Agriculture – Page 21

Can Machines Replace Teachers in Education Systems?

“Any teacher that can be replaced by a machine, should be.” – David Thornburg

Does this statement make you cringe? Squirm a bit in your chair? I’m not surprised if it does. As access to technology proliferates among schools in developing countries, a call for improved teacher training, curriculum, and methods of assessment seems vital to ensuring that the initiatives are sustainable. How else can you ensure that children are using time spent on a computer effectively and for educational purposes?

Despite this logical breakdown, research conducted in India over the past decade disputes these views. Let me preface an explanation of this research with a brief story:

January 2011, Arusha, Tanzania : A brand new computer lab has been set up at Yakini Primary School, and all of the students are extremely excited to use a computer for the first time. Even though there are 13 computers in the room, the solar-powered generator electricity only allows 4 to be turned on at a given time. When the third year class enters the lab, 8 students huddle around each computer.Today, after spending the past few days talking about the uses of a computer and its parts, we will finally be turning the computers on and seeing them in action. The plan is to practice using a mouse by working with windows. The class assignment is to open the ‘My Documents’ folder, maximize the window, minimize it, re-maximize it, and then close it. ”Once you have completed the assignment, please do not touch the computer. Just wait for me to get around to your group.” I begin working with the group of students at the first computer.

By the time I reach the students at the last computer, I am quite surprised to find that, not only have they completed the assignment on their own, but the desktop background has also been changed from the image of green hills to a Black Labrador dog. Awestricken at these novice geniuses, I ask the students, “How did you do that?” With each student chiming in his or her own input, they navigate their way back through the steps to where they changed the image. I’m so impressed that I do not bother reprimanding for not following instructions.

This story illustrates New Dehli researcher, Sugata Mitra’s, suggestion that students using technology in unstructured, self-organized groups can help each other guide their own learning. In 1999, Mitra began experimenting with educational technology by building a PC with a high-speed internet connection into a wall in the slums of New Delhi. He then left the computer with no instructions for use or devices for language translation, planning to observe how individuals interacted with it.

Soon two children were huddled around the computer. Within minutes they had taught themselves how to point and click and were browsing the internet by the end of the day. After repeating this “Hole in the Wall” experiment throughout rural communities in India, he came to the conclusion that children, living in areas that lack adequate resources for instruction, could teach each other how to use a computer by working together in groups.

He makes several arguments for the benefits of this type of learning in classrooms:

It reduces the costs of efforts such as One Laptop per Child. While Mitra supports the design of the laptop, he believes there should be one laptop for every four children so that groups can work through their setbacks together.
When children are learning technology and exploring interests in an unstructured setting, they become excited about learning and retain much more.
Expecting children to work through the dilemmas on their own teaches them innovation and creative problem solving, two skills essential to any job. Instead of producing students that are able to memorize a laundry list of items, this approach produces students that know how to pinpoint where to find the same information.
Having children work together in groups teaches teamwork and collaboration.

I do not doubt that there is a place for Mitra’s recommendation of self-organized group learning in ICT4Ed. It’s a great opportunity for students to explore their curiosities, learn skills in innovation and problem solving, and retain steps to a much greater extent than they can with rote memorization.

However, I do believe that it is important to discern an appropriate time and circumstance for this method of learning. For instance, providing students with an allotment of time each day to freely roam the internet together, researching topics of their own interests, could be a great opportunity to keep them excited about technology and to show them how they can find answers to pressing questions and work through problems on their own.

This, however, can not replace the role of a teacher and a curriculum. Knowing how to use the tools for gathering information is an excellent skill but will not help a student requiring computer knowledge at a time when tools are not at hand. Following a structured curriculum ensures that students have the foundation of fact-based information to make them productive even when technology is not readily available. Furthermore, it ensures that all students are participating and learning the skills that they will need.

To illustrate these points, let’s look at back at my story and point out some of the gaps:

All of the students may now remember exactly how to change a desktop background. This does not mean, however, that they know how to verbalize the steps that they took without the computer screen directly in front of them. If someone were to ask one of the students to write down the steps, the student would not know the terms needed to describe the steps discernibly. Having a solid, curriculum-based foundation in educational technology and being assessed on it without a computer screen makes a student much more productive in times when technology is not available.
Students may have worked together to describe their steps to me, but this does not account for the one student, towards the back of the group, that is not paying attention or contributing to the group’s input. Having teachers and providing assessments can make sure that all students are gaining knowledge, not just the ones that put forth the most effort.
Changing a computer background may have been a great lesson working through computer screens to bring about a change on the computer, but it is not much of a useful skill in technology. If computer instruction consists of students roaming about the computer, exploring their interests, there will be quite of bit of pertinent information that they will likely not take the time to learn on their own. Making the desktop background look pretty is much more interesting to a student than learning the difference between RAM and ROM or how a file system works. These are skills that are important, so it is necessary to have a curriculum in place.

Taking this into consideration, while Sugata Mitra sets forth an interesting model for student learning that may have a place during a fraction of the school day, teachers, curriculums, and assessments cannot be replaced by machines and curious children.

August 26, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Innovating in Afghanistan

The following post was written by Rajiv Shah and appeared in the USAID Impact Blog.

In 2002, fewer than 200,000 people in Afghanistan had access to telephones. Today, some 15 million Afghans use mobile phones and a full 85% of the population lives within the combined network coverage of the four major telcos. This technological leap connects Afghans to each other and to the economy in ways that were unimaginable just a few years ago. And the mobile phone now opens up a world of possibilities for finding solutions to some of the challenges that Afghans face every day. One important use that is quickly becoming a reality in Afghanistan is the creation of a nationwide mobile financial services sector – using mobile phones to transfer money safely and instantly, reducing the need for cash and giving millions of Afghans who may never see the inside of a bank the ability to use their handsets to conduct basic financial transactions. The possible applications for mobile money in Afghanistan are limited only by our imaginations.

USAID Administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah and Afghanistan’s Minister of Communications and Information Technology Amirzai Sangin test a mobile money application at the ceremony in Kabul. Photo Credit: Barat Ali Batoor/US Embassy

Today I had the honor of announcing three USAID innovation grants, totaling just over $2M, to develop applications in this field and begin to create a mobile banking system that could include all Afghans.

At the grant kick-off event, the Afghan Education Minister highlighted the urgent need for mobile payments in Afghanistan by telling us about his staff member who was killed just three weeks ago while transporting cash in a remote province in northern Afghanistan in order to pay a teacher. He expressed his frustration that thousands of his teachers, who are so critical to Afghanistan’s future, often wait months to get their salaries due to the difficulties of transporting cash in the country. I am delighted that USAID is able to help seed a partnership between the Afghan Education Ministry and the mobile operator MTN to begin paying teachers in ten provinces over the mobile platform, thus ensuring they get paid in time and in time, and more importantly, that no Ministry employee loses his life for a duffle bag of cash. And if successful, we expect much of the Afghan civil service to eventually benefit from a mobile payments system that will help the government develop its own capacity as our troops transition home.

The second grant links up telco Etisalat with the new Afghan electricity utility. To my mind, this partnership to design mobile phone-based billing and payment systems for electricity service represents the true art of development by using creative, commercially viable systems to help the Afghan utility collect real revenue. At the end of the day, delivering electricity to all Afghans will require a revenue model that will sustain operations, motivate more public and private investment, and expand Afghanistan’s energy grid so that fewer communities live in the dark. This novel concept applies to any kind of service. In Kenya, some rural communities are sustaining water systems thanks to a mobile phone-based payment system. The concept is simple: consumers use a phone-based app to pay for the water they need, enabling the maintenance required to actually keep the system up and running. Although mobile payments are a simple concept, the possibilities they offer are revolutionary for truly under-served communities.

The third grant funds a partnership between Afghanistan’s mobile money trailblazer, Roshan, and a micro finance consortium whose clients are predominantly women. The concept is to further extend the reach of credit into areas otherwise inaccessible or simply too costly to reach. Running loan extensions and repayments over mobile phones significantly reduces the need for loan officers and clients to travel. This cost savings can be passed on to the customers, making credit more affordable. In culturally conservative Afghanistan, our hope is that this innovation will better serve women who might otherwise not be able to participate in loan programs.

Finally, today we kicked off a contest USAID is co-sponsoring with the Afghan Mobile Money Operators Association to tap the minds of creative young Afghans. University students are being asked to submit ideas for mobile money applications they believe will make a difference in the life of Afghans. Designers of the eight most interesting proposals will receive cash awards and, more importantly, the mobile operators will implement and market the winning apps. We hope this contest will not only drive uptake among a key early adopter demographic, but will also unleash the creativity of young Afghans who have so readily adopted cell phone technology.

With 3G looming just over the horizon (the Afghan Government issued the first tender earlier this month), it is clear that Afghans will increasingly use mobile phones and other modern technologies to build a healthier, better educated and more prosperous society. The days of land-lines or coal-fired development are rapidly being replaced with these new innovations, and I am proud that USAID is able to help unleash Afghan innovation to lead the way.

PS – Check out this video on Afghanistan’s emerging mobile money sector.

August 24, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Asia, Connectivity, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal, Where we work

3 million impoverished to gain mobile numbers

U.K. startup Movirtu has announced plans to help 3 million or more people in developing countries gain access to mobile services by giving them personal phone numbers – not phones. Movirtu plans to work with a U.N.-affiliated initiative called Business Call to Action (BCTA) to offer the numbers which will be called “mobile identities”.

The service will be called Cloud Phone and will be offered through commercial carriers in developing countries in Africa and South Asia. The name Cloud Phone should not be confused with cloud computing which operates through the internet.

Movirtu is aiming to get 3 million people to use their mobile service for the pilot phase. Movirtu expects about 75 percent of its users to be women, because women in Africa and South Asia are statistically far less likely than men to have their own phones according to Ramona Liberoff, executive vice president of marketing at Movirtu.

The pilot phase will take place in Madagascar through the carrier Airtel. “Madagascar is a perfect market for Movirtu, because Airtel has built an extensive network but many people in the country can’t afford to buy a phone,” Liberoff said.

Owning a mobile identity as opposed to owning a personal mobile phone can save money for the users. For those living at poverty levels, affording a mobile phone may be impossible. A mobile identity allows users to use mobile services without having to purchase a phone.

Also, according to Liberoff, “the cost of prepaid service from a carrier typically is less than what consumers in those countries pay someone to borrow a phone. The average savings from using regular prepaid service instead is estimated at about $60 per year.”

Users can get a mobile identity by going to one of the mobile carrier’s shops. When the user wishes to borrow a mobile phone, the user enters a shortcode for the Movirtu service and then punches in their individual phone number and a personal identification number.

After that, the temporary user can access all the services available through the phone, as well as a personal carrier home page where they can manage and replenish their prepaid account. The system works on any GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) phone, using USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data), a GSM protocol for communicating with a service provider’s computers.

Following the pilot in Madagascar, Movirtu plans to open up the Cloud Phone service in at least 12 markets in Africa and South Asia by early 2013, reaching at least 50 million potential users. “The two regions were chosen because they are home to about 1 billion of the 1.3 billion people in the world who rely on borrowed phones,” Liberoff said.

If successful, these mobile identities will allow mobile services to be physically and financially accessible to the poorest of the poor. This will greatly benefit aid parties since according to Liberoff, “In many cases, there are great NGO programs that can’t reach 80 percent of their base because those people don’t have their own phones.”

The overall goal with Cloud Phone should be to bring the impoverished out of poverty by giving them access to a brand new set of tools.

Giving rural populations and women access to mobile services will empower them, and get them involved economically and socially. It will enable them to enter a mobile world which billions of others have already tapped into, opening up many opportunities for development.

August 22, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Basic Education, Education, Education, Higher Education, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Changing Teachers’ Pedagogical Beliefs with ICT Programs

Photo: OLPC

In a pursuit to understand the core principles in successful M&E of ICT-based education programs, I spoke with Daniel Light, M&E expert at the Education Development Center (EDC). Light has evaluated EDC and USAID tech-related education programs for around twenty years. As he explains, ICT education programs are only effective to the extent that the teachers utilize ICTs for learning activities and make the student the center of focus. In other words, ICTs cannot add to education much unless the teachers utilize the tools correctly.

Traditional evaluation of education programs focuses on easily quantifiable indicators, such as teacher and student attendance, and student test scores. Though these indicators are important, Light argues that the quality of teaching and learning is not fully captured in these statistics.

Instead, evaluation should consider what researchers know about education quality, namely teachers’ pedagogical beliefs and practices. In education, teachers that focus on rote memorization and lectures are generally less effective than teachers who engage the students in activities and who adapt their lessons to meet particular students’ needs and interests.

Student-centered pedagogical beliefs are especially important in education programs that include ICTs. For example, computers are most likely to be effective tools when each student has access to a computer, and has a teacher to direct their usage. If the students aren’t the ones controlling the mouse, then much of potential knowledge to be gained is lost; they need to direct their own learning.

Photo: Microsoft

Many development funders now require randomized control trials (RCTs) to evaluate the impact of their development program. There is a problem with the emphasis on RCTs, Light argues. RCTs measure specific behaviors, but education is inherently unpredictable in its outcomes, and technology is similar in that regard. Combined, ICT education programs have many unexpected consequences. Many funders want to secure a particular impact, like increased mathematics scores, and want to do so by increasing students’ ICT usage. Light, however, contends that ICT education programs can improve mathematics scores, especially when they are directed to do so, but they will always have other impacts, unforeseeable before the start of the program.

A better way to measure the impact of ICT education programs, says Light, involves a series of phases, lasting about one year per phase. The first phase should be exploratory, to see what is actually happening in a program compared to what was originally planned. Since outsiders design many development programs, implemented programs often turn down different pathways over time. After exploring the program implementation, evaluators should fine-tune their methods, progressively tightening their measurements. They should engage in group observations, participant observations, and focus groups. Through these methods, they can design interview and survey questions, eventually measuring particular behaviors amongst the population under study. RCTs at this stage in the research process are appropriate, since the researchers should have outlined the behavior methods through their observations and discussions with participants.

When used effectively, ICTs increase educational achievement and change teachers’ pedagogical beliefs and practices. In fact, they can change teachers’ role from talking heads to activity facilitators. ICT programs, then, can easily highlight the need for pedagogical teacher change. When they are then applied to national education policy, they can bring about national curriculum changes, affecting all education practices, not just for ICT programs.

August 22, 2011/by actualize

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

Tanzania tracks malaria prevention with mobile phones

Photo Credit: medatanzania.org

In Tanzania, a new voucher program started in late July that provides discounted insecticide treated bed nets for pregnant women and children. This program also takes advantage of mobile technology as retailers can inform local clinics when their shops are getting low on life saving supplies by text messaging.

The program which is being overseen by MEDA, a Canadian organization, integrates health clinics, wholesalers, retailers and bed net manufacturers. Pregnant women and families with children in rural areas are eligible to receive a voucher from health clinics to get discounted insecticide treated bed nets from health supply retailers at 500 Tanzania shillings (about $0.35).

Once a woman takes a voucher to a retailer and pays a discounted price, she receives a bed net in return. The retailer then uses his or her cell to send a text message back to MEDA, which helps run the program. That SMS provides crucial monitoring data that includes the number of bed nets provided to the community and how many are needed in their next shipment.

The use of mobile technology to monitor bed net stocks and shipments is the feature that set this bed net initiative apart from others.

Each shipment contains a predetermined number of bed nets for a specific region based on their unique needs. Once the bed nets are delivered and the vouchers are collected, the retailers receive monetary compensation.

Long lasting insecticide treated bed nets. Photo Credit: medatanzania.org

In the “fight” against malaria, insecticide treated bed nets are a cost effective and proven weapon, especially for families in rural communities. According to the Global Fund, more than 300 million bed nets have been distributed in Sub-Saharan Africa since 2008. Moreover, Tanzania is a hard hit country as 2 million out of the 44 million people are affected by malaria.

Distributing vouchers for discounted bed nets is not a new method of tackling malaria. However, this approach produces a different sentiment amongst bed net owners than simply passing out bed nets to families for free.

Health workers have found that when a family makes a small investment in the net, it becomes a more valued commodity. Initiatives that pass out bed nets for free sometimes fail because families adopt the mentality that bed nets are valueless and easily replaceable.

This program distributes paper vouchers to the women that visit health clinics. Paper vouchers can easily be lost or ruined altogether. Therefore, keeping track of paper vouchers is often an obstacle. The next step is eliminating paper vouchers and developing text message based vouchers to make the process more efficient.

August 17, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Mobile Money Donations for Drought Victims in East Africa

Photo credit: Mobile Money for the Unbanked

The vast arid plains of northern Kenya, central Somalia and eastern Ethiopia are suffering one of the worst droughts seen in recent times. Rain has not fallen in some of these areas for over a year and this has gradually resulted in a full blown humanitarian crisis. According to UNICEF, in some areas of northern Kenya, close to 40% of the population needs emergency feeding. In other parts of the affected regions, these numbers are reaching approximately 30%, twice the 15% emergency threshold. As in many crises, the worse affected are children. In a country like Somalia with a population of 3.7 million, this famine could be taking the lives of 1,200 children, with over 2.5 million children estimated to be acutely malnourished and in need of immediate life-saving help. Soaring food prices and the on-going conflict in the horn of Africa has only increased the intensity of the famine.

A massive fundraising effort has been initiated by ‘Kenyans for Kenyan’, a non-profit organization which aims to raise sh500 million in four weeks towards famine relief efforts. This initiative is a joint effort between various businesses including Safaricom, Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB), and the Daily Nation newspaper. During the first 24 hours of the launch of the appeal, the initiative raised over sh 13 million via M-PESA. A number that keeps growing now that Airtel Money and Yu Cash have been added to the list of mobile money options Kenyans can use to donate funds. This campaign’s success not only highlights the efficiency of a mobile money platform in distributing funds in times of need, but it also serves as a lesson for charities and development agencies of the value of leveraging mobile technology and social networking in fundraising and disbursal. At the time of writing, the latest mobile money donations exceed sh 208 million..

If you live in Kenya, please consider donating to the Famine Fundraising Campaign. The funds raised by Kenyans for Kenya will be administered by the Kenya Red Cross Society to help people worst affected by the drought. Follow the steps below on your mobile money menus:

Donating via M-Pesa

Select Pay Bill from the M-Pesa menu
Enter business number 111111
Enter account number 111111
Enter the amount you wish to donate
Enter your M-Pesa PIN
Confirm details are correct and press OK

Donating via Airtel Money

Select Send Money from the Airtel Money menu
Enter ‘redcross’ as the nickname
Enter the amount you wish to donate
Enter your Airtel Money PIN
Confirm details are correct and press OK

Donating via YuCash

Go to the yuCash Menu on your phone and select ‘Send Money’
Enter the Business Bill Payment No. (Short Code) ’200140′
Enter the Amount you wish to donate
Enter your Donation Instruction in the Message field – ‘Leave Blank’
View the Bill Payment Confirmation screen and verify all details. Press OK to continue.
Enter your yuCash PIN and press ‘OK’
Receive Transaction Acknowledgement via SMS

Alternatively, if you are outside of the region, you can donate online via the Kenyan Red Cross or UNICEF.

August 16, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Environment, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

ICT & Environmental Education

Google

Young people around the world are doing splendid work to transform their societies through innovative use of ICTs. It’s important that we highlight these projects to inspire others to use technology and their know-how for safeguarding the environment. But too many young people have limited or no access to the ICT tools they need to strengthen their environmental work: advocacy, fund-raising, project implementation and campaigns.

One project that has been enabling youngsters to be more environmentally conscious is ENO-Environment Online, a global virtual school and network for sustainable development and environmental awareness based in Findland. Since its launch a decade ago, thousands of schools from 124 countries have tapped into the vast online resources and tools it makes readily available to them at no cost.

ENO environmental education tools for youth, which are used for learning and communication between participating schools, are varied: from basic tools such as word processors and spreadsheet programs, to more technical tools like digital and video cameras. Exposing young people to basic media tools and skills such as audio recording and editing is important given the dependence on radio for information in much of the developing world. (more on ENO Radio). These tools are delivered by a coordinator and frequently updated based on surveys of schools and local communities. ENO notes that The Research and Development Center for IT in Education helped to fashion and select the tools used.

So effective has this environmental education program been that the Global Knowledge Partnership(GKP), which has presented several Youth and ICT-related awards in collaboration with various partners since 2003, named ENO’s Education Department Coordinator Mika Vanhanen a youth and ICT leader at the launch of the award.

ENO’s approach is a testament to collaborative learning and how potent that can be when ICT tools are made available widely at little or no cost to users. Participating schools are merely required to sign-up for a login and participate in a tree planting day at least once per year between May 22 and September 21.

August 12, 2011/by actualize

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

Youth rewarded with food and medicine for going to school

Child using the mPowering mobile app. Photo Credit: fastcompany.com

Can children in impoverished areas that sacrifice school to make an extra dollar for their family be given the opportunity to go school without worrying about the family?

One organization is taking a stab at breaking that crippling cycle. mPowering, a nonprofit organization that aims to use mobile technology to empower the impoverished to climb out of poverty has implemented a mobile phone program that provides children with food and medical incentives for going to school.

The organization, founded by veterans of Salesforce.com and Apple, is partnering with nonprofits in the developing world to provide food, medicine, and other goods to people in places like Orissa, India who perform poverty defeating actions like going to school or taking advantage of prenatal care.

mPowering employs a plan for finding the right population to work with. They pinpoint areas in the developing world where poverty is widespread and then partner with local organizations in those areas to develop mobile phone programs that facilitate a path for climbing out of poverty.

Photo Credit: mpowering.org

One area mPowering is currently working in is Orissa, India, the poorest region in India with over 20 million people living in extreme poverty. In Orissa, mPowering has partnered with the Citta foundation to build a school, hospital and establish the mobile phone program.

Forty-nine families in the region were given phones by the Citta foundation, which they now use to document when they go to school or attend local health care classes for expectant mothers.

A child going to school, for example, logs in to the “school” option on the mPowering mobile app and scans his barcode to check in. The app is entirely picture-based, so users don’t have to be literate. At the end of each month, the families pool together their points to score medicine, food, and clothing from the nonprofit partners, in Orissa’s case, the Citta foundation.

The idea behind mPowering is to attack the phenomenon of children dropping out of school to work for their families and not being able to afford healthcare while doing so. This is critical since 41% of Orissa’s children suffer from malnutrition, and 65% suffer from anemia.

Providing food and medicine incentives for going to school has a two sided effect. It gives the family the supplies they would have the children work for, and it motivates the child to go to school and stay enrolled.

mpowering mobile app interface. Photo Credit: fastcompany.com

Many of the potential obstacles have been accounted for. A program manager is responsible for monitoring and distributing the incentives to families every month. Also, phone chargers are provided to schools so that families without electricity can charge their phones at schools while the children attend class. mPowering also holds training sessions for the families who receive their phones.

Breaking out of the cycle of poverty is a difficult and tricky thing to do. However, tackling the problem through children may be a fruitful avenue to go through given that children who are impoverished grow up to perpetuate the cycle all over again with their families.

August 12, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Extension Service, Mobile Money, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Rural Youth in Kenya, and the Impact of ICTs

We would be missing the full significance of ICTs if we do not see them as an integral part in the efforts to improve the everyday life of rural folk in Kenya. Mobile technology being the key mode of communication in the country has contributed greatly to local youth livelihoods. Using mobile phones, the youth have able to access knowledge and information which are vital aspects for improving agricultural development by increasing agricultural yields and marketing.

With accessibility of mobile phone networks throughout the country, services such as Safaricom’s mobile money transfer (M-Pesa), mobile money banking (M Kesho) and information on agricultural produce markets have created job opportunities for the youth as the number of agents increase.

Kamau a young Kenyan in his late twenties from a farming community in Nakuru who approached Equity Bank in 2007 for a loan to set up an M-Pesa shop is an example. As well as farmers and traders were enabled to deposit or withdraw money using their mobile phones, Kamau was able to pay back his start-up loan in just six instalments. “This is to bring financial services to a place where people lack them” he explains.

By simplifying money access, members of the community have more money at their disposal and therefore are more likely to spend it locally. The service has also enabled farmers and traders to purchase inputs and make orders with their suppliers without having to travel into town. The savings made on transport costs enable them to acquire more stock, which means that the entire community benefits from more goods being available locally.

Kamau’s business has also benefitted from transactions made by the farm owners residing in a nearby Nakuru town, who do not have to commute to the village to pay their casual labourers. These farm owners are also able to pay their faming supervisors for land preparation and purchase of fertilisers and seeds.

In 2008, the entire region of Nakuru experienced a severe drought, which led to widespread crop failure, and Kamau noticed an increased flow of money through his business due to remittances from relatives in urban areas. “This service has strengthened friendships and social interactions in the community,” Kamau says. “Moreover, this has greatly contributed to the success of my business. This means that the entire community benefits from the goods available.”

With the revenue generated by his M-Pesa business, Kamau has diversified into farming, now leasing 20 acres of land. He also receives information about husbandry practices from the Organic Farmer e-bulletin, published by the International Centre for Insects, Pests and Ecology (ICIPE), through his data-enabled mobile phone, helping him to grow maize, beans and potatoes.

The subscribed SMS-based ‘411 Get It’ alerts service, a joint venture between Safaricom and the Kenya Agricultural Commodity Exchange (KACE), also provides Kamau with information on agricultural produce and market prices, enabling him to identify favourable markets and cut out middle men. With the profits from his farm, Kamau opened an M-Kesho business, allowing community members to make deposits from their M-Pesa accounts into an Equity Bank account where they earn interest. “This is an incentive for rural youths to engage in farming,” Kamau adds.

During the planting and weeding season, Kamau’s operating capital is reduced as his customers increase their M-Pesa withdrawals. To counter this problem, Kamau took out another loan from Equity Bank to purchase a motorcycle so that he could travel to Nakuru town quickly to top up his M-Pesa account. As a result, he has a steady flow of cash in order to facilitate local business transactions.

Regardless of an increasing range of information services available through the internet, literacy remains a stumbling block for many people because these services are only supplied in official languages. The technologies therefore need to be adapted in such a way as to be accessible in a variety of local dialects to help farmers have easy access to modern farming information and technologies, especially to battle hunger despite dry spells. Access to ICT services would also help to foster local skill building and knowledge sharing between rural communities.

Kamau’s experiences and business understanding clearly show the important linkages and synergies that exist between the development of ICTs and information sharing that can support the livelihoods of a large cross-section of youth and other members of communities for agricultural and rural development.

By Chris Mwangi – I am affiliated to Agriculture, Rural and Youth in the Information society (CTA-ARDYIS Project). Its function is to raise youth awareness and capacity on agricultural and rural development issues in ACP countries through ICTs

August 12, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Health, Infectious Diseases, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Study shows importance of evaluating mHealth programs

One the biggest issues in mHealth and mobile campaigning in the developing world is the lack of evaluation. Well, the Lancet published an article last week that measured the effectiveness of mobile phone text message reminders on Kenyan health workers’ adherence to malaria treatment guidelines.

What the study found was that text messages can be a cost effective way to improve the care for malaria treatment in African children. Even though the study focused on malaria treatment, the results of the study suggest that using text messages can be an effective weapon to fight many different health burdens with.

According to the study, half of children received the correct treatment at the end of the study, more than double the starting figure. At the beginning of the study, 20.5% of children were correctly managed, this increased to 49.6% after the six month study.

The effect appeared to persist after the texts stopped. Six months after the trial ended, 51.4% of children were receiving the correct treatment due to the text messaging.

Professor Bob Snow, who headed the research group, said, “The role of the mobile phone in improving health providers’ performance, health service management and patient adherence to new medicines across much of Africa has a huge potential.”

Despite the positive numbers, the authors acknowledge that “we do not fully understand why the intervention was successful”. They speculate that the presence of the texts themselves serve as a reminder and reinforce the importance of the message itself.

One of the conclusions in the study is that “text-message reminders should be used to complement existing interventions—which themselves should be qualitatively improved—to target weak points” in health management practices.

The study however, sheds light on the importance of evaluating an mHealth campaign. Through evaluations, stakeholders can figure out whether a program is meeting its goals and how much of an impact it is making on the health issue it was designed for.

Currently in the developing world, numerous mHealth programs are being implemented on a small scale basis without monitoring and evaluation components. This not only leaves the project unfinished, but it is irresponsible as well. If a given program is appropriate to scale up to a wider population, we would never have the statistics to prove it. Then again, that hasn’t stopped NGO’s and governments before.

Evaluating mHealth programs is not a complicated task. Perhaps stakeholders are afraid to discover that their programs are not actually producing the impact they envisioned in the board room. This study has shown that positive results can indeed manifest from text messaging campaigns, and it is worthwhile to evaluate such campaigns.

The world needs to know what works and what doesn’t for the sake of the populations that are supposed to be the beneficiaries of the programs they are involuntarily thrown into. Otherwise, stakeholders are shooting in the dark with the well-being of innocent people.

August 11, 2011/by actualize

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