Current discourse on the Arab Spring excludes social media as the sole perpetuator of the movement—but scholars and activists alike, agree that technology has helped to unify and project, citizen’s feeling of dissent.

My previous post about last Wednesday’s Future Tense event explored some speaker’s discussion on the West’s connection with new technologies, as either aiding or embedding the revolution.

Other panelists, however, elicited a more homegrown, internal perception on how the uprisings evolved.

Merlyna Lim, Professor of at the Consortium of Science, Policy and Outcomes and the School of Social Transformation – Justice and Social Inquiry Program at Arizona State University, discussed origins of anti-Mubarak protests in Egypt.

 

She claimed it was rooted before the Tahir moment occurred, stemming from three stages of organization—networks, narratives and claim making—to mobilize collective action.

The first protest organized exclusively online, without physical headquarters, was arranged by Kefaya in 2004. Using a website called Misr Digital, Lim recalls, the organizers increased the reach of the oppositions movement through the websites by engaging weak ties.

After the death of Khaled Said on June 6, 2010, the participatory youth culture, added emotions onto their organizational network’s narrative—and Egyptians feared being killed.

Khaled Said’s passing changed Egyptian’s view on human rights violations, the panelist stated. While it was once an abstract narrative, they are now saw concrete infringements by the regime—such as corruption, torture, and eventual death.

Egyptians shared these contentions, spreading them by networks. “The Tahir moment was facilitated by cabs, signs, cell phones, word of mouth, SMS, and social media provided the organizing platform,” Lim alluded.

Another panel convened by Oula Alrifai and Ahmed al-Omran discussed their firsthand perspectives on the violence in Syria, and the political and social issues of Saudi Arabia.

Alrifai, a Syrian youth activist discussed the origins of the Syrian protests. With no independent media and post-imprisonment of an Al Jazeera correspondent, she stated, social media and video were the only ways to get information about the revolutions to the outside work.

However, the connections to do so were not always available.

For activists, using cell phones with cameras was the easiest way to take pictures and record videos, but since they had no networks in the ground someimtes they had to cross the borders. Some activists, “were crossing the borders to go to Jordan to download the videos in Internet cafés and (would) come back and fight again or be on the street and protest, risking their lives,” Alrifai said.

Ahmed al-Omran, a blogger for his site saudijeans.org, discussed the excitement many have felt across the Gulf of the revolutions.

Though the demand for freedom and justice in his home country of Saudi Arabia is similar, the dynamic is different—elections do not exist, and Saudis are largely politically unaware because citizens are not allowed to, “practice politics”.

Ahmed only became aware of politics when he started blogging in 2004, as he was not raised discussing the government, but social media gave him an outlet to learn about them. “I think that the Internet and social media has given this generation a space where they can express themselves and engage with one another and talk about the issues that are typically hard to talk about in the public sphere,” he said.

Ahmed also stated that an uprising similar to Egypt will be difficult in Saudi Arabia because of the monarchy, but predicts it will occur because time is on the people’s side. “Money is a short term resolution, these issues need a fundamental solution,” Ahmed poignantly observed, “At some point the money will run out, the oil revenues will not be there forever”.

Though opinions vary on how imperative social media was to aiding the Arab Spring uprisings, almost all scholars and activists agree—it is an organizational tool that can bring like-minded individuals to collaborate for change.

Sustained economic development, including efforts to reap and secure gains in food security, in Africa hinges on regional integration. The impetus for the rapid pace at which regional integration projects were deepened across the continent, in the last decade, underscores this. In particular, African states acknowledged the political and economic benefits of regional integration, as per the general objectives of the Cotonou Partnership Agreement in 2000, the launch of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) in 2001, and the emergence of the African Union in 2002.

Nonetheless, the African integration processes have a far way to go. Although people move relatively freely across borders in ECOWAS and other sub-regions, much more ought to be done to create a critical mass of people who believe in the vision. The fact that regional integration can result in tangible benefits for the average African, by putting food on their plates cheaper and more efficiently, should be a strong selling point. But inefficiencies within the existing regional frameworks impede these significant gains.

According to the FAO, intra-regional trade account for a mere 13% of Sub-Saharan Africa’s US$6 billion food import bill. As Vanessa Adams, Director, USAID West Africa Trade Hub, noted at a recent panel discussion, “whether food is sourced nationally, regionally or internationally, the need for faster and cheaper transport of food is urgent. It also offers promising business opportunities…” This observation is critical as upwards of a third of all foods grown in Africa never gets to market in edible fashion; it’s wasted…and that’s not because it reached anyone’s plate. To a great extent, this is due to poor transportation, but, in a broader sense, it is much more a matter of poor value chain management and practices.

My main assertion is that an inverse relationship exists between transport infrastructure and trade—and ultimately economic development. The World Bank corroborates this view in its declaration that a 10% decrease in transport costs results in a 20% increase in trade. But the extent to which logistics technologies have been leveraged and effectively deployed to warehouse and transport farm produce on the continent is limited. Some might add that the roadways across Africa, particularly West Africa, are far better today than they were a decade ago, and to that I would say, yes, but transport in a regionally integrated context depends on much more than improved roadways, though important. These inefficiencies underline my emphasis on the link between regional integration and food security.

In other words, inefficient regional trade breeds food insecurity. So, until the cross border impediments to the free flow of goods are removed, this transportation challenge will remain and food insecurity will persist!

Below are a few anecdotes from business owners faced with transportation challenges in West Africa’s ECOWAS area. The notes were shared by Vanessa Adams during the panel discussion.

• If we could cross borders faster, we could make 12 trips to Accra instead of current 3, reducing costs. (Furniture)
• We’ve been ETLS registered for 6 years. But countries still impose high duties, raising our delivered prices by 30%. We can’t compete against imports! (Juice producer)
• ECOWAS misplaced our application for ETLS Registration. When will application process be “on-line”? (Agriculture trader)
• We sized our plant for an ECOWAS-wide market. That didn’t happen and we’re now operating at 20% capacity. (Paint)
• We intend to invest $5 million and hire 120 staff – IF we can be assured of access to a larger market. (Furniture)

The world of ICT is expanding into the health sector, and their interactions are garnering more and more attention by the day. Therefore, we must be mindful of the beginnings and demarcations of ICT usage in health. After all, we can’t know where we are going unless we know where we came from.

Current ICT for health news in the developing world is dominated by initiatives using mobile telephony; the bread and butter of mHealth. This is not a total shock since over 85% of the world now has mobile coverage. Moreover, there are over 5 billion people on Earth with a mobile phone, and 3.5 billion of them are in developing countries.  As a result, mHealth initiatives are booming in developing countries, especially in Africa and South Asia.

But what about other forms of ICTs that play a role in healthcare? What are they and how do they work? This crash course on the intersection between ICT and Health will explore the different avenues within that intersection and how to distinguish them from one another to prevent confusion.

Avenues of ICT and Health

Avenues are the different types of structured practices that implement ICTs in the health field. An avenue in the intersection of ICT and health will utilize old technologies, new technologies or a convergence of both in a structured and systematic way to achieve positive health outcomes. These are the different avenues:

eHealth: The term eHealth refers to the practice of using and being supported by electronics in healthcare. eHealth is the umbrella concept for many other avenues of ICT and health such as telemedicine and mHealth. The term is interchangeably used with health informatics by some experts. The term characterizes a way of thinking, an attitude, and a commitment for networked, global thinking, to improve health care locally, regionally, and worldwide by using information and communication technology. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), eHealth is the quintessential embodiment of the intersection of ICTs and health. Electronic health record systems, health information systems, mHealth and telemedicine all fall under the jurisdiction of eHealth.

Telemedicine: Technically, telemedicine has been around for decades, ever since doctors on one end of the phone have consulted patients on the other end of the phone. It pertains to providing remote clinical care through forms of telecommunication and information technologies. What distinguishes telemedicine from telehealth, since they are sometimes incorrectly used interchangeably, is that the former delivers clinical care while the latter offers clinical and non-clinical care such as health research and education. Telemedicine services include live patient consultation over phone or video, remote patient monitoring, medical and health information acquisition, and emergency telemedicine.

mHealth: Also called mobile health, mHealth is a form of eHealth that uses mobile devices such as mobile phones and PDA’s for health services. The Global Observatory for eHealth (GOe) defined mHealth as medical and public health practice supported by mobile devices, such as mobile phones, patient monitoring devices, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and other wireless devices. mHealth capitalizes on mobile telecommunication services such as SMS, general packet radio service (GPRS),  third and fourth generation mobile telecommunications (3G and 4G systems), global positioning system (GPS), and Bluetooth technology.

Health Informatics: This is the field that aims to analyze the information needs of consumers, implement ways to disperse information to consumers and health professionals, and integrate consumer preferences into medical information systems. The field uses devices, resources and methods to store, obtain, retrieve, and disseminate information for healthcare purposes. Health informatics mostly uses computers but also takes advantage of clinical guidelines, advanced medical devices, and ICT services.

Dr. Paul Romer, economist professor at New York University, is in talks with the Honduras government to establish “new reform zones,” designed to attract foreign investors.  The “charter cities” would be about 1000 square kilometers in size, and be run by foreign developers with their own laws, leasing the land from the Honduras government.

I corresponded with Dr. Romer about the role of broadband technology in charter cities, particularly in Honduras.  His responses to my questions are listed below.  Additionally, Dr. Romer’s presentation at TEDGlobal2009 can be seen here, and an update on the progress in Honduras from TED2011 is located here.

President Lobo of Honduras supports the “cuidad modelo” concept, and endorsed it to government officials.  Last month, the President announced that Trujillo would be the first charter city, with investors from South Korea, Canada, and England, as well as support from the Inter-American Development Bank.
The importance of terrestrial fiber cables for broadband connectivity to charter cities will probably be essential to their economic success.  Additionally, if the cities are to slowly be incorporated into the rest of Honduras’ economy, it will be crucial that traditional businesses in Honduras go online in order to trade with the businesses present at the charter cities.

The social and political implications of a charter city are hotly debated, as critics express their concerns that charter cities are too similar to colonialism and require nations’ to lose their sovereignty.  These issues are complex, and should be debated.  Despite this, Dr. Romer’s vision is thought-provoking and is being put into practice in Honduras.  His answer regarding the role of broadband in charter cities, are listed below:

1. What would be the role of ICTs, particularly broadband Internet in a charter city?

As the developing world urbanizes this century, the cities that will stand out will be the ones that join the global network of hub cities. ICT is one of the key interfaces that will link hub cities to one another, along with the shipping container and the airplane.

The driving force of economic life is the non-rivalry of ideas. Because we can share ideas, each idea has a value proportional to the number of people who use it. Cities are enormous sources of value because they allow us to share ideas in face-to-face exchanges with ever more people. Digital communications are a critical link for sharing the ideas that arise in one city with others around the world. The cities that make it efficient and safe for people to exchange goods, travel, and share information electronically will benefit enormously from an enhanced access to new ideas.

2. Would the Internet be considered a fundamental good in charter cities that should be provided by the government, such as electricity or water, or would it be left to the private sector?

The Internet is an extremely important service. That said, I’m not sure that there is one best way to deliver such utilities across all contexts, or that delivery should breakdown on strictly public or private lines. For much of the developing world, government provision and self-finance, supplemented by sovereign debt, might not be enough to provide citizens with access to adequate utilities and infrastructure. Governments will have to find ways to harness the private sector in order to provide adequate levels of service.

3. Do you envision the Internet being a platform for communication essential within charter cities or is it expendable?

Low cost bandwidth and redundant connections will be essential for any city that aspires to be a global hub.

4. In particular with Honduras, what technologies do you envision being publicly provided?

The Hondurans are discussing a model of land-based public finance in the new city. The autonomous development authority that is responsible for governing the new city would retain ownership of the underlying land and lease parcels to private developers to build residences, industrial parks, etc. The development authorities revenue would therefore depend on the value of the land.

This system gives the local authority an incentive to think like a sophisticated real estate developer and ask the right question when thinking about what the governing authority should do, either on its own or by working with private firms: What maximizes the value of the land?

Certain things come immediately to mind such as low-levels of crime and pollution, high quality schooling, and access to sear and air ports, but access to broadband and mobile telephony would certainly be important factors as well.

But again, whether things like infrastructure, utilities, or technologies are publicly or privately provided is somewhat of an open question. I can think of a couple scenarios in the Honduran context.

Suppose an equilibrium is reached where everyone expects a city of a given size to emerge in Honduras. There are several services with big fixed costs that could be provided by either the city administration or the private sector. Think for example of telecoms. The efficient financing arrangement would be for the city administration to pay for the provision of the telecoms infrastructure (fiber and wireless) and then price bandwidth using congestion pricing. In the case of fiber, congestion pricing might imply a zero price, but the city administration could finance fiber through the increase in the value of its land. Consumers would capture the entire consumer surplus from being able to use bits at marginal cost, and would be willing to pay more to live there as a result. So absent any constraints, the efficient arrangement might be for the city administration to rely more on its own ability to borrow against increases in the value of the land and less on monopoly prices charged by private sector providers.

Now consider the other case. Suppose that there is some uncertainty about whether the equilibrium with a fully developed city will be sustained and therefore some constraint on the city administration’s ability to borrow against the future value of the land. In this case, one might want to rely more on private sector financing. The city administration could give private concessions for services like telecoms, roads, utilities that will not be fully competitive. It could regulate pricing, setting some kind of average cost pricing that keep monopoly distortions from being too big, but allowing for the unavoidable level that comes with prices above marginal cost. This will, in the long run, make the city less attractive as a place to live and show up in the price of land, but might be a second-best solution to the initial financing problems.

One might also use a transitional approach, like build, operate, transfer, where the city administration takes over infrastructure later and shifts toward marginal cost/congestion pricing later.

The point is that given these tradeoffs, the right division is between private and public finance in the early stages of development will have to be made in response to public expectations that affect the city government’s ability to borrow. There is some capital like equipment and structures that can be provided in a competitive market and that the private sector can provide entirely on its own, but much like roads, telecoms, and utilities it could go either way.

5. Do you have any strong opinions regarding the ITU’s Broadband Commission and the need to provide Internet to all people worldwide?

I certainly sympathize with the intentions, but I’m not a big believer in mandates or millennium goals or codified rights as a way to force governments to do their job well. I believe it is better to harness the power of competition by letting people vote with their feet. The vision behind charter cities is to help in creating a world where every family has a choice to move between several well-run cities that are actively competing for their residency. If would-be migrants had those kinds of options, governments would have the right incentives to extend things like broadband services to all people.

Think, an international nonprofit think-tank focused on circulating digital technologies for development, launched a glitzy mobile innovation, CellBazaar, aimed at improving agriculture in Bangladesh, with the tag-line “the market in your mobile phone”.

Over a million people have signed-up and upwards of 250 million regularly use it.

CellBazaar is touted as a virtual marketplace, for GrameenPhone’s 20 million mobile subscribers, where demand and supply are brought together. This is important to the extent that market prices are commonly debased by poor transport infrastructure that increases costs.

To use CellBazaar, adopters will post the produce they wish to sell via a mobile phone, which will be fed into an online platform. The mobile element is important as internet penetration in Bangladesh is extremely low, roughly 0.03%. The mobile-enabled technology that powers this innovation also overcomes literacy challenges by utilizing voice messages to read out posts.

By expanding market opportunities for traders and farmers , CellBazaar will allow previously marginalized agricultural enterprises to flourish: earning larger profits and selling in bulk from a more advantageous position due to reduced costs.

While this technology tackles marketing, a major challenge to farmers around the globe, there are many other elements within the agricultural sector that ought to be improved to ensure sustained development and food security: harvesting, packaging, storing, and transporting. In a subsequent article, I will examine these issues as I take an in depth look at the food crisis currently crippling parts of the Horn of Africa.

CellBazaar is slated to expand to developing markets similar to Bangladesh, particularly East Africa and South Asia.

Learn more about CellBazaar here.