Linda Raftree speaking at GBI Brown Bag Lunch

Photo Credit: Laurie Moy

Last Friday, GBI sponsored a Brown Bag lunch at USAID featuring Linda Raftree (@meowtree), Senior ICT4D Advisor at Plan International USA, to discuss her experiences on her digital participatory mapping project in Cameroon, lending insight on how the team got it off the ground.

Utilizing the mapping platform Open Street Map and crowd-sourcing tool Ushahidi, Raftree and Plan International’s Youth Empowerment through Technology, Arts and Media (YETAM) project, aims to reduce violence against children and increase youth participatory governance.

During her discussion last week, she referenced how digital community maps have replaced the need for paper-based diagrams since they can be shared or updated, to put rural areas like Ndop, Pitoa and Okola, “on the map”.

The more pragmatic purpose of being, “on the map,” Raftree alluded, is to see where infrastructure and services are being provided by local councils. Maps illustrate the uneven distribution of funding and services, and show what areas need more inclusion, holding governments to their development responsibilities.

Linda Raftree speaks at GBI Brown Bag Lunch

Photo credit: Laurie Moy

To ensure local participation and encourage youth empowerment for the three principal components of her project—maps, video, and art—Raftree advised some of these following elements:

  • Ask community leaders, and youth the information they want to put on the map. Raftree found that the youth wanted to know where all of the chieftain of the surrounding villages lived since traditionally greeting them first when arriving to a village is a respectful custom. What an international organization, or its stakeholders, want does necessarily line up with what the community needs or finds relevant.
  • Hire local ICT experts.  She had found a local GIS expert named Ernest on Twitter and through Limbe Labs (now Activspaces). Without him, Raftree admitted, the project would not have been nearly as successful, or predicted to be as sustainable. Local ICT experts know the language, law of the land, and projects can be easily supported by them teaching others in the community how to maintain the mapping systems long after outside organizations leave.
  • Engage decision makers.  There is usually a hierarchy within communities, so involving big players is imperative for successful deployment. Both to evade bribery—the team had youth carry around a letter signed by the local mayor stating it was okay for them to collect information—and to make leaders accountable for gaps in funding and services.
  • Record it. The Cameroonian youth went around with video camcorders, and recorded interviews they had with leaders of certain institutions, and members of the community. For example, they went around to schools and interviewed the headmasters about what resources they had at the school, and with women on why they did not register their newborn children. The benefit of this is two-fold. They raised the headmaster’s awareness on for the importance of keeping data on key indicators of the school (numbers of students, benches, attendance, teachers), Raftree stated, while making politicians accountable to the imbalanced circulation of disbursement.
  • Mix technology with non-technology. The art portion of the project, where the youth draw pictures of social issues existing within the community—such as alcoholism, drug use, and domestic violence—raised problems that were uncomfortable to record on film or talk about. Despite a lack of sound or words, art is still a powerful visual empowering the community to engage in a dialogue about taboo subjects.

The end result of all these steps in the 3 districts in Cameroon? Leaders acknowledged giving funds to central areas, and began to allow youth to take part budget meetings. The youth were given a voice in a place where they were never even part of the discussion.

Linda Raftree speaking to attendees after the event

Photo credit: Laurie Moy

Although Raftree covered a lot of problem areas that could have arisen in a community mapping project, she recognized that issues such as connectivity and ICT training, are still barriers to entry that need to be addressed for a project’s overall sustainability.

How about the next steps for the Plan International’s YETAM project in Cameroon?

Having youth continue to follow-up with database collection, making community councils accountable for their findings, and integrating information into Plan’s overall decision making.

 

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GBI is please to announce the 2011 GBI Fall Graduate Internship Program! The program provides a unique opportunity for graduate students in both International Development and Communications to gain valuable insight and experience in USAID’s ICT4D activities. This unique and highly competitive program will team approximately six interns together to conduct sector research and analysis, provide text and multimedia content to the GBI Portal, assist in marketing and outreach of the portal and GBI services, and develop institutional capacity for sector specific outreach.

 

 

Dates: September 12- December 9

Location: Washington, DC (McPherson Square)

Positions: ICT4D Research & Outreach  Associate and  Web and Multimedia Production Associate

Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis. Please pass along to your networks!

Details on the positions and instructions for application can be found here.

Conference participants listen as David Townsed presents at the Asia Leaders USF Forum

Photo credit: Eric White

Last week in Jakarta GBI co-sponsored and participated in the “Universal Service Fund Asia Leaders Forum,” a two-day workshop that brought together administrators of Universal Service Funds (USFs) throughout the Asia/Pacific and Middle East regions.  Attendees had the opportunity to interact with other USF administrators and learn about how other countries had found unique solutions to common problems.  The workshop consisted of presentations by advanced USF as well as panel discussions by USF administrators that were moderated by GBI’s USF expert, Mr. David Townsend. Great interest was sparked by Turkey’s presentation of the “Fatih” school computing program, as well as Malaysia’s “Wireless Village” project.  The CEO of Pakistan’s USF, Mr. Parvez Iftikhar, described his country’s policy of subsidizing service, rather that infrastructure, and detailed how he enforces this requirement through a unique scheme that employs government liens on infrastructure.  A number of countries expressed interest in trying to copy the model.

David Townsend presents to the Asia Leaders USF Forum in Jakarta, Indonesia

Photo Credit: Eric White

The workshop was officially opened by Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs, H.E. Hatta Rajasa, who declared Indonesia to have a strong interest in the expansion of broadband access while committing his government to a target of 30% broadband penetration by 2014.  It closed with a discussion of the tools that countries needed to achieve such aggressive broadband penetration targets.  In the interim discussions ranged from how to create strategic and operational plans for USFs to the particular benefits of providing broadband access as opposed to other forms of communication.

In the end all participants left satisfied that they had contributed to a worthwhile discussion, and many left with ideas for how to improve broadband operations in their own country.  Mr. P. Choesin, of Indonesia’s Chamber of Commerce (KADIN) was so impressed with the conference that he suggested expanding it to include a worldwide audience and conducting it at a ministerial level.

The forum was the second in a worldwide series that is being sponsored by GBI in association with Intel Corporation.

Darrell Owen, speaking at the 2011 Aid & Development Forum

Photo Credit: Laurie Moy

GBi’s Senior ICT Advisor, Darrell Owen, spoke at the 2011 Aid and Development Forum yesterday, laying out USAID’s ICT4D strategy and how it supports the work of humanitarian and disaster relief workers.
The strategy, as Owen explained, is to address both the access to, and the application of, ICTs in development. The effort to provide access includes creating an enabling and facilitating environment, finding and utilizing new low cost, low power technologies, and supporting carrier build out in rural areas.  The second part of the strategy is to leverage the use of ICTs in USAID’s development work. In particular USAID, through the GBi, is looking into the development of cloud related services,  the identification and sharing of scalable and replicable applications, and the possible development of a “catalogue” of sorts of these applications. USAID realizes, Owen pointed out, that almost all of the ICT solution based projects are one-off solutions. “We need to stop reinventing the wheel, and start scaling these up,” he argued.

This strategy has tremendous application to the humanitarian and disaster relief industry, he pointed out. Small, portable low cost solutions suitable for rural areas also work in disaster response. Many of these solutions are capable for operating off the power grid, as well, making them useful in relief operations. GBi’s application focus serves the relief industry by identifying useful,

(l to r) Darrell Owen, David Hartshorn, Evelyn Cherow, and Joe Simmons

(l to r) Darrell Owen, David Hartshorn, Evelyn Cherow, and Joe Simmons. Photo Credit: Laurie Moy

suitable solutions, including those designed for disaster response and preparedness. Research is underway exploring complimentary, development related cloud services and their application in the field. Identifying and making available disaster response specific tools ahead of time, would make response that much quicker.

Owen, who was accompanied by Joe Simmons of NetHope and Evelyn Cherow of Global Partners United, spoke on a panel entitled ICT for Disaster Preparedness & Development: the State of the Art. The panel was moderated by David Hartshorn, Secretary General of the Global VSAT Forum, a GBi partner.

 

2011 Summer Interns, l-r, Jeff Swindle, Katie Leasor, Tyrone Hall

Left to Right, Jeff Swindle, Katie Leasor, Tyrone Hall Photo Credit: Laurie Moy

GBI is pleased to welcome the 2011 class of Summer Interns! After a very competative selection process, four interns have been selected for the GBI 2011 Summer Program, which began on May 31. The group represents universities from the DC area as well as Massachusetts and Utah.

Katie Leasor is a M.A. candidate at American University for the International Media program with a focus on using information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) in Latin America.  Originally from New Jersey, Katie graduated from Roger Williams University in Rhode Island with a double major in Global Communications and Spanish.  During her time at Roger Williams, Katie studied for a semester at the University of Wollongong in Australia and spent a summer in rural Guatemala, working in an orphanage called Casa Guatemala and a biodiversity conservation center in Petén.  Katie speaks Spanish and will be contributing to the ICT4Democracy and Governance site.

Tyrone Hall Originally from Jamaica, Tyrone has recently completed his MA in International Development and Social Change at Clark University and has been accepted into the PhD Program in Media and Communications at the London School of Economics. Tyrone has worked as a journalist in Jamaica, Austria, Barbados and the United States and recently won the ACP-EU Innovations in ICT for Agriculture and Rural Development contest after defending his proposal to tackle Jamaica’s two main agricultural challenges: information asymmetrics and praedial larceny. Tyrone speaks French and Spanish and will be contributing to the ICT4Agriculture and ICT4Environment sites.

Jeff Swindle
has completed a BS in Sociology at Brigham Young University and will be attending University of Cambridge in the fall to begin an MPhil in Development Studies. Originally from Arizona, Jeff has has traveled extensively studying development and particularly the relationship between rural connectivity and economic development. Jeff just returned from Mexico where he assisted in research for Concero Connect, a Grameen social business that brings high-speed Broadband internet access to rural villages. Jeff speaks both Spanish and Portuguese, and he will be writing for the Connectivity 4 Development and ICT4Education sites.

Shazad Ahmed (not pictured above) is currently studying at George Washington University, working on a Masters of Public Health, focusing on Global Health with an emphasis on design, monitoring and evaluation of programs. He has a BS in Neurobiology from University of Maryland and has studied at Universidad de Granada as well. He speaks Spanish and Bengali and has experience working for global nonprofits and community health projects, and conducting clinical and lab research. Shazad will be writing for the ICT4Health site.

GBI is please to announce the 2011 GBI Graduate Summer Internship Program! The 12 week program provides a unique opportunity for graduate students in both International Development and Communications to gain valuable insight and experience in USAID’s ICT4D activities. This unique and highly competitive program will team approximately six interns together to conduct sector research and analysis, provide text and multimedia content to the GBI Portal, assist in marketing and outreach of the portal and GBI services, and develop institutional capacity for sector specific outreach.

Dates: May 31-August 12 (12 weeks)

Location: Washington, DC (McPherson Square)

Stipend: $1500

Positions: ICT4D Research & Outreach  Associate and  Web and Multimedia Production Associate

Applications are accepted on a rolling basis. Please pass along to your networks!

Applications are no longer being accepted.

Today, March 8, is International Women’s Day. Each year around the world, hundreds of events occur not just on this day but throughout March to mark the economic, political and social achievements. This year is especially important because it marks the 100th anniversary of IWD.

This year’s theme is “Equal access to education, training and science and technology: Pathway to decent work for women.” With this in mind, we are proud to announce a special edition of Gbiportal.net. Throughout the day, we’ll be posting articles and information about sector specific ICT projects that have targeted or primarily benefited women. Many articles are already up – and there are more to come. Check back, or follow us on Twitter @GBI_Program throughout the day!

Group of attendees from Intel's Africa USF Conference

Photo credit: Eric White, Integra LLC

Universal Service Funds (USF) hold the promise of extended rural connectivity for millions throughout Africa, but governments often lack the technical capacity and know how to utilize these private enterprise models. Through GBI, USAID will work with private sector partners to further the use of USFs in sub-Saharan Africa, determining both the best practices and the barriers that inhibit successful performance. This project will build the host country’s capacity to deploy USFs, evaluate potential solutions and create a value chain of local ICT, ISP, and telecommunications partners who can harness the power of USFs to close the digital divide and fulfill the promise of rural connectivity.

Eric White, of the GBI team, gave a presentation to a gathering of USAID infrastructure specialists from missions around the world about the importance of investing in ICT infrastructure. He specifically highlighted the importance of wireless voice and broadband connectivity in meeting the US Government’s goals under the new “Feed the Future” program.

Food Security, Mr. White explained, can come either through improving domestic agricultural output and distribution or through improved cross-border trade facilitation.  He highlighted ways that ICT infrastructure improves both.  After pointing out that agricultural development is the flip side of rural economic growth Mr. White explained how numerous studies, at both the macro and micro level, have found a 10-1 relationship between expanding ICT coverage and GDP growth.  A 10% increase in ICT penetration is generally associated with a 1% increase in GDP growth rates.

Mr. White then explained how it is possible to work with private sector firms to expand ICT access to rural people in developing countries.  He pointed out the remarkable willingness-to-pay of even the very poor when it comes to communication.  Even people living on only a few dollars a day are willing to pay up to 10% of their income for access to communication.  Given that relatively large willingness-to-pay and a relatively low cost of capital it is in fact possible to reach every developing country resident with wireless technology through the smart use of targeted subsidies and investment in emerging low-cost technologies.

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