Agrilinks Poster

Photo Credit: Ben Addom

The future use of the information and communication technologies (ICTs) such as e-vouchers in delivering subsidized fertilizer (or other inputs) to farmers in the current information age is blurred due to the very high cost involved in setting up such systems and the anticipated power/energy problems. This was one of the revelations made by experts from the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC) and the World Bank during the January 2012 USAID’s Agriculture Sector Council Seminar held in Washington DC.

Ian Gregory, a consultant from IFDC spoke on the subject “Voucher Schemes for Enhanced Fertilizer Use: Lessons Learned and Policy Implications” and David Rohrbach, a Senior Agricultural Economist at the World Bank shared his experiences from eastern and southern Africa remotely from Tanzania on the subject “Opportunities and Risks of Fertilizer Voucher Programs.”

The speakers argued that based on their earlier experiences, using ICT-based systems to facilitate fertilizer delivery through the subsidy programs can be very expensive. This includes the initial cost of establishing such a system as well as maintenance cost due to the absence of ICT infrastructure and low ICT human resource level in their respective areas of operation. Also anticipated is the lack of power or energy (electricity) in the communities that these inputs are distributed.

This revelation came in at the time when the World Bank had just launched an eSourcebook on ICTs in Agriculture with a comprehensive list of innovative practice summaries that demonstrate success and failure in interventions. Among them is the use of an electronic voucher system in Zambia, an initiative that was reported in 2010. The system is currently being piloted by the United Nations World Food Program (WFP), CARE International, and the local Conservation Farming Unit (CFU) with support from Mobile Transactions (a company specializing in low-cost payment and financial transaction services). The e-voucher system empowers smallholders to obtain subsidized inputs from private firms (giving the firms, in turn, an incentive to expand and improve their business).

Fertilizer subsidy programs

Giving the background to the fertilizer voucher schemes, Ian stated that while the traditional fertilizer subsidies were an integral policy tool of the Green Revolution in the 1960’s, excessive fiscal costs and risks, late delivery, rent-seeking, political economy and patronage, rationing, lack of equity and efficiency, and displacement of the private sector led to the demise of these subsidies in the 1980s. But the fertilizer subsidy programs have resurfaced in the last ten years as a results of high international fertilizer prices.

David from the World Bank Tanzania also identified some of the risks associated with the program as vouchers (or fertilizer) being distributed late; vouchers redeemed by agents distributing the fertilizer; counterfeiting vouchers (or fertilizer); vouchers redeemed for cash; price inflation: greater demand than fertilizer supply (top-up or subsidy grows); number of target recipients grows faster than population; and over-reporting of production.

Is there a need for e-vouchers?

On the future direction of the fertilizer subsidy programs, David Rohrbach mentioned smart vouchers and ICT based systems as one of the possible reforms. Also possible is the effort to improve fertilizer use efficiency; find alternative strategies for strengthening competitive input markets; test alternative exit strategies; and explore the option of third party monitoring for improved management. These are areas that information and communication technologies could be strategically deployed for an efficient system.

Photo Credit: Mobile Transactions

According to the eSourcebook, the mobile transaction system in Zambia is enabling electronic monitoring of the e-voucher system, documenting which vouchers have been redeemed, where, and for which products, thereby improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the input subsidies. Also because farmers are registered with the system, they can be identified more effectively for specific training programs with input- and productivity-enhancing components. The e-voucher system also supports private agribusinesses by making them the direct source for inputs; as more private input dealers choose to participate, competition may increase.

With the success of the Zambia’s e-voucher pilot case, and the immense benefits that both farmers and the private sector providers can gain from such a system, I wonder why cost should still be an obstacle to its implementation in other countries. It may be true that an e-voucher system may not be easily accessible to these rural poor communities at this time, but the steadily decreasing costs of ICTs and the Internet infrastructure all point to a promising future. I believe this is a great opportunity for the private sector and the young entrepreneurs in these parts of the world to explore.

Cases of fertilizer subsidy programs

The two experts also compared fertilizer subsidy programs like the Sustaining Productive Livelihoods through Inputs for Assets (SPLIFA) of Malawi, Agricultural Inputs Support Program (AISP) also in Malawi, Ghana Fertilizer Support Program (FSP), Zimbabwe Agricultural Input Project (ZAIP), and National Agricultural Input Voucher Scheme (NAIVS) of Tanzania.

Fertilizer subsidy program in Malawi

Photo Credit: Inform Africa

Some of the lessons learned include the fact that fertilizer subsidy programs do work for poverty reduction if targeted to vulnerable, potentially viable farmers and maintained for 3-5 years; they will also improve food security but at a huge cost and with leakage, crowding out, and mainly crop-specific; based on mixed evidence from 1980s, not sustainable; and they may work as a short-term fix for price spikes but distort markets, and at-source subsidy is a lower cost alternative.

Agrilinks is a new space for agriculture specialists and practitioners to access current information and resources on important agricultural and food security related topics and issues. The space leverages an array of experiences, resources, and expertise to encourage and promote knowledge flow among practitioners, USAID, partners, and other organizations specializing and working on current agricultural development issues. Visit Agrilinks for more information on this and future events.

This is a guest post from Jamie Lundine, who has been collaborating with Plan Kenya to support digital mapping and governance programming in Kwale and Mathare.

Throughout October and November 2011, Plan Kwale worked through Map Kibera Trust with Jamie Lundine and Primoz Kovacic, and 4 young people from Kibera and Mathare, to conduct digital mapping exercises to support ongoing youth-led development processes in Kwale county. One of the important lessons learned through the Trust’s work in Kibera and Mathare is that the stories behind the mapping work are important for understanding the processes that contribute to a situation as represented on a map. To tell these stories and to complement the data collection and mapping work done by the youth in Kwale, the Map Kibera Trust team worked with the Kwale youth to set up platforms to share this information nationally and internationally. Sharing the important work being done in Kwale will hopefully bring greater visibility to the issues which may in the longer term lead to greater impact.

Sharing stories of local governance

To support their work on social accountability, the Kwale Youth and Governance Consortium (KYGC) mapped over 100 publicly and privately funded community-based projects. The projects were supported by the Constituency Development Fund (CDF), Local Area Development Fund (LATF), NGOs and private donors. As one channel of sharing this information, the Consortium set up a blog called Nuru ya Kwale (Light of Kwale). According to KYGC the blog “features and addresses issues concerning promotion of demystified participatory community involvement in the governance processes towards sustainable development. We therefore expect interactivity on issues accruing around social accountability.” This involves sharing evidence about various projects and stories from the community.

One example is the documentation of the Jorori Water project in Kwale; through the mapping work, the Governance team collected details of the constituency development fund (CDF) project. The funding allocated to upgrade the water supply for the community was 6,182,960 ksh (approximately 73,000.00 USD). From their research the KYGC identified that the Kenya Open Data site reported that the full funding amount has been spent.

A field visit to the site however revealed that project was incomplete and the community is still without a stable water supply, despite the fact that the funding has been “spent.”

Jorori Water Project KwaleJorori Water Project, built using approximately 6.2 million shillings (73, 000.00 USD)

Read more about the questions the team raised in terms of the governance of CDF projects, including the detailed the project implementation process and some reflections on why the project stalled. This is information on community experiences (tacit information) that is well-known in a localized context but has not been documented and shared widely. New media tools, a blog in this case, provide free (if you have access to a computer and the internet) platforms for sharing this information with national and international audiences.

Addressing violence against children and child protection

Another blog was set up by the Kwale Young Journalists. The Young Journalists, registered in 2009, have been working with Plan Kwale on various projects, including Violence against Children campaigns. The group has been working to set up a community radio station in Kwale to report on children’s issues. Thus far, their application for a community radio frequency has encountered several challenges. New media provides an interim solution and will allow the team to share their stories and network with partners on a national and internal stage.

The Kwale Young Journalists worked with Jeff Mohammed, a young award-winning filmmaker from Mathare Valley. The YETAM project not only equips young people with skills, but through peer-learning establishes connections between young people working on community issues throughout Kenya. The programme also provides young people with life skills through experiential learning – Jeff reflects on his experience in Kwale and says:

KYJ filming the enemy withinJeff and the Kwale Young Journalists shooting a scene from “The Enemy Within”

“My knowledge didn’t come from books and lecturers it came from interest, determination and persistence to know about filmmaking and this is what I was seeing in these Kwale youths. They numbered 12 and they were me. They are all in their twenties and all looking very energetic, they had the same spirit as mine and it was like looking at a mirror. I had to do the best I could to make sure that they grasp whatever I taught.”

Jeff worked with the Young Journalists on a short film called “the Enemy Within.” The film, shot with flip-cameras, tells the story of 12-year-old girl who is sold into indentured labour by her parents to earn money for her family. During the time she spends working, the young girl “falls prey of her employer (Mr.Mtie) who impregnates her when she is only 12 years old.” Jeff reflects that “early pregnancies are a norm in the rural Kwale area and what the young filmmakers wanted to do is to raise awareness to the people that its morally unacceptable to impregnate a very young girl, in Enemy Within the case didn’t go as far because the village chairman was bribed into silence and didn’t report the matter to higher authorities.” This is a common scenario in Kwale, and the young journalists plan to use the film in public screenings and debates as part of their advocacy work in the coming months.

Jeff and the Kwale Young Journalists shot the film in four days – they travelled to Penzamwenye, Kikoneni and also to Shimba Hills national park to shoot 7 scenes for the movie. Read more about Jeff’s reflections on working with the Kwale Young Journalists on his blog.

Sharing ecotourism resources

The Dzilaz ecotourism team – a group that encourages eco-cultural tourism in Samburu region of Kwale county — also integrated social media into their work. During the last week (November 8th-12th) the group set up a blog to market the community resources, services and products. They also plan to document eco-culture sites and the impact that eco-tourism can have on the community. As of November 10th, 2011 the Dzilaz team had already directed potential clients to their website and thus secured a booking through the information they had posted.

The importance of telling the stories behind the maps

One important component to mapping work is to tell the stories behind the map. The three groups in Kwale are working to build platforms to amplify their grassroots level work in order to share stories and lessons learned. The information documented on the various platforms will develop over time and contribute to a greater understanding of the processes at a local level where youth as young leaders can intervene to begin to change the dynamics of community development.

Photo Credit: www.nomuracenter.or.jpUNESCO released a report last week introducing three exciting new projects that promise to shape how policies are developed for mobile learning programs.  Within the year, UNESCO will develop and release a set of policy guidelines, commission and publish ten working papers, and introduce four pilot projects in teacher development in Mexico, Pakistan, Nigeria and Senegal.

The report was a summary of project goals as well as an overview of discussions and ideas organized by participants at UNESCO’s first Mobile Learning Week (MLW).  The event which was held at UNESCO’s headquarters in Paris last month drew approximately 30 experts in mobile learning and 100 participants from the fields of mobile technology and education to discuss the use of mobile technologies in the classroom.

Policy Guidelines:

The most challenging but promising of the three UNESCO initiatives is the development of a set of policy guidelines due to be released by the end of 2012.  There are currently many examples of the use of mobile technologies in the classroom but few are supported by – or the result of – effective and sustainable policy-making initiatives.  Through discussions between UNESCO, MLW participants, and a growing global community of mobile learning educators and leaders, these new guidelines will be broad enough to encompass different cultural contexts, stakeholders, and technologies so that they can be used by national governments and educators and evolve with new developments in mobile technologies.

Discussions surrounding this topic generated general considerations and challenges including:

  • Consideration must be given to the perspectives of the stakeholders (mobile network operators, teachers, students, etc.) and their interaction with each other
  • Guidelines should be flexible and be able to adapt to new technologies and their applications
  • Costs of internet access and personal-ownership of devices remains a challenge
  • Efforts should be made to dispel negative views of mobile technologies within the classroom
  • Lessons should be learned from past examples of successful and unsuccessful projects
  • Mobile technology should support a well developed curriculum and pedagogy and not become the focus of the content

10 Mobile Learning Working Papers:

To provide research information for the policy guidelines and teacher development projects, UNESCO has commissioned ten working papers: five that will investigate mobile learning policies in the five major world regions (Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Europe, Latin America, and North America) and five that will investigate mobile technologies for teacher development and support.  Drafts of the papers were presented and discussed at the MLW.

Photo credit: https://www.redorbit.com

The five papers on mobile learning policies won’t provide an in-depth analysis of each region but should give a general overview and provide examples of policy development.  The papers will explore the pervasive lack of mobile learning policies around the world, observing the misconception by some policy makers that mobile technologies are distracting from learning and should be banned in schools.  They will also include lessons learned from success stories of initiatives supported by governments and tech-savvy model teachers.

The additional five papers will examine professional development for teachers using mobile technologies in the classroom as well as how professional development can be delivered through mobile technology to teachers across the five regions.  These papers will observe how mobile technologies are being used already, how they can be used in the future, and explore the use of mobile technologies with other educational tools and resources.

4 Teacher Development Pilot Projects:

Finally, UNESCO will launch four pilot projects to explore how mobile technologies can be used to provide support and professional development for teachers in Mexico, Pakistan, Nigeria and Senegal.  Though the projects are still in the planning stages, MLW participants were able to provide input to important questions such as “What guidelines and understandings should steer the projects? What does the organization need to do, address, and keep in mind to best ensure the projects it launches are successful?”

To learn more about the MLW participant’s comments and ideas about these new projects and mobile learning policy development, see the full report here.

 

mw4d launches new site

mw4d, a research initiative that uses mobile technology for water management in Africa launched a new website in January. mw4d is based within the Oxford Water Futures Program at the University of Oxford. The site highlights projects and resources for innovative mobile applications that “help achieve water security and reduce poverty” in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Zambia.

Currently mw4d has three main projects:

Smart Handpumps

Smart Rivers

Mobile Water Payments

These projects allow for the monitoring of water use patterns, proper allocation of resources, and sustainability of water supply services. Please check out their resources for exciting projects worldwide.

Micro blogging service and social media website Twitter revealed yesterday that they now have the ability to block certain Tweets from other users across the world. While certain Tweets may be perfectly legal in some countries, Twitter will begin to restrict Tweets in specific countries where content may be contentious.

Twitter now has the ability to block certain Tweets from other users (image: Bartelme Designs)

“Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country while keeping it available in the rest of the world. Some differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there. As we continue to grow internationally, we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression,” Twitter wrote on their blog.

As an example, the company said that Tweets with “pro-Nazi content” will not be visible in France and Germany, where it is banned – but will be visible to the rest of the world.

The announcement comes in stark contrast to a blog post last year during the Arab uprisings, when Twitter said it won’t censor Tweets.

“We do not remove Tweets on the basis of their content. Our position on freedom of expression carries with it a mandate to protect our users’ right to speak freely and preserve their ability to contest having their private information revealed.”

Charlie Fripp – Acting online editor

Mobile Phone and Cash

Photo Credit: OpenIDEO

According to article released this week by Uganda Online, hospitals in Uganda are now accepting mobile money to pay for health expenses. While there are eight mobile providers in Uganda, four are providing mobile money services to their customers – MTN’s MobileMoney, Airtel’s ZAP, UTL’s M-Sente and Warid Pesa – with Orange Uganda planning on releasing their version of the service soon. In the article, a picture clearly shows that the hospital (Case Clinic) allows for mobile payments from MTN and Airtel. Other companies in Uganda are allowing for mobile payments – DStv (satellite TV provider), NWSC (water and sewerage) and Umeme (energy provider).

Utilizing mobile money in the health sector is nothing new. M-PESA in Tanzania has been used by the CCBRT Hospital to pay for patients’ bus ticket from rural areas to the hospital’s location in Dar es Salaam (the capital city). In Kenya, Changamka allows individuals to save and pay for health services by combining a medial smart card with M-PESA. In the Philippines, Smart Communications has partner with PhilHealth, a national insurance provider, to allow customers to pay their premiums via mobile money. This list continues as money mobile is being further employed in the health sector which includes insurance, vouchers program, and conditional cash transfers. The ability to save and pay via mobile money for health issues creates insurance for individuals and families that do not have access to typical insurance products. Mobile money has also been leveraged to pay nurses and community health workers serving in rural areas which helps with worker retention and decreases tardiness.

In the mHealth sector, this is a clear sign that innovative solutions can be shaped around current mobile products and services. Once mobile money has been established in countries, this opens doors for new businesses to be developed around the mobile money platform. The examples above show the need and desire for products that create the ability to both save and pay for health service. While the Ugandan example is not a revolutionary app (or killer app), it provides a necessary product so individuals and families can receive curial medical services. In this case, the ‘killerness’ of the service to using mobile money in the health care system is that it fits both the needs and infrastructure of Uganda, include accepting payments from multiple mobile providers.

Competitive pressure could enable a culture of innovation that drives economic growth in the Caribbean, a region with debt profiles akin to Southern Europe’s. St. Kitts and Nevis, Jamaica and Barbados are among the 10 most indebted countries, as per Debt to GDP ratios. But tiny populations and relatively cash rich sectors such as tourism and mining, which are controlled by a few, puts all Caribbean countries, with the exception of two (Haiti and Guyana), into the middle and high income brackets.This broad economic tag renders these mostly fragile and heavily indebted economies ineligible for some kinds of multilateral and bilateral support, such as concessional financing and debt relief, given to other poor countries with similar socio-economic dynamics.However, the region is increasingly pinning its economic fortunes on the potent mixture of its cultural stock, tech capacity and youth.  So committed to this process are some stakeholders that in 2010 Jamaica’s Ministry of Agriculture collaborated with the Kingston-based Mona School of Business (MSB)at the University of the West Indies (UWI)  to make better use of agriculture data.MSB, already a stakeholder in the IDRC’s# Caribbean Open Institute, didn’t just go the route of traditional business intelligence analysis, it worked with the Ministry to mobilize an open data initiative that would maximize mileage from the data through the creation of value-added software apps and enabling the innovation process through public access to the data.

Four screen shots from a mobile application for farmers

Photo credit: AgroAssist

One outcome is the AgroAssistant, a mobile app built on the Android platform. This recently piloted app will aid Rural Agricultural Development Agency (RADA) Field Officers to remotely access farmer and farm information as well as identify crop production figures and prices islandwide. So significant is the potential for the app to be used to sort copious data into meaningful bits, that Matthew McNaughton(@mamcnaughton), one of the developers, says the depth of information collected about farmers, their output trends and profiles, could revolutionize the way local banks assess the credit risk of small farmers.  This is arguable a watershed moment for many engaged in the business of microcredit for agriculture, as established assets-based methods of denoting credit worthiness impedes access to capital for expansion in a region where the average farmer is on the cusp of retirement (age 45) with few assets, if any, that they can afford to risk.

The wave of enthusiasm surrounding the initial agriculture open data initiative led to the formation of SlashRoots, a pan-Caribbean developer conference and community. Though launched just last February, SlashRoots(@slash_roots) is now a leader in the Caribbean’s ICT4D and Open Data for regional development space.  SlashRoots’ iconic status isn’t by chance, according to the convenors, the name is a product of the merger of two powerful tech products with a cultural twist: Slash is taken from the once premier web hub for tech savvy folks, SlashDot; and Roots doubles in honour of the super user folder on a Linux machine and a contemporary Caribbean cultural expression of pride.

At inception, SlashRoots, in collaboration with MSB and support from IDRC, held a wildly successful conference that attracted nearly 450 persons and 45 developers from across the region—even John Wonderlich of the DC-based Sunlight Foundation, a tech gov watchdog, was in attendance.

The MSB agriculture initiative is only one of several IDRC-funded projects in the Caribbean Open Institute Initiative. Others include mFisheries in Trinidad and Tobago, which is being implemented by Caribbean ICT Research Programme at the Department of Engineering, UWI St Augustine, and the technology policy work of Fundacion Taiguey in the Domincan Republic. But the region’s open data for development thrust doesn’t end there,  on January 26-27, the administrators of these three projects will host the Caribbean Open Data Conference dubbed “Developing Caribbean”.

The website describes the event as “the first regional Conference and Software Developer Competition of its kind, focused on Open Data and Social development. It uniquely combines a conference with the thrill [and competitive nature of] a code sprint, with the social objectives of government, NGOs and Civil Society”. The “Developing Caribbean” event is apart of a larger open data movement in Latin America, which also included the inaugural Developing Latin America event organized by Ciudadano Inteligente, an technology NGO in Chile,  on December 3rd and 4th of last year.

The Conference and Codesprint will span  three countries (Jamaica, Dominican Republic and Trinidad and Tobago), with virtual sites for developers recently added in Barbados, Belize, Cuba and Guyana. Over the two days teams of developers will be building apps to solve prominent social problems in the areas of Agriculture & Fisheries, Regional Trade and Tourism. The ideas for the apps are being crowdsourced by the organizers from practitioners, NGO, government and other stakeholders to culminate with a potent combination of social expertise and technical wizardy over the two days of the conference.

Follow @DevCaribbean  for details about the conference and the emerging Caribbean open data policy framework.

Media rights group Reporters Without Borders has issued a statement urging member states of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) agency of the United Nations to protect freedom of information as they begin a plenipotentiary conference in Geneva yesterday.

Cell towerReporters Without Borders has called upon the agency to sanction any countries that use censorship (image: stock.xchng)

Reporters Without Borders has called upon the agency to sanction any countries that use censorship or violate the freedom of information.

Observers expect ITU member states to adopt a series of important decisions about the agency’s future and the protection of freedom of information globally.

Meanwhile, Iranian media personnel and activists have organized a demonstration outside of the ITS Geneva headquarters to call upon the agency to hold the Iranian government accountable.

The Iranian government has announced plans to establish a system whereby telecommunications in the entire country would be entirely filtered and cut off from international networks.

According to Reporters Without Borders, instances of Internet censorship took place in a total of 68 countries in 2011, including China, Cuba and Libya, who all stand as ITU member states.

“We call on the ITU, during this decisive conference, to firmly condemn countries that do not respect the fundamental principles of the free flow of information,” Reporters Without Borders said.

“We also call on the ITU, as part of its work, to set up a commission to monitor freedom of information violations by member states. The development of ICTs throughout the world should be vehicle of democracy. The ITU must not be the accomplice of regimes that obstruct the flow of news and information on their telecommunications networks,” they continued in a press release published Tuesday.

Freedom of information has been a point of global debate in recent weeks as United States legislators debated two bills that would have severely limited Internet freedoms. After an international campaign was launched against the bills, they were side-lined by legislators.

Sarah Sheffer

Telecom Egypt’s new CEO Tarek Aboualam has announced that the company is waiting for approval from the National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority to establish Egypt’s first virtual mobile network.

Telecom Egypt hopes to create the country’s first virtual mobile network (image: Gadgets Arabia)

He also announced that the company lost EGP 100 million due to cable smuggling and the illegal transfer of international calls. In response to this, the company has embarked on restructuring its administrative and regulatory structure to address these issues.

The company has also been waiting for the establishment of a new government in Egypt following last year’s uprising in order to bid for the country’s fourth mobile phone license. The predominantly landline operator has been struggling in recent years to maintain revenue levels as mobile phones take over the country.

TE has also faced strikes and internal power struggles in recent months, culminating in a shake-up of top management, including the top CEO position.

Sarah Sheffer

Equitorial Guinea has a new telecommunications company, as Guinea Ecuatorial Comunicaciones Sociedad Anonima (GECOMSA) aims to increase the country’s growing telecom needs.

Equitorial Guinea has a new telecommunications company (image: stock.xchng)

According to a statement from the newly launched operator, the “effort by the government to overcome the sector’s limitations” was the main push for the new operator.

Currently, the country has two telecom operators, GETESA and Hits.

During the launch of GECOMSA, Maria del Mar Bindang Eneme, GECOMSA Director, said that the telecommunications company’s main goal is to improve and guarantee mobile telecommunications as well as Internet services for its subscribers.

“GECOMSA is a great addition to Equatorial Guinea’s telecommunications sector as we have experienced some shortcomings,” said President Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. “It will expand and improve our communications’ reach and take us to a new level of telecommunications.”

GECOMSA is a joint venture between the government of Equatorial Guinea, which has a 51 percent stake, and China, with 49 percent.

David Eto

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