Amartya Sen famously once observed that famines rarely occur in democratic or even relatively free societies, rather from inequalities built into the societal mechanisms of food distribution. The current famine declared by the U.N. in Southern Somalia, exemplifies his case and point.

New mobile technologies and ICTs in aid projects, however, can be used to streamline the coordination between aid organizations on the ground, populations desperate for aid delivery, and those funding the projects abroad—and make them more sustainable.

As Charles Kenny points out, the modern expansion of international markets and improved international assistance have drastically reduced the probability of famines solely resulting from weak governance.

Alternatively, the government—or those in charge—must deliberately choose to deprive their people of food and, “…actively exercise the power to take food from producers who need it or deny food assistance to victims,” Kenny writes in Foreign Policy.

The political atmosphere within the two regions of Southern Somalia is a huge factor towards the most recent accumulation of mass malnutrition and starvation.

Lacking a sovereign state, citizens must rely on the governance provided by the decentralized al Shabab—who blames food aid for creating dependency—which does little to ensure access to food, preventing malnutrition, or improving livelihoods of the population.

In February 2010, the militant group ousted the World Food Program (WFP), followed by their expulsion of three other aid agencies, where they were accused of spreading Christian propaganda.

Al Shabab removed the food aid earlier this month, declaring that agencies without hidden agendas were free to operate in their areas. Later, they announced that expelled agencies, namely WFP, remained banned.

Despite these efforts of dissuasion, WFP airlifted 10 tons of food to Southern Somalia last Wednesday. Mobile technologies can used to track this aid to ensure that it is kept out of the hands of al-Shabaab and into the hands of the malnourished.

Ensuring that they honor their word and delivering aid are two battles to overcome, encouraging harmony for further aid distribution is another.

If al-Shabab upholds their promise to allow food aid in the upcoming months, there should be coordination to make these programs and projects happen efficiently and sustainably—between Southern Somalia’s civil society, the government, and aid agencies who hold the resources.

Aid agencies should capitalize on ICTs to enhance the collaborative effort between organizations and individuals with eyes on the ground, and those pulling the funding strings up in Washington.

Edward Carr who works in famine response for USAID on the ground in the Horn of Africa, says,

…we are going to have to use our considerable science and technology capacity to really explore the potential of mobile communications as a source of rapidly-updated, geolocatable information about conditions on the ground to which people are responding with their livelihoods strategies

Although this new way of collecting information for benefit incidence analysis is useful for tracking who each dollar benefits, it is only resourceful in the long-term if put into a local social context.

Who is the most impacted, but most importantly, why- is what truly matters in the long run.

 

 

 

Responding to the food security needs of those affected by famine in the Horn of Africa is an enormous logistical challenge…

The most severe drought in a half a decade has made the already unstable region, particularly Somalia, an even more food insecure place. The United Nations is on the cusp of declaring a full-blown famine in Somalia, having deemed nearly a third of the country’s regions (5 of 18) to be experiencing a famine, which means more than 30% of people in those areas are subject to malnutrition—a quarter of all Somalis can relate. Upwards of 12 million people are caught in this perilous situation that also found toeholds in sections of Dijibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya.

The food crisis (and all out famine in parts) is made worse by drought, but high fuel and food prices, and longstanding conflict in the region are primary causes. This makes for an especially complex emergency, where getting the right kinds of aid to people when and where they need it most, logistics, requires smart tools and strategies. This gives credence to the rapid shift in how development aid is being managed and deployed, to a point where technology becomes a vital tool in emergence response.

The ongoing crisis in the Horn of Africa underscores this. The last issue of The Economist carried an article with an insightful lead that quotes a text message from a Somali affected by famine. The sender declared ‘“MY NAME is Mohammed Sokor, writing to you from Dagahaley refugee camp in Dadaab. Dear Sir, there is an alarming issue here. People are given too few kilograms of food. You must help.” Mr. Sokor texted his appeal to two United Nations officials, in London and Nairobi, after finding their numbers on the internet while surfing at a café at the north Kenyan camp.

As many have observed, Mr. Sakor’s strategic use of a near ubiquitous ICT, his mobile-phone, signals the rapidly transforming relationship between the senders and receivers of aid. It is clear that greater accountability and agility will become a demand from the bottom-up. Increasingly, aid recipients will influence the kinds of aid they receive, where and how they get it. “In the humanitarian operation of the future,” says Save the Children’s Mr Porter, “beneficiaries of emergency aid will use technology to tell us what they need—cash, food, or education—find out from us what to expect, and track its arrival, just as we can track an order from Amazon.com now.”

But, the relationship between food security and logistics supersedes complex humanitarian scenarios. As I contend in a previous blog, food insecurity is caused by a wide range of factors, including declining yields, inadequate investment in research and infrastructure, and increased water scarcity, but it is also brought about by immense waste. Logistical woes is a key cause for much of this waste. For instance, more than a third of crops reaped never gets to market in edible fashion because of poor value chain management and practices.

Long term development of the agricultural systems in the region must focus on using logistics technology to improve transportation and warehousing of produce. It’s crucial that we reduce food waste in the drive to improve food security.

 

 

A report that was released at the end of July highlighted the emergence of gamification in mobile services, especially in mHealth. In the report, the term gamification is defined as “the use of gameplay mechanics for non-game applications. The term also suggests the process of using game thinking to solve problems and engage audiences.”

Therefore, in the realm of healthcare, gamification refers to the use of game mechanics or game principles in mHealth applications. In some mHealth circles, a sub field has emerged call health games, which are games that are intended to improve the health of the users. The report suggests that gamification is the future of mobile, web and social media technology.

These gaming apps are designed to alleviate health burdens by promoting healthy behaviors and actions, and educating users on the nature of the burden itself.

For instance, there could be a gaming app on the importance of having an insecticide treated bed net for malaria prevention. The app could educate the user on how malaria is contracted and how to treat it by presenting a series of questions to answer for a prize.

At its most basic level, these apps can reward the user with virtual or actual incentives as they complete certain actions that attenuate a health burden. The incentive encourages the user to perform the action.

A recent Gartner report predicts that by 2015, more than 50% of organizations will gamify their innovation processes. “By 2014, a gamified service for consumer goods marketing and customer retention will become as important as Facebook, eBay or Amazon, and more than 70% of Global 2000 organizations will have at least one gamified application,” says the report.

SCVNGR founder Seth Priebatsch agrees. “It feels like the next natural evolution of human-technological interaction to me,” he says. As we complete the social layer, we’ll begin construction in earnest on the game layer.”

In the realm of health, gaming apps can be used as tools to encourage a diet plan, educate about a disease, promote drug adherence, and present treatment options. According to experts, one indirect result is that along with promoting certain actions towards improving health, the games may also generate positive attitudes and improve emotional states towards achieving better health.

In the developing world, one such app exists called Freedom HIV/AIDS that was implemented in India and Africa. Designed to promote HIV/AIDS awareness, the app offers games themed for its location. For instance, in India, safety cricket, and Quiz with Babu were just some of the games through which HIV/AIDS awareness was promoted.

Text to Change(TTC) is another mobile service that offers gaming apps to its participants. Implemented in Africa, TTC offers quiz games that educate participants about different health burdens. In the end of the quizzes, incentives are provided to the participants. TTC’s services have been popular with UNICEF, WHO, UN and USAID initiatives.

The games are a great way to engage people with health campaigns that may otherwise be neglected due to lack of social interaction. Another report says that gaming apps can help overcome the guilt associating with failing to complete a health program. The report says, “ Games help patients manage that guilt.  The game navigates patients through their story of successes and failures until they ultimately become victorious.”

If this is one of the roads that will be embarked by mHealth apps, and mobile apps as a whole, at least it will be a fun one. After all, when was the last time anyone had fun learning about HIV/AIDS or vaccinations?

Next week we say goodbye to an excellent team of interns who have been with us all summer! Jeff Swindle, Katie Leasor, Tyrone Hall, Shazad Ahmed and David Willmore have been at Integra since late May, and their hard work and dedication has really paid off!

For duration of the 12 week program, the group worked on research and outreach for the Global Broadband and Innovations Program, for which Integra is an implementing partner. Interns attended events, conducted interviews with professionals in the field, and networked throughout the city, all while learning more about ICT4D and gaining valuable experience working with USAID.

But it hasn’t been all work – excursions to various restaurants, water tubing, and even a filed trip and tour of the Washington Post, have made this a great summer for all of us!

We wish them all the very best in their future endeavors and look forward to learning about their professional success!

Applications are currently being accepted for the Fall program. For more information, and to apply, please visit the GBI Internship Program.

This summer I have wrote a lot about good governance programs to fight corruption, improve government effectiveness and accountability, and how they they are crucial to developing countries economic development, overall prosperity, and empowerment of civil society. One issue, however, can be the monitoring and evaluation of democracy and governance projects, which can sometimes be difficult–public opinion surveys as a form of measurement can be fraudulent, or uneven, and systems can be disorderly. Although ICTs are not a panacea for a development, they can help to streamline democratic and good governance strategies, and embolden civil society to play a participatory role. Some of the ways ICTs can be employed in democracy and governance projects, such as e-government strategies, election monitoring systems and enabling citizen media, can drastically improve the efficiency of these initiatives. Based on what I have learned so far, below are suggestions for monitoring and evaluation for an e-governance strategy, how to implement an election monitoring system from the beginning til the end, and how best to measure the effectiveness of citizen media:

1. E-government and Participation

• Benefits: Transparency can be enhanced through the free sharing of government data based on open standards. Citizens are empowered to question the actions of regulators and bring up issues. The ability of e-government to handle speed and complexity can also underpin regulatory reform.  E-government can add agility to public service delivery to help governments respond to an expanded set of demands even as revenues fall short.

First, on the project level, question if the inputs used for implementation and direct deliverables were actually produced. The government’s progression or regression should not rely solely on this because there are other outside variables. For the overall implementation, ask if the resources requested in place, and were the benchmarks that were set reached? Featured below is a timeline on how to implement a good e-government strategy.

 

2. Strengthen Rule of Law with Crowdsource Election monitoring:

• Benefits: Support for election monitoring may be provided prior to and/or during national or local elections and can encourage citizens to share reports from their community about voting crimes, ballot stuffing and map these crimes using Ushahidi. By documenting election crimes, it can provide evidence of corrupt practices by election officials, and empower citizens to become more engaged.
• Drawbacks: Publicizing information to the  broad public means without checking the information’s validity these systems can be abused in favor of one political party or the other, and elections can be highly contested.

 

Below are systematic instructions on how to implement the “all other stuff” needed for a election monitoring system, like Ushahidi:

Step 1. Create a timeline that includes goals you have accomplished by different marker points leading up to the election, and reaching target audiences

Step 2. The more information reports the better for the platform, but consider a primary goal and focus on filtering information about that goal to the platform, put it in the About section.

Step 3. Target your audience and know how they can be reached for example

• Community partners
• Crowd
• Volunteers

Step 4. Figure out who your allies are—NGOs and civil society organizations that will want to support, and provide resources for more free and fair elections in your country. Figure out what groups would be best for voter education, voter registration drives, civic engagement or anti-corruption. Building a new strategy on top of the already existing ones will help to promote the campaign and making it more sustainable overtime.

Step 5. Reach out and meet with the groups you have targeted—and make sure to identify people from that country living abroad, reach out to the diaspora. Ask yourself the following questions when the program is implemented: should all reports be part of the same platform? Should reports come in before voting begins or just offenses taking place during elections? What about outreach after the election takes place for follow-up M&E?

Step 6. Get the word out to as many citizens as possible using flyers, local media, and target online influencers, such as those on Twitter or Facebook. Attract volunteers to assist in the overall outreach and publicity plan—a volunteer coordinator, technical advisor and, if possible, a verification team or local representatives, to relay and confirm what monitoring the electoral processes is all about.

Step 7. Information sources:

• Mobiles: Frontline SMS can work as reception software for submissions via text.
• Email/Twitter/Facebook: Consider creating a web form to link people to on social networks which asks for everything you need, including, detailed location information, category and multimedia.
• Media Reports and Journalists: Have volunteers look in the news for relevant information to be included in the reports
• Verification team: Either a local organization or journalist works best—on site that is able to receive alerts from the platform on events happening around their polling stations to be able to verify what is going on. Cuidemos el Voto modeled Ushahidi slightly for incoming reports from whitelisted people to show up automatically, for example non-governmental election monitoring organizations.

Step 9. Monitoring and Evaluation

• Closing the loop of information: How will you show citizens who provided information on electoral fraud that you received it? Have a system in place to tell community representatives that the information was received and it will be acted upon.
• How will you act on that information in the country’s courtrooms, though? Make sure to preserve the documentation of election fraud that your platform has received so that it can serve to hold the perpetrators accountable in court.

3. Citizen Media

Citizen media allows content to be produced by private citizens outside of large media conglomerates and state run media outlets to tell their stories and provide bottom up information. Also known as citizen journalism, participatory media, and democratic media, citizen media is burgeoning with all of the technological tools and systems available that simplify the production and distribution of media

1. Benefits: In addition to the above-mentioned benefits, citizen media also allows a sense of community where up-to date news covers a variety of angles, stories, and topics found in hard to reach places.
2. Drawbacks: It can be risky for the citizens journalists and their supporters. They can be identified and targeted by members of the oppression, where they will be put in jail or tortured. There is no gatekeeping, verifying, or regulating the information—this is not a problem when it comes to video or photos, but definitely with information. Also, connectivity issues may not allow citizens to upload the information.
3. Helpful Resources: This journalist’s toolkit is a training site for multimedia and online journalists.
4. Monitoring and Evaluation for citizen media projects: Governments have foreign policy and economic agendas that guide their choices on how they fund projects, therefore, it’s important that the grantees and activists understand and share the same objectives. This is also beneficial to learn from projects over time to avoid redundancy and enhance efficiency of implementation.
5. Measurement approaches—Some corporate funding agencies like the Gates Foundation, Skoll Foundation, and Omidyar Network insist on measuring citizen media projects, while other funding agencies like the Knight Foundation insist less on measurement. It’s important to measure both quantitative and qualitative outcomes and give constructive feedback to the contributors so that they can become more effective.

• Quantitative—Objectives may sometimes change in response to your context, but keep the end goal in mind, continue to measure yourself against the objectives. This can be done through web analytics or web metrics—website performance monitoring service to understand and optimize website usage
• Qualitative—Primarily anecdotal and used to shift policy objectives. In the end, however, it’s about visualizing the change you are trying to bring in the world, and making it happen.