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The Magic of ICTs: Rural Women in Agriculture

Photo Credit: OpenIdeo

Let’s imagine the state of the global food security in the next 3-5 years, if rural women decide to back out of agriculture and food production today? Secondly, let’s visualize how access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) by rural women could reverse the negative impacts that this could make on the globe – that is the magic!

Rural women in most of the developing world play an indispensable role in improving the quality of life through agriculture, food production, processing and decisions concerning nutrition and diet. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), over two thirds of all women in Africa are employed in the agriculture sector and produce nearly 90% of food on the continent. As the world recognizes the importance of rural women on the International Day of Rural Women (2011), I would like to highlight some of the key roles that rural women play across the globe in sustaining life. The piece concludes with the ‘envisioning’ of ICTs to improve the current deplorable conditions of these rural women. While each of these cases highlights the “role” of rural women in agriculture, they also inform the public (in general) and our policy makers (in particular) about the plight of this hardworking social group within our society.

In Bangladesh, rural women are known for their traditional role in a wide range of agricultural activities including post-harvesting, cow fattening and milking, goat farming, backyard poultry rearing, horticulture, and food processing. Women, almost equal to the contribution of male family labor, carry out some 40-50% of field irrigation and non-farm water management.

Depending on the geographic location in Bhutan, rural women may dominate agricultural production. The population consists of 49% women, and 62% of them work in agriculture. Agriculture remains the primary economic activity in the rural areas of Bhutan in addition to other dominant activities as kitchen garden and livestock. Women considerably contribute to household income through farm and non-farm activities.

The situation is not different in India where the national rural female work participation rate is around 22%. While agriculture is a household enterprise, social norms demarcate the division of labor based on sex and age. Activities like transplanting and weeding are regarded as women’s jobs, whereas both men and women perform activities like harvesting and post-harvesting.

About 79% of Kenya’s population lives in rural areas and relies on agriculture for most of its income. The rural economy depends mainly on smallholder subsistence agriculture, which produces 75% of total agricultural output. The poorest communities are found in the sparsely populated arid zones, mainly in the north and made up of households headed by women, herders, and farm laborers. Subsistence farming is primary – and often the only – source of livelihood for about 70% of these women.

In Rwanda, women account for about 54% of the population, and many households are headed by women and orphans. Agriculture remains the backbone of the economy contributing an average of 36% of total GDP, and employs more than 80% of the population. Rural livelihoods are based on agricultural production system that is characterized by small family farms, practicing mixed farming that combines rain-fed grain crops, traditional livestock rearing and some vegetable production and dominated by women.

A substantial proportion of Nepalese women (40%) are economically active. Most of these women are employed in the agriculture sector, the majority working as unpaid family laborers in subsistence agriculture characterized by low technology and primitive farming practices. As men increasingly move out of farming, agriculture is becoming increasingly feminized in Nepal.

In Pakistan, women are key players in the agriculture sector, which employs almost 12 million women in the production of crops, vegetables and livestock. The cotton crop, accounting for half of national export earnings, depends heavily on female labor. Women have the exclusive responsibility for cotton picking, exposing themselves in the process to health hazards emanating from the intensive use of pesticides.

In Sri Lanka, about 80% of the population lives in rural areas in which women play an important role in the agriculture sector. About 42% of the female labor force is engaged in agricultural activities. Gender roles in slash and burn cultivation, rice paddies and home gardens vary according to the cultivation practiced in these systems of production. Women take on activities related to transplanting, post-harvesting and household level processing of home garden produce.

The agriculture sector of Ghana contributes about 33.5% of GDP and remains the country’s major engine of economic growth. Over half the country’s population lives in rural areas. About six in ten small-scale farmers are poor, and many are women. Women bear heavy workloads. In addition to their domestic chores, they are responsible for about 60% of agricultural production. More than half the women who head households in rural areas are among the poorest 20% of the population.

In Côte d’Ivoire, most of the country’s poor people are small-scale farmers. They face problems of market access, low prices for export crops and inadequate basic social services. Rural women, who lead the sector, have limited or no decision-making power over the allocation of land, and they are dependent on men for access to land. Yet gaining access to land is crucial for these women because their livelihoods depend largely on the production of food crops.

In Indonesia, women represent the mainstay of rural households, providing family as well as farm labor. Agriculture accounts for the highest share of rural employment. Since most rural households control small amounts of land or have no land at all, rural women often seek to supplement household income and food security through off-farm employment in small and medium enterprises, some of which have links to agricultural production.

The East African country of Ethiopia, has about 12.7 million smallholders who produce about 95% of agricultural GDP under extremely vulnerable conditions such as drought and other natural disasters. Households headed by women are particularly vulnerable. Women are much less likely than men to receive an education or health benefits, or to have a voice in decisions affecting their lives.

Poverty in the Sudan is deeply entrenched and is largely rural. Poverty particularly affects farmers who practice rain-fed agriculture. It is more widespread and deeper in rural areas dominated by women and children and in areas affected by conflict, drought and famine. In general, small-scale farmers and herders in the traditional rain-fed farming and livestock sectors are poorer than those in the irrigated agricultural sector.

Tanzania has about 85% of its poor people living in rural areas and relies on agriculture as their main source of income and livelihood. Within the agriculture sector, food crop producers who are mainly women, are generally poorer than cash crop farmers, but both operate under cyclical and structural constraints and are subject to frequent natural calamities.

Despite all these contributions of women to agricultural sector under the aforementioned harsh conditions, their role has tended to be seen as secondary to that of men. Unfortunately, the opportunities offered by ICTs in the digital age, are not immediately available to the poorest of the poor – who are mostly ‘rural’ women. Rural women in most developing countries face important constraints with respect to ICTs. Some of these include the limited time availability to participate in training and use of ICTs due to the nature of their role at home, low literacy level, minimal access to technology such as mobile telephones or computers, and social and cultural stigma that goes with the social group.

Notwithstanding, there is an increasing body of evidence that shows how ICT is contributing positively to women’s socio-economic empowerment. A range of ICT models have been used to support the empowerment of women all over the world and there is evidence to show that ICTs have improved women’s access to information, and provided them with new employment opportunities.

While the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that giving women the same access as men to ‘agricultural resources’ could increase their farm production by 20-30%, I would like to state that giving women same access as men to “ICTs” could increase their farm productivity by 20-30%.

October 14, 2011/by actualize

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Providing Connectivity doesn’t Guarantee Women Have Access

Despite efforts over the past several years, to bring ICTs to rural areas of Uganda, assessments show most of these initiatives have been dominated by men. In the Rwenzori Region of Western Uganda, Toro Development Network (ToroDev) works to make sure women have access to this connectivity as well. More gender sensitive intervention is needed to enable the local population generate and exchange reliable information in a relevant local content on their own, enhance gender advocacy and sensitization programmes that target to improve the status of women and share knowledge by building an electronic community and networks, especially in the agricultural and agro-business sector. Over 80% rural women depend on small-scale agriculture and agro-business sector in the region.

Many gender, social, cultural beliefs marginalize women in all aspects of positive livelihoods in this region including access and use of quality information. ICTs cannot sustainably impact the Rwenzori rural community of Western Uganda (Kabarole and Kyenjojo districts) unless the women, who make up 63% of the total population, are given special attention. Customized ICT-enabled production, capacity/skills building and marketing tools that empower women in the agricultural sector are therefore imperative in this case.

What Toro Development Network (ToroDev) does to address this issue:

ToroDev is a community based NGO established in 2005 to promote the use of appropriate ICTs for sustainable and gender sensitive socio-economic community development of both men and women in the rural Rwenzori region of western Uganda. Its current operations cover the districts of Kabarole and Kyenjojo. For the past two years, ToroDev has been involved in community ICT4D awareness programmes using two community radios, holding sensitization workshops and writing ICT4D articles in local newspapers and bulletins with special attention on building the lobbying capacity of the marginalized youth and women to access and use relevant community information on their own[4] and communicate their development needs to local leaders – Local government and eventually influence ICT policy formulation at central government level.

At the beginning of 2006, after a community Information Needs Assessment survey, ToroDev embarked on a campaign of establishing of an ICT4D Research and Resource Centre in the Toro community (Kabarole and Kyenjojo districts) of the Rwenzori Region. The centre would later support its research, documentation, lobbying and advocacy, train rural men and women and facilitate knowledge sharing for best production practices among small-scale farmers and help them to access quality marketing opportunities at local, regional and international levels. This project was nominated and selected finalist in the prestigious Stockholm Challenge Award 2008. The project has so far brought together ten (10) main community based NGOs in the region to contribute resources and establish a bigger community owned telecentre facility “Kabarole Information Centre” whose one aim, among many others, is to train 700 women community development workers by 2011.

ToroDev approaches the improvement of small-scale agricultural production in the region using customized, affordable and relevant Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D). These are tools that efficiently facilitate cheap and instant access to information from community, regional, national and international level streams. Through the partnership with instititutions like SATNET (Sustainable Agricultural Trainers Network) IMARK (Information Management Resource Kit) group in collaboration with FAO, CTA and APC, ToroDev is piloting the strategy of “Building Electronic Communities and Networks” through training community workers how to use simple modern Web 2.0 Tools[5] to produce and manage agricultural information in the two districts of Kabarole and Kyenjojo. This information is needed by local small scale farmers to improve their production practices, add value to their products and have opportunities to access regional, national and international markets. Over 80% women living in these two rural districts make their livelihood out of small scale farming. Effective use of simple ICT4D (Web 2.0) tools reduces production and post harvest costs like transportation of agricultural produce to nearest market places, increase rural women farmers total revenues and therefore, improve their livelihoods and those of their community members.

Johnstone Baguma-Kumaraki, the Author is Executive Director, Toro Development Network (ToroDev)

October 14, 2011/by actualize

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Access to Knowledge in Emergency situations: Looking at the situation in Jordan and in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Written by Sonia Randhawa and reposted from GenderIT.org.

Access to knowledge is vital at any time. This is especially evident in times of emergency where a lack of knowledge can be disastrous, as graphically illustrated during the Asian tsunami of 2004 when meteorological services were aware of an impending disaster, but were unable to find channels of communication to warn affected communities. Also graphic in this instance was the gendered nature of the disaster – in Aceh, up to 80% of those killed by the tsunami were women. Reasons given for this range from the nature of women’s clothing, that women were more likely to be at home at the time of the tsunami and that women were more likely to put the safety of their children before their own safety.

This is not an isolated case. Natural disaster statistics are rarely disaggregated by gender, although anecdotal evidence suggests that women are disproportionately affected. In addition, analysts argue that disasters occur by design and that the impact of natural disasters shows a bias towards the socially excluded. According to Elaine Emerson:

“On balance, those most socially excluded and economically insecure in any society or

community are least able to access or control resources needed during and in the aftermath of a

damaging cyclone or lengthy drought. Women, the frail elderly and children, members of

subordinated cultural or racial groups, the chronically ill, undocumented residents, the pre-disaster

homeless, and other socially marginalized populations are least likely to have the social power,

economic resources, and physical capacities needed to anticipate, survive, and recover from the

effects of massive floods, long-lasting drought, volcanic eruptions, and other extreme environmental events.”

This has led to aid and relief agencies such as Oxfam attempting to counter previous gender-blind policies that worsened the impact of disasters on women. The lack of gender disaggregated informationⁱ on the impact of natural disasters is a key problem in addressing the gendered nature of their impacts.

This article will compare two very different situations, that of a comparatively developed nation in the Middle East and a nation that has been ravaged by over a decade of civil strife and war. Jordan in the Middle East has one of the lowest internetⁱ penetration rates in the region, but almost a fifth of people have internet access. The GDP per capita, in purchasing power parity of Jordan is over 10 times that of DRC.

The Democratic Republic of Congo has an average life expectancy of just 45 and internet penetration of under 2 percent. While urban areas are relatively safe from conflict, over 2 million people have been displaced in the Eastern part of the nation, and violence continues to claim around 1,200 people per day, either directly in conflict, or indirectly through deaths due to a lack of clean drinking water or other easily avoidable health problems.

The similarities between Jordan and the DRC are few. But in both societies the status of women remains low, when compared with other countries in the region, and internationally. The Global Gender Gap Report 2006 ranked Jordan as 105th out of 115 countries in terms of closing its gender gap in economic participation and opportunities, while there are few Jordanian women in leadership positions in either politics or business, the number of Jordanian women enrolled in ICT courses has outstripped men, since the mid-00s. Nevertheless, and despite the Governmentⁱ‘s key role in ICT policyⁱ, women make up less than a fifth of the core ICT workforce.

One of the main problems women have in accessing knowledge is directly related to poverty and illiteracy. In both countries, the interviewees said the problem of access to knowledge in an emergency situation is only part of a general problem of women’s access to knowledge – although women’s literacy rates in Jordan are among the highest in a highly literate region.

This is further worsened when it comes to issues of sexual and reproductive health due to cultural taboos surrounding the discussion of sexual violence – issues that are particularly crucial in DRC where sexual violence is increasingly seen as an acceptable method of subduing one’s perceived cultural or racial enemies. In one month in 2008, 1,200 women were reported to have been raped.

Literacy and education

The main problems facing women who need to access information in an emergency situation are those they are faced with daily. Key among these is low levels of literacy. While in the short-term, such as in a natural disaster, word of mouth or radio are usually key providers of information; in the aftermath a lack of literacy can severely hamper women’s ability to respond to situations or absorb new information quickly and effectively.

This is related to women’s access to education. In DRC, there are few women who attend university, and it is seen as an impediment to making a good marriage – educated men prefer wives with little education, according to Lulu Mitshabu. There are few educated role models for women to emulate, either in government or private enterprise, and if a family has the choice between spending resources to educate a boy child or a girl child, the boy child will receive preference. In conflict areas, children of both sexes are faced with the problem of losing several years education due to displacement, and there are few facilities to help those in such a situation – the already over-stretched aid agencies are concentrating on ensuring the short-term survival of the refugees. Considering both the long-term nature of the conflict and that there are no apparent solutions in sight, this problem is acute. Ms Mitshabu also says that the impact of this on access to knowledge is disastrous – not only are children unable to read or write, this also hampers their ability to assess information, making them vulnerable to manipulation, particularly dangerous in a conflict that is fuelled by racial tensions.

In contrast, women’s access to education in Jordan is comprehensive. There are more girls enrolled in primary school and secondary school. Yet, according to Daoud Kuttab, this disguises regional (and generational) differences in literacy and access to knowledge. And while Jordan has made vocal commitments to ensuring that it is considered a prime destination for ICT investors, particularly those looking at outsourcing operations, there was nothing that specifically addressed gender inequities in ICT access until May 2007. The new policy says “Government notes the importance of the ICT sector with respect to women’s role in Jordanian society and the Jordanian economy. Accordingly, Government will work with stakeholders to ensure the continuous promotion of women’s participation in the IT sector through the support of women’s empowerment.”

This does not mention any specific commitment to not only ensuring women have access to ICT education, but also that there are appropriate job opportunities for them once they leave tertiary education.

Infrastucture

In both Jordan and DRC, a lack of infrastructure was seen as a key impediment to the generalised lack of information dissemination. In DRC, for example, in the earlier days of the conflict, one of the key means of transmitting information was via community radio. Community radio was key in informing people of possible attacks and in providing information on rehabilitation after attacks.

In addition, the ability of people to receive radio signals has been severely eroded. Many refugees have been forced to flee their homes repeatedly. In many instances, a person with a radio may become a hub for a community anxious to learn news.

Lulu Mitshabu says that community radio was particularly important to women, as it was not only more interested in the concerns of women than stateⁱ-sponsored media, it gave women a chance to be heard on radio. This was an effective means of empowering women, and helping women leaders in the community to spread information. However, given the scarcity both of transmitters and receivers, this is no longer an effective means of transmitting information.

Even less effective is internet and computer technology – even in the comparatively developed state of Jordan. In both countries, the technology is confined to an urban elite. In DRC, single women may access the internet through cafes, mainly to communicate with relatives overseas – but even this is curtailed by their husbands once they are married. In both countries, access to the internet in remote areas, and in DRC in the conflict areas, is severely limited, both by the infrastructure and by the levels of computer and internet literacy.

It is an area of policy development that has been lacking, not just in Jordan but in the region. While Jordan both hosted the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC)’s Ninth General Assembly and has approved community radio licences within university campuses, AMARC has recommended improving legislation to allow more community radio licences. Daoud Kuttab says it is the best way to help women take control of information, “A community radio station in Jordan is the perfect communication tool that will provide people of all ages and social backgrounds of vital information that they need whether it be related to daily needs or farming needs.”

Credibility of information

In DRC, the ability to disseminate vital information rapidly is also hampered by the skepticism of recipients of information. Having been victims of conflict for over a decade, people will only believe information from trusted sources, often those known to them personally such as village chiefs. Women’s subordinate position in society and their lack of education can limit their effectiveness as providers of information, reinforcing men in their position as gatekeepers of information.

This tendency for men to be gatekeepers is a situation that has been worsened in the conflict years in DRC. This in turn means that information that could save women’s lives, such as simple information on hygiene and health-care, is often not transmitted to the women who need it, as men do not see the transmission of this information to women as being important.

However, when educated women return to their villages, they can play this role – but few choose to do so. According to Lulu Mitshabu, this is partly because of the limited opportunities at the village level and partly due to migration of educated women overseas, where they are more likely to find educated marriage partners and greater opportunities.

Effective Technology

Unfortunately, the experience in DRC seems to indicate that all effective means of accessing knowledge are controlled by men. In Ms Mitshabu’s experience there are two major effective ways of communication, that can help in disaster preparedness and recovery. The first is mobile phone technology. The infrastructure for mobile phones is difficult to target, and has been largely unaffected by the conflict. SMS messages can be used to effectively disseminate information to a large audience in a short period of time. Unfortunately, mobile phones are largely the province of the men. There is no perceived need for women to own a mobile phone, and even if they did, the low literacy rates make SMS services largely useless.

The second way of effectively transmitting information is through traditional leadership roles – chiefs spreading information on how to deal with potential or existing threats. Once again, this largely excludes women from a role in either disseminating or receiving information. However, it is useful in ensuring that information transmitted is perceived as credible. This is also a network that has proved resilient in the face of conflict. It has the major downside of reinforcing existing gender roles.

Ways forward

In Jordan, where the Government is behind an initiative to put a computer in every home, emphasis needs to be given to making sure relevant information is available and to improve women’s computer literacy. However, Daoud Kuttab emphasises that this is not enough. He says, “Women need to take charge of the entire informational cycle that affects them from the source of information to the platforms that are available in which women are in editorial and senior managerial positions as well as ownership in the case of community media.”

He also points out the need to undo the impact of the filtering process of the male-dominated media and policy.

In DRC, Lulu Mitshabu says the need is to focus on low-tech solutions to disseminating knowledge, such as using posters and t-shirts. These need to be highly pictoral to ensure that they are effective regardless of literacy rates. In terms of emergency information, she stresses the need to set up parallel structures to mirror the informal networks that exist among men, helping to cultivate leadership among women and to encourage educated women to return to their communities to take up a leadership role. The main problem in the DRC remains not just that aid is provided in a gender-blind fashion, but also that there is not enough aid to provide for the humanitarian disaster of the region.

October 14, 2011/by actualize

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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

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ICTs making big changes for rural women

Rural Women’s Day

Mrs. Flora Emilia lives deep in Tanzania’s mountainous region. Owning a mobile phone has helped her access the latest market prices, and therefore get better rates for her crops, rather than being taken advantage by the middlemen.

She can now contact buyers on her own and search for market prices in town, none of which should could do before being involved with the Gender, Agriculture and Rural Development in the Information Society (GenARDIS), a small grants fund initiated in 2002 to support work on gender-related issues in ICTs for the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific regions.

“I am a better woman now,” she says with pride.

By being able to search for market prices, she can now bargain and is looking into ways of increasing her crop production and expanding different crop types.

Emilia is a beneficiary of the Mikocheni Agricultural Research Institute (MARI) GenARDIS funded project, which distributed mobile phones to a group of women from the village of Peko-Misegese in Tanzania.

Small grants making big changes

According to Jennifer Radloff, Manager of GenARDIS project for Association for Progressive Communications (APC), women living in rural areas must overcome multiple barriers, relating not only to their location but also their gender, to access information and communication technologies (ICTs).

GenARDIS recognizes the constraints and challenges encountered by rural women–lower levels of education, cultural attitudes preventing women from visiting public access points without being accompanied by men, caregiving responsibilities, to name but a few– and has disbursed small grants to diverse and innovative projects in order to counter these barriers, to document the process and results, and to contribute to more gender-aware ICT policy advocacy.

For instance, radio (and increasingly the mobile phone), are perhaps the most ubiquitous communication devices in many rural areas, are often not accessible to women since men control and usually own the radio and the mobile phone in the household.

“With all the GenARDIS-supported projects, ICTs are only a means–albeit a very powerful means to an end in themselves. Access to information is the tool that allows women to envision small advances in everyday life and more monumental strides over time,” said Keane Shore, an Ottawa-based writer and editor.

Women play a central role in the agriculture economy and centralizing ICTs adds tremendous potential for improving rural livelihoods.

By demonstrating in tangible ways women’s huge contribution to agriculture and household income and the positive increase in livelihoods, gender relations are improved and women’s role in communities more valued.

“The love has increased in my house,” added Emilia whose new found financial independence has made space for more equality, respect and harmony in the household.

October 14, 2011/by actualize

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Solomon Islands: radio mail drive peace & development

Rural operators on discovery training into connecting with the rest around the globe

Frequency radio and e-mail maybe “simple” technologies but they are driving peacebuilding and development efforts in the Solomon Islands.

The People First Network (PFnet) is a UNDP funded project set up in 2001. PFnet promotes rural development and peacebuilding by enabling affordable and sustainable connectivity and facilitating information exchange between communities across the Solomon Islands.

PFnet has established a growing rural communications system based on wireless e-mail networking in the HF band, which enjoys full community ownership.

The PFnet community e-mail are the only link to the outside world, providing communities with access to information regarding health, public services and education, and enabling essential contact with family and professional peers.

Gender equality & rural development

PFnet plays particular attention to gender equity and democratic governance, helping women, especially disadvantaged rural women, to network, access services relevant to them and connect with women’s group.

A network of rural community e-mail stations is located on remote islands across the country, usually hosted in secure public facilities. The stations are pretty basic and consist of an old laptop, radio and modem, powered by a car battery, which runs off a solar panel as in most areas there is no electricity. The total cost of the equipment runs to around $8,000.

At the heart of the operation is an Internet café in the capital Honiara, which connects to the Internet via satellite. The connection speed is around 2Kbps, meaning a typical text e-mail sent by rural villages takes about 10 seconds to transmit.

“We are using old technology but it is robust,” said Joe Rausi, staff on the PFnet project.

“This laptop is quite old but it does the work. In the end we have to look at what is affordable in villages.”

“The People First Network is not about technology. It is about improving the standard of living of people in rural areas,” added Rausi.

Peace promotion

In a country where the only means of communication with the outside world for most remote areas consist of unreliable short-wave radios, and expensive statellite telephones, the PFnet project helped overcome the legacy of fear and mistrust created by years of fighting between rival ethnic gangs.

“We thought that by connecting people together, they would know more about each other and bring peace to the country,” said Rausi.

Map of the Solomon Islands

The Solomon Islands consist of roughly 850 islands and is one of the least developed nations in the South Pacific region. A quest for land and power fueled ethnic violence between 1998 and 2003 where hundreds were killed and thousands made homeless. Australian-led forces arrived in 2003 to restore order. Since then the country has enjoyed relative stability.

PFnet project illustrates how information and communication technologies (ICTs) can play a role in developing rural areas and driving peacebuilding initiatives. The project hopes to move beyond e-mail and explore using the system for distance-learning and e-commerce but bandwidth remains the biggest hurdle to this goal.

October 14, 2011/by actualize

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ICT Center Project To Educate Women in Rural Ghana

The international NGO Camfed, the Campaign for Female Education, has collaborated with Google to set up a network of three ICT centers that will reach some of the poorest and most remote rural areas of Ghana.

Photo of woman in Africa from Camfed website

Photo credit: Camfed

The women-run ICT centers will act as “hubs for learning, communication and entrepreneurship.” They will be located in the northern region of Ghana and the first will open later this month in the town of Bimbila.

Camfed’s mission is to fight poverty and HIV/AIDS in Africa by educating girls and women so that they can become leaders of change. The organization’s head of enterprise and leadership, Catherine Boyce, explained to EWeek Europe that because women in Ghana have few employment opportunities and are pressured to marry young, the female center managers will serve as “powerful role models” to the center’s clients.

Photo credit: Blackstarcommunications

Google has pledged to fund the ICT centers during the first two years of operations and while the centers get established with computers, printers, photocopiers and digital cameras. Though Camfed originally thought it would need to rely on solar energy to provide power to the centers, and may explore solar options on a case-by-case basis, the project will likely be able to use electricity since the power supply in Ghana has improved in recent months.

Development projects aimed at educating rural women through the use of ICTs are becoming more prevalent and take many forms. A successful Gates Foundation farm radio project taught women farmers about a drought and disease-resistant rice variety which greatly improved the income of farmers in the area.

Studies have shown that rural women in Africa face many challenges in gaining access to ICTs, such as affordability, distance, and time. Thus simply providing ICTs such as computers and Internet alone will not improve the lives of rural women. Rather, projects must provide low-cost options that contain a strong capacity-building component, such as education, in order to be successful. The Camfed/Google project in Ghana hopes to see success in improving the lives of rural women by providing free access and training in ICTs.

October 14, 2011/by actualize

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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

New news

Director of Connectivity Programs Sought

NetHope seeks an experienced development professional to serve as Director for Connectivity Programs for the USAID Global Broadband and Innovations (GBI) program. GBi is a broad-based initiative aimed at improvement of the Agency’s utilization of ICT – specifically the application of ICT across the Agency’s access and application agendas. The GBI Program’s focus is leveraging ICTs in several key areas including: enhancing access to broadband Internet, supporting telecommunications-related legal and regulatory reforms, improving universal service funds/universal access funds (USFs/UAFs) administration, leveraging public private partnerships, delivering program-focused value-added content and services, expansion and leveraging of mobile networks, and supporting ICT-related capacity building.

The Director for Connectivity Programs works under the direction of the Chief of Party (CoP) and provides oversight to all aspects of day-to-day implementation, personnel management, reporting, monitoring and evaluation, and representation to donors and government, especially with USAID representatives. S/he works closely with the CoP and other key staff to oversee and implement the program in line with donor and NetHope strategy.

For more information, please visit NetHope Director of Connectivity position page.

October 11, 2011/by actualize

New news

Marketing “Mobile Midwife” in Ghana

Can information delivered on a mobile phone affect the outcome of a pregnancy in a developing country? Can communities and healthcare workers use mobile phones to save the lives of newborns? These are some of the questions that the Mobile Technology for Community Health (MOTECH) program in Ghana is trying to address. Grameen Foundation is working with Ghana Health Service and Columbia University in one of the poorest rural districts of Ghana to try to improve the health outcomes for mothers and their newborns using mobile phones. But once a service has been created, how do you generate awareness for it and ensure there is adequate participation?

In July 2010, we launched a service called “Mobile Midwife,” which enablespregnant women and their families to receive SMS or pre-recorded voice messages on personal mobile phones. The messages are tied to the estimated due-date for the woman so the information is time-specific and delivered weekly in their own language. Nurses also use mobile phones to record when a pregnant woman has received prenatal care. If critical care is missed, both the mother and the nurse receive a reminder message on their mobile phones. To date, over 7,000 pregnant women and children under five have been registered in the system. More detail about the program can be found online in our “Lessons Learned in Ghana” report.

One of the challenges we faced in the development of this system was how to generate awareness for the “Mobile Midwife” service in the first place. Unless people register for the service, they cannot receive the important information we are able to provide about pregnancy. As we talked to people in the rural villages where “Mobile Midwife” would be available, it quickly became clear that communities in Ghana, and particularly the Upper East Region, had been inundated with cartoon-like health message campaigns from myriad NGOs and government agencies. People told us that if campaigns were seen as “too slick,” people would not think the messages were relevant to them. The MOTECH team decided to pursue an approach that sought to provide “aspirational” images that were differentiated from the typical “NGO cartoon” campaign, but still were relevant to the UER population. This included using real photographs instead of drawings, and ensuring that the people in the photographs were wearing clothes in the style of those worn in the rural areas where we worked. Part of the aspirational message was dressing the models in new, clean clothing, which proved to be effective. When field testing the marketing styles, many people said they “liked the lady in the pictures and it made them feel good as one day they would like to be dressed well too.” The team also decided to create some messaging that was targeted specifically to men, in an effort to respect their roles as decision makers in the family, get them to listen to the messages with their partners, and be a part of making positive health choices throughout pregnancy, birth and early childhood. As the program evolves, we expect to experiment with broader reach marketing vehicles such as radio and community mobilization.

Initiative:

Maternal Newborn mHealth

Order:

October 5, 2011/by actualize

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