discussions, remember that radio, Facebook, and Twitter audiences are distinct and be sure you are thinking differently about how to engage them all. Remember that many people in Africa prefer to talk not write. (from BBC’s Africa Have Your Say – @bbcafricahys‘s presentation)

You can’t resolve all of Africa’s issues with one approach. The countries are very different and local context really matters. But you also can’t design something for every tiny demographic. Where is the sweet spot between localized and scale? (discussion after the morning workshop)

People should not sit in the UK deciding and develop things for Africans. Develop things with Africans, or support Africans to develop things themselves. This idea got retweeted a lot, with lots of agreement. But H Taylor – @HFTaylor88 also commented via Twitter that this rhetoric has been around for ages within NGOs…. (discussion after morning workshop)

It’s great that the market has been able to bring mobile phones to so many people in Africa, but the market can’t do it on its own as many are still left out. There needs to be more incentive to reach remote areas. There needs to be education, cash transfers, government regulation if we want to really realize the potential of mobiles. Mika Valitalo – @vatamik commented that in many African countries, mobiles are still taxed as luxury items, making them more expensive than they should be. (Clare Melamed -ODI – @claremelamed‘s “Is the Mobile Phone Revolution Really for Everyone”.)

Any big story today on CNN has a social media component, yet there is still the idea that social media only breaks news and ‘it won’t make the history books until CNN or BBC report on it’. If CNN is not planning to do a story but sees everyone is talking about it on Facebook and Twitter, they ~~will cover~~ may rethink covering it. CNN finds good opinions and stories on social media, but their primary news source will continue to be their correspondents. Emrys Schoemaker – @emrys_s however questioned whether mass media use of citizen journalism is a broadening of voices or if it’s cheap content for big media – or both. (Faith Karimi/CNN/@faithCNN’s presentation and resulting discussions.)

Social media gives African youth an uncensored worldwide platform, letting them feel included in shaping Africa’s image, but the youth using social media in Africa are still the middle class and the rich. We need to find ways to include other youth. (Faith Karimi – @faithCNN’s presentation and resulting discussions.)

The Guardian’s Global Development Site and Poverty Matters blog are trying to get away from the vision of ‘poor Africa’ and have only been accused of ‘poverty porn’ once in 9 months (which Liz said irritated her to no end as they really try to avoid it). (I remember the case…) They stay away from the typical ‘flies in the eyes’ photos, but sometimes there really is starvation in Africa, and in those cases, a photo of a starving child might actually represent reality. (Someone countered that African newspapers should use photos of drunk, vomiting Brits to illustrate stories about parliament). (Liz Ford/deputy editor/@lizford‘s talk and discussion)

Is the Guardian’s Global Development site one-sided, taking the view that aid is good rather than other ideas on how to best achieve development? Development is much larger than ‘aid’ and when talking about development we need to remember the bigger picture and the alternative views that maybe aid is not the best (or only) way to ‘do development’. The Guardian is quite open to new thoughts and ideas and invites anyone with ideas for blogs or stories to be in touch with them. They consider their site a ‘work in progress’. (Note: I like the Guardian’s site very much as it is one of the few media sources that discusses and seems to really promote and engage in the ‘#smartaid / @smart_aid‘ discussion). (Liz Ford’s talk and discussion)

Many African leaders, not to mention the public and the media, will listen when high level people call their attention to something, but problems can’t be solved by the same people who created them, especially if those people are considered morally bankrupt. Karen Attiah – @karennattiah commented in from Twitter that a big part of development work should focus on rebuilding the broken social contract between governments and citizens in Africa. So how can we connect policy makers with ordinary Africans? How to bridge the gap between policy makers and grassroots approaches and implementation. (Panel with Alex Reid/@alreidy and Carolina Rodriguez /@caro_silborn – media heads at Gates Foundation and at Africa Progress Panel)

Not all sources are created equal – this is true for traditional and for social media. Social media is not about the technology, it’s about the human need to communicate. You can make traditional media more social also. Even those without access to social media will get around harsh barriers to tell their stories because of the urge to communicate. So the best thing is to create a social experience, not to worry so much about getting ‘jiggy’ with the technology. (from Kevin Anderson/@KevGlobal‘s presentation. See Putting the social in media.)

New technologies can impact on public debate, people’s political capabilities, citizen-state relations, relationships with other government actors. Frontline SMS Radio, for example, could be a very useful tool for this because radio is still the main way to communicate with the majority of Africa. Using Frontline SMS Radio, stations can sort through messages they get, understand them better, and use the information to orient their radio programs as well as other things. Radio can play a very strong and useful role in governance. (from Sharath Srinivasan/ @sharath_sri‘s presentation. See FrontlineSMS at Africa Gathering.)

Youth can have a big impact on community development if given space to influence. There is money (eg., in Cameroon, at local government level) but it needs to be better spent. Informed and involved youth can hold government accountable for spending it better. Local level advocacy has a greater impact on youths’ lives than global level initiatives because you can make as many laws as you like, but unless people are putting them into place and practice at a local level they don’t matter. Organizations should listen to young people but not make them dependent on NGOs because the real duty-bearers are family, community, government. NGOs need to be models of their own methodologies; eg., if an NGO is encouraging people to criticize the government, the NGO should be ready to receive the same scrutiny around its own work and behaviors. Social media can play a role in this process by showing what is happening at the local level to a global audience. (from my presentation and the resulting discussions. See Youth Empowerment through Technology, Arts and Media)

Julia Chandler (@juliac2) did a great round-up of the day’s presentations and discussions on her blog: Part 1 and Part 2. The Guardian continues the discussion here and of course the Africa Gathering website is a great place for more information.

Update – more posts about Africa Gathering:

Great perspective from Tony Burkson – @tonyballu – who I really enjoyed talking with at the post-event drinks: A Day at Africa Gathering.

June 26, 2011/by actualize

GBI Highlights, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

GBi Presents at 2011 Aid & Development Forum

Darrell Owen, speaking at the 2011 Aid & Development Forum

Photo Credit: Laurie Moy

GBi’s Senior ICT Advisor, Darrell Owen, spoke at the 2011 Aid and Development Forum yesterday, laying out USAID’s ICT4D strategy and how it supports the work of humanitarian and disaster relief workers.
The strategy, as Owen explained, is to address both the access to, and the application of, ICTs in development. The effort to provide access includes creating an enabling and facilitating environment, finding and utilizing new low cost, low power technologies, and supporting carrier build out in rural areas. The second part of the strategy is to leverage the use of ICTs in USAID’s development work. In particular USAID, through the GBi, is looking into the development of cloud related services, the identification and sharing of scalable and replicable applications, and the possible development of a “catalogue” of sorts of these applications. USAID realizes, Owen pointed out, that almost all of the ICT solution based projects are one-off solutions. “We need to stop reinventing the wheel, and start scaling these up,” he argued.

This strategy has tremendous application to the humanitarian and disaster relief industry, he pointed out. Small, portable low cost solutions suitable for rural areas also work in disaster response. Many of these solutions are capable for operating off the power grid, as well, making them useful in relief operations. GBi’s application focus serves the relief industry by identifying useful,

(l to r) Darrell Owen, David Hartshorn, Evelyn Cherow, and Joe Simmons. Photo Credit: Laurie Moy

suitable solutions, including those designed for disaster response and preparedness. Research is underway exploring complimentary, development related cloud services and their application in the field. Identifying and making available disaster response specific tools ahead of time, would make response that much quicker.

Owen, who was accompanied by Joe Simmons of NetHope and Evelyn Cherow of Global Partners United, spoke on a panel entitled ICT for Disaster Preparedness & Development: the State of the Art. The panel was moderated by David Hartshorn, Secretary General of the Global VSAT Forum, a GBi partner.

June 10, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Civil Society, Democracy & Governance, Humanitarian Assistance, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Serious Gaming—It Plays to Develop

Screenshot of the game Peacemaker

You can now play an active role in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as either the Israeli Prime Minister, or the Palestinian President, straight from your living room.

Will you put pressure on the United States to publicly condemn your enemy? Will you withdraw your settlements from the Gaza Strip? Your decisions will render a live computer generated response. Similar to the importance of real life, timely decisions in the Middle East, your decision will affect if the entire region will be at peace or explode in violence.

”]This is the aim of the “serious game” called the Peacemaker developed by Asi Burak, and co-founder of GamesforChange.org.

These “Serious Games” are burgeoning agents for social change being used in the development world by advocates, nonprofit groups, and technically keen academics searching for new ways to reach young people.

The main idea is the player becomes immersed in a real-world situation where human rights, economics, public policy, poverty, global conflict, news, and politics are some issues confronted in the games.

The player deliberates and makes conscious choices while they play and those actions either benefits one side or harms another, making a complete resolution difficult.

Objectively, the player can play as many times as they need to resolve the issue to win the game.

As Jarmo Petäjäaho from Finland, states in a review after playing Peacemaker, “Making the policy decisions in the game and pondering the possible ramifications on all parties really makes the issues hit home and stay with you. It is a wonderfully efficient and fun way to study the real world.”

That is the true beauty behind all the efforts: games are innately helpful in simplifying large, complex systems and teaching them to people.

Two weeks ago Tech@State had a two-day Serious Games conference where game creators, technology executives, and social entrepreneurs, exchanged ideas and experiences on the best mechanics of games for social change.

While most of the games focused on issues of international affairs, public policy and diplomacy, one group focused on how to leverage this educational tool for developing nations lacking computers.

Playpower, created by a group of programmers and researchers, is a great, simple educational tool to bring video gaming to developing nations.

By constructing a $10 TV-compatible computers out of discarded keyboards and outfitting them with cartridge-based educational games, the Playpower team aims to make learning games affordable for “the other 90%.”

The Serious Games shown at the conference is rowing as a tool used for social change, but no one knows how sustainable the method may be.

USAID is interesting in exploring the effects of the gaming venture on development.

An Innovations for Youth Capacity & Engagement (IYCE) game is currently in development with the Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance (DCHA) Bureau in conjunction with Nethope. The game targets resolving youth and social issues in Jordan.

June 7, 2011/by actualize

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

Closing the Urban-Rural Digital Divide: Connectivity Success in Macedonia

Cover for the Macedonia Connects project

Photo Credit: AED

Within the context of USAID, most often rural connectivity initiatives are undertaken within the context of a sector-specific program/project. This was the case case with Macedonia Connects, or what is more frequently referred to as MK Connects. This project may well be one of the more successful Last Mile Initiative (LMI) project undertaken by USAID.

In fact MK Connects is much, much more. The LMI project was undertaken as but one component of a unique national commitment to improve education, as well as a unique partnering of a significant number of both public and private sector partners.

The foundation for the success of MK Connects was the government of Macedonia’s commitment to a program for delivering a computer for every child. The result was a nationwide broadband network providing broadband into every primary and secondary school—many of which were in remote rural locations. Further, the project incorporated native language education content being delivered over this network to over 460 primary and secondary schools nationwide.

The journey started in 2002 when China donated 5,000 personal computers to support what soon became the e-Schools Project of the Ministry of Education and Science–a project that ran between 2003-2008. The MK Connects project was a piece of this larger initiative, which in 2006 was augmented by the Primary Education Project (PEP). Both MC Connects and PEP were USAID supported initiatives executed through the Academy for Educational Development (AED).

While focused on supporting Macedonia’s commitment to improve and modernize their education system top to bottom, MK Connects went well beyond connecting the 460 primary and secondary schools along with university campuses.

Picture of students in school crowded around a computer

Photo Credit: AED

As the project got started in 2003, it was estimated that only 4 percent of the Macedonia’s population had access to the Internet. As the project concluded in 2007, Macedonia was the first country on the planet to achieve universal nation-wide wireless broadband coverage. Not only were all the nation’s schools connected, but the project design also provided coverage for access by private sector businesses, the government, individuals, etc.

This connectivity was undertaken through a competitive process where a local Internet Service Provider (ISP) was able to build this nation wide network in just 4 years. Motorola provided the wireless technology solution set, Canopy, a pre-WiMAX solution.

MK Connects, along with a number of important partners, was a unique experience with regards to modernizing Macedonia’s entire education system. However, the fundamental approach taken in Macedonia holds promise for application to countries around the world. The MK Connects model has been applied in neighboring Montenegro to bring more than seventy percent of the country on-line. A similar project has been constructed in Georgia. And Senegal is the first African country seeking to replicate this model.

For more information, refer to the information on Macedonia contained in the GBI project database and MK Connects case study in the document library.

March 3, 2011/by actualize

Connectivity, GBI Highlights, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Universal Service Funds – Africa

Group of attendees from Intel's Africa USF Conference

Photo credit: Eric White, Integra LLC

Universal Service Funds (USF) hold the promise of extended rural connectivity for millions throughout Africa, but governments often lack the technical capacity and know how to utilize these private enterprise models. Through GBI, USAID will work with private sector partners to further the use of USFs in sub-Saharan Africa, determining both the best practices and the barriers that inhibit successful performance. This project will build the host country’s capacity to deploy USFs, evaluate potential solutions and create a value chain of local ICT, ISP, and telecommunications partners who can harness the power of USFs to close the digital divide and fulfill the promise of rural connectivity.

March 1, 2011/by actualize

Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Connecting Haiti

Inveneo CIO Mark Summer tunes the wireless network at the Nethope and Inveneo headquarters in Port-au-Prince Haiti.

Photo credit: Inveneo

Through an innovative partnership with the Clinton/Bush Haiti Fund, GBI is partnering with Inveneo and NetHope to connect all of Haiti. The grant supports the deployment of a nation-wide network so that before the end of 2011, connecting in Jacmel or Cap Haiten or Leogane will be an integral part Haiti’s reconstruction and development. GBI will also support monitoring and evaluation of the project’s point to point wireless model, to catalyze its deployment worldwide.

March 1, 2011/by actualize

Democracy & Governance, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Innovations for Youth Capacity & Engagement

One of today’s most pressing demographic and economic development challenges is the youth bulge throughout much of the world- in regions such as Middle East, more than 65% of the population is under the age of 30. Today’s youth are increasingly connected and utilize technology to do everything from earn income to go to school. Seeking to harness this natural consumer trend and engagement, USAID through GBI will support the development of a youth deployment gaming strategy. Creating a community of practice around serious social gaming as an outreach tool to youth, NetHope will support the deployment of a $1.45m serious game pilot in Jordan to test a theory of change around increasing behavior change through gaming.

Updates will be provided as they become available.

March 1, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Health, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Gates: mobile phones and global health

At a keynote address at the mHealth Summit in Washington in November 2010, Bill Gates discussed the use of mobile phone technology for health programs. But he cautions “we have to approach these things with some humility … we have to hold ourselves to some pretty tough metrics to see if it’s really making a difference.”

AFP: Mobile technology can help improve global health: Gates.

March 1, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Facebook for Farmers: Technology empowers China’s rural workers

Mr Qing, ploughing in the fields, relies on China Mobile's farming service

The BBC recently reported on Nongxintong, a network created by China Mobile to deliver news and information directly to rural farmers via their cell phones.

The farmers, who generally don’t have access to the internet, receive text or audio messages with market prices, job opportunities, warnings, advice, buyers and sellers. There is also a mobile phone hotline aimed at those with rural businesses.

Click here to read the original article.

January 19, 2011/by actualize

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