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Agriculture, Health, Health, Maternal & Child Health, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Don’t Miss Raj Shah on 20/20 Tonight!

BY: Raj Shah, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator

This Post originally appeared on ABCNews.

Raj Shah holds up his hads, with the words 1 million moms written on his palms Ensuring the safety of a mother and her newborn is not only one of the greatest development challenges we face, it is also one of the most heartbreaking.

Earlier this year, I visited South Sudan, where I met school children studying in a classroom—some of them for the very first time. Although I was optimistic about their future, I was also concerned, because I knew that for every girl I met, she was statistically more likely to die in childbirth than complete a secondary education.

This reality is simply unacceptable.

There is an incredible need to ensure the safety of mothers and infants in the critical period of 48 hours surrounding birth. To help spur progress in maternal and child health, we launched our first Grand Challenge for Development – Saving Lives at Birth – in partnership with the Government of Norway, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Grand Challenges Canada and The World Bank.

Saving Lives at Birth calls for groundbreaking prevention and treatment approaches for pregnant women and newborns in rural settings during this perilous time around childbirth. We received more than 600 proposals to our Grand Challenge, more than a quarter of which arrived from the developing world. Last week we announced our three transition-to-scale grant nominees. These nominees have proven that their ideas can deliver real results in local communities and are ready to test them on a much larger scale. While we expect our first round of grants to yield exciting innovations with the potential for significant change, we will encourage our community of innovators to push boundaries and find new ways to shape collective action.

Similarly, the Million Moms Challenge is inspiring American families to help mothers and children around the world. I am proud to accept this Challenge and will continue my commitment to this important cause.

I hope you will too.

December 16, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Agriculture Markets, Extension Service, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Be Part of the Discussion on the World Bank’s “ICT in Agriculture” Sourcebook

Photo Credit: infoDev

The first in series of online forums to further develop resources for the recently launched “ICT in Agriculture” Sourcebook by the World Bank takes off on the 5th through the 16th of December at the e-Agriculture site.

These discussion forums, available to all e-Agriculture community members, will be vehicles to inform the World Bank of other projects/programs that e-Agriculture members are carrying out and that could complement the research of the World Bank.

With the profound potential of information and communication technologies in developing country agriculture, the Agriculture and Rural Development Department (ARD) of the World Bank in collaboration with infoDev (part of the World Bank Group) embarked in an effort to explore and capture the expanding knowledge and use of ICT tools in agrarian livelihoods. “ICT in Agriculture: Connecting Smallholders to Knowledge, Networks and Institutions”, an electronic Sourcebook (e-Sourcebook) is the product of this effort which was released in November 2011.

The Sourcebook offers practical examples and case studies from around the world. A compilation of modules related to 14 agricultural subsectors, each module covers the challenges, lessons learned, and enabling factors associated with using ICT to improve smallholder livelihoods. Its aim is to support development practitioners in exploring the use of or designing, implementing, and investing in ICT enabled agriculture interventions.

The first of these forums will look at Strengthening Agricultural Marketing with ICT.

Sourcebook module 9 begins with an overview of the need for and impact of ICTs in agricultural marketing, especially from the perspectives of producers, consumers, and traders. Specifically, the forum will look at mobile phones as a marketing tool; evidence that ICT is changing logistics and transaction costs; the use of ICTs for market research (both for acquiring immediate market information and acquiring market intelligence over time); and the use of ICTs to make input supply and use more effective.

Participating Subject Matter experts include:

Grahame Dixie, World Bank
Shaun Ferris, Catholic Relief Services
Judy Payne, USAID
Eija Pehu, World Bank
Rantej Singh, Reuters Market Light, Thompson Reuters

To participate in the forum, you must be registered on the e-Agriculture community website. All e-Agriculture forums are asynchronous conversations, and run non-stop for their two week duration. It is possible to log on at any time from anywhere to participate.

December 2, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Ripfumelo: “Getting to Zero” with ICTs

Photo Credit: Ripfumelo

Initiated by the International Organization for Migration (IOM)’s Regional Office for Southern Africa and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through the President’s Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) in 2009, the Ripfumelo (“believe” in xiTsonga language) program is designed to reduce HIV vulnerability among farm workers in South Africa’s Limpopo and Mpumalanga provinces. The project works to develop a network of stakeholders working specifically on HIV-related issues to reduce the high incidence and impact of HIV on farm workers, their families, and communities. It aims to address individual and contextual factors that increase vulnerability to HIV amongst commercial agricultural workers. These include the mobility and migratory factors associated with the nature of the work, such as limited access to services, gender dynamics and lack of healthier recreational activities. But little is known about innovative use of information and communication technologies to help achieve the strategic goal of Ripfumelo. As the world celebrates AIDS Day, it is important to reflect on issues like this and look at ways by which ICTs can be effectively integrated into such a project to help achieve the 2015 target of “Getting to Zero” with HIV/AIDS. HIV/AIDS and Its Impact on Agriculture The adverse effects of HIV/AIDS on agriculture and rural development are manifested primarily as loss of labor supply, of on- and off-farm income and of assets. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) for example noted that, the consequences of HIV/AIDS – poverty, food insecurity, malnutrition, reduced labor force and loss of knowledge – contribute to making the rural poor more vulnerable to HIV/AIDS infection. Other studieshave identified the devastating effects of HIV/AIDS on farmers in specific and agriculture in general as;

Reduced staff productivity through loss in human resources, absenteeism due to morbidity and funeral attendance, morbidity-related on-the-job fatigue, and staff demoralization.
Increase in Ministerial expenditures through costs related to HIV/AIDS absenteeism, medical costs, burial costs, recruitment and replacement costs/productivity loss after training, terminal benefits, and costs incurred to protect the rights of staff members living with HIV/AIDS at the workplace.
Increase in staff turnover
Increase in the workload of the staff of ministries of agriculture
Loss of knowledge, skills and experience

Using ICTs and Social Media to fight HIV/AIDS Among FarmersBy their nature, ICTs have the potential to help reduce the impact of HIV/AIDS on agriculture through effective communication strategies. ICTs are helping through treatment and prevention programs, changing attitudes and practices, and making it possible to share success and best practices.

Access to information on HIV/AIDS by these farm workers is key to the fight against the pandemic among them. Radio and television are basic communication tools that could help disseminate information on the danger of contracting HIV/AIDS to these farm workers.
Access to data on these individuals and their settings is also key in designing effective program for them. Information and communication technologies such as mobile phones and other hand-held devices could be used to gather instant and accurate data for the organizations involved in the project.
ICTs and social media could be used in training and educating both the migrant workers and their hosts on HIV/AIDS.
Information communication technologies could also be used through diagnosis and treatment support services for these migrant farm workers who have limited access to basic health services. Mobile health services and other e-medicine programs are being used for other diseases.
Affected farm workers could be supported and encouraged through sharing of experiences and challenges by others through the use of videos and photographs.
The Internet as a global public medium could be used to win the victims support from their governments, NGOs and other well wishers.
Testimonies of People Living with HIV/AIDS could be documented and shared with these migrant communities during training and workshops.
Internet websites, and social networking sites like Facebook could also be used as secondary medium in reaching out to these people.

ICTs are collaborating tools and with the goal of the Ripfumelo program to network stakeholders working on the issue, there should not be any delay in integrating these tools to reach their target. Remember “Getting to Zero” is 2015.

December 1, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Agriculture Markets, Extension Service, Food Security, Originally posted on the GBI Portal, Sustainable Agriculture

The mFarmer Initiative: USAID joins hands with others for Ag. Devt.

Photo Credit: USAID

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in collaboration with Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and GSMA have launched a global initiative to facilitate the rapid scaling of the use of mobile phone networks to provide poor farmers with valued agricultural information.

The mFarmer Initiative aims at developing a global, shared database of digital agricultural information; a challenge fund to promote innovative partnerships between operators and public or private agriculture extension service providers; technical assistance; sharing of best practices; and impact evaluation.

At a recent webinar organized by USAID to introduce the mFarmer initiative, Judy Payne, the ICT Advisor for USAID’s EGAT and Africa Bureaus reiterated the interest of USAID in supporting agriculture in the developing nations through the Feed the Future (FTF) program. She explained that the selected countries for the mFarmer initiative in Africa are priority countries for the FTF program. According to Judy Payne, USAID is a partial funder together with BMGF. She strongly encouraged USAID missions and implementing partners working in Africa to take full advantage of the opportunity given the funding from the agency and the importance of the initiative to help increase productivity and income of smallholder farmers. She cited the involvement of one of USAID’s FTF implementing projects for Africa as a partner in submitting an application during the first round of the Challenge Fund.

The mFarmer initiative has an ambitious vision of success to help about 2.2 million poor farmers in developing countries increase their productivity and incomes by receiving actionable, high quality, relevant and timely information and advice through mobile phone service networks by 2015. These services are delivered via sustainable and scalable business models without on-going donor support and reflect significant private sector investment. They complement other delivery channels, reflect feedback from farmers, and are based on a growing body of shared digital agricultural content.

The introduction to the mFarmer initiative webinar, which was the first in series of webinars to focus on the initiative, was attended by over 40 participants across the globe. Other presenters at the session include Smith Fiona, mAgri Program Director, GSMA Development Fund, and Natalia Pshenichnaya, mAgri Business Development Manager, GSMA Development Fund. Access to the recorded presentation of this webinar could be found here.

Also, an upcoming online forum to initiate discussion around the types of partnerships that are conducive to creating sustainable and scalable mobile information and advisory services for farmers will be help between November 21st and December 1st at e-Agriculture website. Subject Matter Experts to help lead the discussion include:

Sharbendu Banerjee, Director of Business Development, CABI South Asia-India
Hillary Miller-Wise, Country Director, TechnoServe Tanzania
Collins Nweke, Project Manager, Tigo Tanzania
Judy Payne, ICT Advisor, USAID
Fiona Smith, Director, GSMA mAgri Program
S. Srinivasan, CEO, IKSL

GSMA, is an association of 800 mobile operators serving over 95 percent of the market in developing countries. It helps its members adopt new approaches to provide valued information and services to their customers. In 2009, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) made a grant to GSMA to catalyze mobile operators’ investment in these innovative mobile services, evaluate their impact, and facilitate experimentation with sustainable and scalable delivery models.

November 21, 2011/by actualize

Connectivity, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Bringing Global Broadband to the Doorsteps: Who is Doing What in Africa?

US-Africa Summit

Since the field of information and communication technology for development (ICT4D) has been cautioned not be a standalone sector but rather integrated into the existing areas of development, successful projects have seen a number of collaborations among development partners. The recently ended 8th Biennial U.S.-Africa Business Summit organized by the Corporate Council on Africa (CCA) in Washington, DC epitomized such collaborations.

One of the workshops at the summit on “Talking to the Future: Bringing Global Broadband to the Doorsteps”, brought together panelists from the World Bank, Microsoft, SEACOM, the Island of Tenerife, and the Nigerian Identity Management Commission to discuss efforts that are being put in place to deliver broadband Internet to remote communities. Areas covered include infrastructure development such as data centers, fiber optic cables and Internet exchange points; regulatory environment; identity management to ensure safe use of the Internet; innovative technologies and their applications in education, health, agriculture, and other sectors; and local content development that includes Africans themselves.

Image Credit: GBI

The discussion took off with an intellectual introduction from the moderator – the immediate past CEO of Commonwealth Telecommunications Organization (CTO), Dr. Ekwow-Spio Garbrah using the acronym “PROFIT” to describe the broadband Internet environment. A sound Policy environment to ensure availability and accessibility to the net; the Regulatory environment by national countries to allow for free and fair competitive market; a smooth Operating environment by the companies; the Funding or Financing of broadband to accelerate infrastructure development; development of the physical Infrastructure itself; and the Technologies associated with the infrastructure for effective functioning. This opened the ground for each panelist to fit their areas of operation into one or more of these “PROFIT” areas.

The World Bank

The presentation by Mr. Doyle Gallegos from the World Bank seems to cover almost all the areas of broadband deployment under the ‘PROFIT’ acronym. According to the Bank, ICTs are the most significant tools that can be used to fight poverty right now and the bank is doing everything possible to deliver low-cost value added service to the population. The bank’s primary role is to provide finances for infrastructure but at the same time, it gives technical assistance to governments to promote right enabling environment, assists its clients to create legislation, right national ICTs policies, and right regulations in order to promote private sector development. Over the last 5 years, the World Bank has invested an amount of USD 700 billion into the ICT sector through private investment guarantees and ICT is one of the best performing sectors in the World Bank Group’s portfolio, both in terms of returns and development impact

The bank is also ensuring that people learn how to use the ICTs, and how to use digital computers. Also in the area of infrastructure sharing through open access, lowering the cost of use of these technologies to ensure the access to broadband, open access legislation, and pricing mechanisms. The World Bank is also concern with the issues of spectrum management and considers it as a biggest potential problem in the growing area of data communications, and data traffic in the future. It is therefore doing everything possible to ensure that spectrum become available to entrepreneurs, mobile operators, new emerging operations that we haven’t seen through simple sharing blocks. It is also involved in innovative Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) to invest in regional networks in Africa – East, West, Central Africa, etc.

Mr Gallegos stated that national governments in Africa have to open up and partner with private businesses. Other areas touched by the speaker include data centers, IXP, e-legislation, – e-commerce, e-documents, m-banking, etc. It concluded that a lot have been done but the bank still need to put in more.

SEACOM

Mr Brian Herlihy from SEACOM – a privately owned and operated pan-African ICT enabled company that is driving the development of the African Internet also emphasized the company’s efforts in infrastructure development projects in East Africa that is being replicated in West Africa through the development of the fiber optic cables. The company is also involved in a number of innovative commercial solutions to exploit other commercial relationships. SEACOM is known to have financed and developed the first broadband submarine cable system along the eastern and southern African coastlines, bringing with it a vast supply of high quality and affordable Internet.

The Island of Tenerife

Mr. Carlos Alonso Rodríguez, the Vice President of the Island of Tenerife – the largest and most populous island of the seven Canary Islands, agreed with the previous speakers about the fact that mobile Internet services may not be the answer to Africa and other developing nations even though it is having significant impact across. As a result, the government of Tenerife is investing in infrastructure development through fiber optic cables and data centers.

The Island is also using a publicly funded approach to developing the state of the art data centers across the country, a model that the representative argued, could be used in the continent of Africa and the Latin American countries. This approach brings the issue about the pros and cons of publicly funded infrastructure projects in the ICT sector in the developing nation. In order to benefit from these investments, the Island is also investing in the services sector through the use of e-education, e-governance, among others to benefit the ordinary people and to be able to generate revenue from the investment.

Through the ALiX Project, Tenerife is expected to enhance its competitiveness in the global telecommunications market. The project will become a Neutral Access Point for West Africa and the Canary Islands, developing cable connectivity between new and existing African and Latin American submarine cables and creating the southern gateway to Europe for telecommunications.

Nigerian Identity Management Commission (NIMC)

Mr Chris E. Onyemenam, the Director General of Nigerian Identity Management Commission (NIMC) narrated the country’s experience in terms of the application of ICTs – that is the content for development. He recounted the weak experience of Nigeria in the ICTs sector for some years back but through the leadership of the former military leader, General Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria has made remarkable progress through the development of national telecommunication policies and the focus on ICTs. He argues that the Internet communication is till low in Nigeria with the mobile sector moving very fast and efforts are in place to “leapfrog”.

In order to leverage on the mobile and broadband Internet penetration in the country for positive impact on the various sectors, the national identification efforts was introduced in 2007 across government agencies to optimize the use of the scarce resources. Prior to NIMC, the various identification schemes, including the database and issuance of identification cards both in private and public sectors, resided with the respective organizations. There has been no unique set of principles, practices, policies, processes and procedures that are used to realize the desired outcomes related to identity.

The NIMC program started with the registration of all citizens of Nigeria who at the commencement of the Act have attained or who thereafter attain the age of 18, and issuance of a National Identity Card (NIC). This was aimed at controlling illegal immigrations to the country, validation of other civic documents like passports, setting up a reliable personal identification system for the purpose of secure commercial transactions with financial institutions, etc.

Instead of waiting till 18 years, the NIMC is in the process of registering Nigerian at birth to address issues such as fraud and multiple identities. At the moment, the national identification database is being established and will be maintained and managed by Nigerians. Other steps that are being taken include, assignment and issuance of a unique National Identification Number to individuals who have been registered, introduction and issuance of General Multipurpose Cards, undertaking of data harmonization, administration and provision of secure connectivity to existing systems, and provision of card acceptance devices and other identity services alone or in partnership with third parties.

With the issues of ‘419’ in Nigeria i.e. identity fraud, theft issues, and misrepresentations, the system is designed and based on the assumption that ‘if you cannot stop them from illegally acquiring the passport, then you can manage the process”. And this is being done through the registration and issuing of ID for legal residents and at birth. This will make it difficult for individuals to engage in future fraud activities.

Microsoft

Dorothy Dwoskin, Senior Trade Policy Director from Microsoft stated that, as a technology developing company – hardware and software, the company believes that technology could act as an engine of growth and development. The company believes that access to market is great but we also need the goods and services to be able to get to the market. As a result, the company has a priority to make the good and services get to the final consumer across the finished line. Microsoft works with local entrepreneurs to ensure market through business information centers, and digital literacy.

Microsoft is also working with AECOM on a USAID program to help find some very important solution to simple problems that ultimately facilitate trade. AECOM has been implementing the Trade Facilitation and Capacity Building Project in a number of African countries including Malawi, Namibia, and South Africa to effectively manage the Southern Africa Trade Hub that was established to assist Southern African businesses to take greater advantage of the global trade initiatives. The Hub is designed to function as a central point where local enterprises can gain access to US markets through business linkages, capacity building services, and problem-solving trade facilitation.

At the moment custom information and data has to be entered manually at each post or each country thereby giving chances for fraud and delay in the clearance process as good and services are traded between countries. It is believed that a days’ delay in goods and services from one country to another has a negative impact on the overall GDP of the country. But at the moment with the manual custom clearance activities, Botswana has about 28 days of delay, Namibia has around 29 days delay, and South Africa has 30 days for clearing goods and services at the customs.

“So if we can automate the activities of custom and clearing agencies, it will be good for business and trade for governments by increasing competitiveness and revenue stream of companies and governments,” Said Ms Dwoskin. Automating information to reduce these long days of clearing goods and services at these ports will facilitate trade. Microsoft is therefore helping to create a single unified approach so that transactions between these countries is automated so that by the time the good moves from one country to another, the information/data entered at one points is already available at the other end. Connecting all computers so that once the data is entered at one point, information is shared among all others on the network.

According to Ms. Dwoskin, Microsoft is also concern with local content and therefore ensuring local software development in wherever it goes, and in Africa the company has strong base by using the local people to develop local content or local software that are relevant to Africa’s economy.

Other questions and responses led to the “5As” acronym of broadband Internet namely Access; Affordability; Availability; Adoptability; and Adaptability. Also in terms of relevant content with broadband utilization, instead of ‘3G’ which some refer to as ‘Girls, Games and Gambling’, Africa needs ‘4Es’ – Employment; Empowerment; Education; and Enterprise.

In all, the discussion centered around various ways of innovating upon traditional broadband capabilities in order to aid in the development of growing markets, the possibility of introducing e-commerce solutions for micro-financed businesses, and the feasibility of streamlining/optimizing regulatory frameworks to work in favor of spectrum coordination in times when rapid deployment and cross-border mobile and wireless communication may be needed to deal with emergency situations.

Broadband in itself is not a business, and therefore investing in broadband requires that services and applications are implemented after building the infrastructure.

October 20, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Mobile Money Service: An Innovation for Rural Women

Photo Credit: Africa News

I remember vividly carrying bundles of millions of Cedis (Ghanaian Currency) in my car about 9-10 years ago, and driving from Tamale (the Regional Capital) to the remote rural communities to pay local farmers for their seed cotton during marketing. You can imagine all the risks involved in carrying such a huge sum of money across districts with no security – the danger of being attacked by armed robbers, the chance of loosing the money, the risk involved in counting and paying individual farmers accordingly without over or under-payment, the challenge with safe handling of these money by the local farmers themselves, the temptation of overspending the money by the rural farmers immediately after receiving their payments, and the risk associated with “banking” the money in their thatched houses.

Don’t forget about my earlier view of a typical ‘rural’ community – lack of basic social facilities such as credit union or banks. I saw my own mother ‘banking’ her money in some special plastic bags and hiding it from us (the children) and later discovering that the value of the money has depreciated such that she could not use it – don’t forget about the skyrocketing inflation rates in Ghana in the mid-late 80’ after the military coup. I also remember interesting stories of my cotton farmers about ‘banking’ their money in the home under mattresses and being discovered by their children; hidden in a pots and being destroyed by red ants and other insects; buried in the ground and forgotten or swept away by a flood; kept under the roof of their building and being destroyed by fire, among others.

Basically, rural women who are mainly farmers, have the challenge of banking or storing the money they obtain at the end of the farming season safely and inaccessible from others as well as from themselves. These rural women also at some point of their life, need to either send some of this income to their relatives outside their village or receive money from their children in the cities. This ability of transferring money to others, or location-shift one’s own money is also an issue. It is also important for the rural women to have sufficient money (or credit) available in the right format or currency when it is required, especially at the start of a new farming season or the beginning of school year where they have to spend on their kids. Finally, the challenge of actually making saving for future use and for purchases of more expensive farm equipments cannot be ignored.

How did the story change with Mobile Money Services?

Mobile money service is seen as one of the world’s fastest growing industries, following the success of the growth of the ‘mobile’ industry over the past two decades where billions of transactions are done using mobile devices. With leadership from M-PESA in Kenya, innovative mobile payment solutions that enable customers to complete simple financial transactions including person-to-person money transfer have been emerging and transforming rural lives. Mobile money services has its presence already in Ghana, Ivory Coast, Benin, Cameroon, Guinea Bissau, Swaziland, Uganda, Zimbabwe, South Africa in addition to Kenya with Liberia being one of the newest countries across Africa to adopt this innovation.

Rural women all over the world are now using mobile money services to facilitate their work. When asked about the mobile money service being provided to her by Lonestar Cell MTN and Ecobank Liberia Limited, a market woman has this to say:

“In trying out the Mobile Money service, I have been able to send money to my son in Buchanan to pay his fees at the Grand Bassa Community College where he is a student and not worry whether the money I sent would reach him. I found the service very effective, convenient and affordable. Clearly, this is better than any other money transfer service I have ever used” (Woman from Liberian Rural Community).

Within the mobile health sector, the application of mobile money service is seen in the use of Medical Smart Cards that allow people who have no access to medical plans or insurance cover to save money through the use of M-PESA transfers. Savings are used to pay for primary health care, specified laboratory tests and drugs at pre-contracted prices. A combination of mobile banking, public information, and free treatment are used in Kenya to give women access to fistula repair. Women can call a free hotline, and if money is needed for transport to a fistula unit this is transferred via M-PESA. Using mobile money services make treatment a reality for women who otherwise would not have been in the socio-economic position to get an operation.

A study conducted on the use of mobile money services in “Kenya Case Study: Who Is Using Mobile Money?” shows that slightly more than half of the mobile money market (56%) live in rural areas and 51% of the users of mobile money services are women. Another study conducted in Kenya in 2009 about the impact of mobile money on the rural people revealed that M-PESA is boosting their income through cheaper, more accessible, and safer money transfer options. The research also shows M-PESA is empowering rural women because it makes it easier for them to solicit and receive money from their husbands and other contacts in Kenyan cities. Remittances through M-PESA relieve many women in rural areas of the burden of traveling by bus to cities to receive money from their husbands, a process that for some could take as long as one week. Also the M-PESA mobile money transfer system is used in Tanzania for example to pay for the transport of women suffering from fistula, children with cleft palates and other disabilities.

The potential of mobile money in the Ghanaian market is so huge with an estimated 80% of Ghanaian being “unbanked” – meaning they conduct their transactions outside the banking sector with no access to financial services. Mobile money is reducing the transaction costs of financial services for Ghanaian in rural areas, saving the cost of travel and time spent visiting the nearest town to access financial services, providing people with a way to transfer money safely and keep (or even increase) their savings.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the USAID-funded project in Haiti, Integrated Finance for Value Chains and Enterprises (HIFIVE) announced the launch of the Haiti Mobile Money Initiative (HMMI) to stimulate the development of mobile money services in Haiti in 2010. The following two stories show the outcome of this project:

In a cybercafé in downtown Port-au-Prince, Jean Yves deposits money into his TchoTcho Mobile account. Michel, his brother who owns the business, recommended that he register for this mobile money service so that he doesn’t have to carry money across town and risk being robbed. Taking his brother’s ad-vice, Jean Yves deposits cash at the cybercafé and withdraws it via his phone when he arrives at his final destination.

One hour away in the busy port town of Saint Marc, Carmen receives a text message saying that Mercy Corps has deposited US$40 of food aid into her T-Cash account. She picks up her bag and heads off to her local merchant to purchase rice and beans using her phone.

The USAID’s Fostering Agriculture Competitiveness Employing Information Communication Technologies (FACET) project which helps USAID missions and their implementing partners in sub-Saharan Africa to use information and communications technology (ICT) more successfully — via sustainable and scalable approaches — to improve the impact of their agriculture related development projects including Feed the Future projects, shares its experience with the use of mobile money in agriculture in “Using Mobile Money, Mobile Banking to Enhance Agriculture in Africa”. Also with the setting up of the mFarmer Initiative Fund, there is the hope that more rural women will have access to mobile phones and be able to utilize mobile money services to improve their lives.

A recent report “Mobile Money Transfers & Remittances: Markets, Forecasts & Vendor Strategies 2011-2015” by Juniper Research predicts active users of mobile money services to double in the next two years, exceeding 200 million worldwide by 2013. The principle behind mobile services including mobile phones and mobile banking with the structural support from information communication technologies is something that has come to change lives in rural communities in particular. Mobile money services have come to stay. Different models, applications, and innovations will evolve over the years for simplicity, ease of use, less costly, and more compatible to a variety of mobile devices across the developing world.

October 14, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Environment, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Boosting women’s shea nut businesses with smartphones

The shea nut industry has come a long way since I was a Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa from 2006-2008. In fact, despite researching ICT4D initiatives on a daily basis, I was still baffled when I read the Economist article about a shea project in northern Ghana that provides personalized barcodes for women to stick to shea nuts sacks as they sell them to buyers.

Photo credit: The Economist

It’s one thing to read or listen to others talk about the use of mobiles to improve maternal health or apps that help grain buyers manage transactions from small-scale farmers in the developing world. It’s another to really consider the impact that various ICTs are having on the people of an area where one has lived or worked before.

Shea, a product that grows on trees as a fruit and whose nut is pounded into butter to be used for cooking, confectionary, and cosmetics, has long been referred to as “women’s gold.” That’s because traditionally women are the primary ones to gather the fruit from the ground after it has ripened and fallen. The nuts grow only in the semi-arid zone of sub-Saharan Africa from the Gambia to Uganda. Because of the rare properties of shea, the worldwide demand for the product worldwide has grown, some sources estimating that 150,000 tons of dry kernels are exported every year from Africa. Various non-profits, NGOs and aid agencies have taken advantage of the large shea demand to create projects that empower women by increasing their income and providing access to markets.

When I volunteered in Mali, shea production was hot on the development agenda. USAID was supporting shea projects through its Small Project Assistance grants, as well as organizing trainings on improved shea production methods through the West Africa Trade Hub. Since shea trees were abundant in my rural site of Kamona, I was able to work extensively with the women on shea projects; we formed a cooperative, acquired solar shea nut dryers and connected with nut buyers.

Christy and Nema from Kamona village, mali

Walking with shea producer in Kamona, Mali

For our shea projects, contacting buyers on cell phones was about as far as ICT use went. Records of the sacks that women brought were kept in torn notebooks using barely-working pens. If someone told me then that cell phones (what’s a “smart” phone?) would be used to keep track of the weight, price, and quality of nuts and sacks, I would not have believed it. Then again, volunteers who had been in Mali just a couple years before me never had access to mobile phones and were envious when us newbies could keep in touch with our families in America on a daily basis if we wanted.

Women in Kamona, Mali, making soap using shea butter

The project in Ghana is being implemented by the German company SAP alongside the NGO PlaNet Finance and is both a social and business investment. A smartphone scans the barcode on the shea nut sack during delivery and talks to a server in Germany, tracking each bag as it is weighed and loaded onto a lorry. Another part of the project has had the women form a federation called the Star Shea Network, which allows the women to offer a reliable supply of nuts and gain bargaining power with buyers. The women have also received training on nut quality improvement and how to act on market price information received through mobile phones. Eventually, SAP hopes that the women will be able to pay for the services with their increased income rather than relying on grants to sustain the project.

ICTs have been used to improve the work of shea producers in other ways, such as creating a directory of shea butter buyers, and marketing shea products through picture and videos. Though the smartphone project is nascent and is not yet being implemented elsewhere to the best of my knowledge, I cannot help but wonder if similar initiatives will reach the shea nut collectors in Kamona.

October 14, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Health, Health, Maternal & Child Health, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

USAID MAMA initiative leading the way in mobile for maternal health projects

The USAID-initiated MAMA (Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action) project that utilizes cell phones to improve maternal health in developing countries gave an in-depth update at the latest mHealth Working Group meeting.

The pilot initiative, announced in May by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and co-sponsored by Johnson & Johnson, has begun work in Bangladesh. MAMA seeks to achieve “scale, sustainability and impact” by creating a replicable model of reaching low-income mothers and household decision-makers (husbands, mothers-in-law) through increasing the impact of current mHealth programs, providing technical assistance to new mHealth models, and improving methods of applying mobile technology to improving maternal health.

At the working group meeting, Sandhya Rao of USAID and Pamela Riley of USAID’s SHOPS (Strengthening Health Outcomes through the Private Sector) program discussed the status of Aponjon, the MAMA project in Bangladesh. Aponjon provides vital health information through mobile phones two times a week to expecting and new mothers, reminding them of when to receive checkups and how to stay healthy during the pregnancy. Bangladesh was chosen to pilot the project because the country’s government has been a leader in promoting and expanding access to ICTs and is very active in mHealth.

Photo credit: Council on Foreign Relations

In order to bring it to a national scale, the burgeoning MAMA initiative has established private, public, and NGO partnerships to help implement its activities, and is carefully monitoring its methods and practices to ensure that the project is reaching its target goals. For example, Aponjon is constantly tweaking the content of its phone messages so that mothers and decision-makers understand, retain and relate to the information given.

Photo credit: Highmark Medicare Services

Another aspect of the project that MAMA will be monitoring is its business models to determine which are the most sustainable and effective. Currently, customers pay service providers to retrieve the phone messages. Text messaging is the cheapest method for remitting information in most developing countries, but many of the poorest clients are unable to read the texts. The alternative is interactive voice response (IVR) through which customers can hear recorded messages at a much lower cost than call centers but more than texting. MAMA and its partners are experimenting with different pay schemes, such as subsidizing rates, working with service providers to offer low rates or donate funds to the project, and charging fees based on usage.

It will take the new initiative years before sustainable, reliable, and replicable models are in place. What is clear is that the potential for improving maternal and newborn health through the use of mobile phones is being tapped.

September 29, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Health, Health, Maternal & Child Health, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Millions awarded for maternal health innovations

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah. Photo Credit: USAID

The Saving Lives at Birth program held its DevelopmentXChange event last week in Washington DC. The event was hosted by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah and was sponsored by USAID, the Government of Norway, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Grand Challenges Canada, and The World Bank.

The program called for scholars, researchers, doctors, and entrepreneurs to develop innovative prevention and treatment approaches for pregnant women and newborns in rural, low resources setting around the time of birth. There were over 600 applications from around the world, and 77 finalists were chosen to attend this 3-day event held in Washington. At the end of the 3-day event, $14 million in grants were awarded to 25 of the 77 finalists.

The 77 ideas and projects fell into two categories: seed grant finalists and transition to scale finalists. The former were completely innovative and fresh ideas while the latter were already existing ideas that were calibrated to fit for maternal health purposes.

The projects and ideas highlighted gadgets, treatment schemes, prevention methods, health centers, strategic plans and a plethora of mobile phone related solutions. Finalists came from all over the United States and from over the world including Bangladesh, Kenya, India, Uganda, Pakistan, Switzerland and Australia.

Some of the 25 award nominees. Photo Credit: USAID

Many of the ideas that had mobile solution components used mobile phones as an ICT. One innovative project was from Kenya called mAfya which aimed to set up health specific kiosks that would offer basic medical services for free for maternal health issues. There was another project from Kenya that aimed to provide pregnant mothers vouchers to use towards health services through mBanking called Changamka.

Among the awardees, one project from Save the Children provided a mobile phone monitoring system for recording maternal and neonatal deaths. This, along with an electricity-free fetal heart rate monitoring component aims to give communities in Uganda better intra-partum response services. Another project originated from Healthpoint services in India that has already set up rural health clinics and provides water, and is looking to expand its maternal health services using an integrated telemedicine and mHealth system.

Saving Lives at Birth, the first program in a series of Grand Challenges for Development led by USAID. The Grand Challenges is an attempt to bring science, technology and innovation to the field of development, lowering the cost of helping the world’s poor and, in the process, saving lives, said USAID administrator Shah.

“Especially in these very difficult economic times … coming up with more innovative, more local and sustainable ways to make it cheaper and easier to help mothers survive child birth and help children survive the first 48 hours of life is what this program is all about,” added Shah.

Maternal and child health issues still need a lot of attention. A woman dies every two minutes in childbirth, and 99% of the deaths are in the developing world, according to the World Health Organization. Also, about 1.6 million neonatal deaths occur each year around the world. Additionally noteworthy is that only a handful of countries are set to meet Millennium Development Goal 5 of reducing maternal mortality by 2/3 by 2015.

August 1, 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

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