Originally posted on the GBI Portal – Page 10

Agriculture, Energy, Environment, Environment, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

ICTs and Smart Grids, the Perfect Union

Photo Credit: Inhabit

Energy consumption is ever increasing. Supply systems can’t keep up with the demand and are maxed out, causing blackouts, unreliable service and headache. There is limited distribution for rural areas and alternative sources are difficult to integrate into the existing network. How are we to provide energy to a growing and more connected world?

A smart grid is a digital electrical grid. It gathers, distributes, and acts on information through meters that communicate via a wireless mesh network in order to improve efficiency and sustainability of electrical services. Often smart grids can reduce peak demand, shift usage to off-peak hours, lower total energy consumption, and actively manage other usage to respond to solar, wind, and other renewable resources. It allows consumers to optimize the generation, transmission, distribution, and use of energy in a more efficient way. Smart grids are slowly being implemented across the U.S. and Europe.

As a broad concept, a smart grid is envisioned to have the following key characteristics:

Self-healing: The electricity grid rapidly detects, analyzes, responds, and restores power supply;
Digital technology: Two-way communications and ubiquitous metering and measurement enable finer control of energy flows;
Integration: The grid accommodates a variety of resources, including renewable energy (solar, wind, biomass and hydro), demand side management and efficient end-use,
Empowering: Incorporates EE consumer equipment and behavior in grid design and operation,
Power quality: The grid provides quality power consistent with 21st century consumer and industry needs,
Cyber security: The grid mitigates and is resilient to physical/cyber-attacks, and
Fully enables and is supported by competitive electricity markets

The development community has been slow at discussing and beginning to analyze the impact smart grids could have, perhaps because the outcomes can be varied. The UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) has suggested smart grids for Sub-Saharan Africa as a solution to the lack of access and increasing population. A smart grid could leapfrog elements of a traditional power system and offer where it was impossible before. It can also offer lower rates during off-peak hours, charging for energy consumption via mobile phone. USAID has signed a partnership for smart grid technology development with Russia and India.

The most exciting example of implementation for 2012 is that of Equador. Under the state-owned electric utility, Electrica de Guayaquil, Equador has installed a meter-to-cash smart meter system that uses Itron and Trilliant’s communication platform. The communication network manages energy loses accurately, measuring use and other applications like theft analytics.

March 9, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Food Security, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

ICTs for “M&E” Component of the Ag. Value Chain

Photo Credit: Daniel Katz

Access to timely and accurate data on farmers, their households and farm activities is key for policy, decision-making and quality control for development organizations, national governments, funding agencies, project implementers, field workers, researchers and farmers themselves. Demographic data (past and present) on farm households such as land sizes, assets owned, types of soil, weather conditions, gender distribution, literacy levels, types of commodities being produced, diseases and pest, facilities for storage, among others are critical.

Unfortunately, the current status of data on developing nations’ agriculture at both local and global levels is far from reaching the stage at which policy makers can confidently draw upon for intervention due to the complexities with collection and analysis. The result is inefficient flow of resources into these communities due to under or over investments. The challenge is both socio-technical – human skills to design the necessary protocols for capturing these data as well as technological tools to facilitate the management (capturing, analyzing, sharing, etc.) of the data.

For far too long, exploring the role of ICT solutions to support value chain actors in this area have been ignored even though viable and potent ICT tools are in the market. ICT solutions identified in this component could be used in building and generating electronic forms for data gathering, help in timely access to data, facilitate easy and accurate data analysis, ensure monitoring of field activities, help in tracing of goods from farm gate to consumers, and assist in certifying commodities for quality assurance.

Photo Credit: Uganda App Lab

Potential ICT Solutions to Facilitate Agricultural Policy & Decision-Making

These are ICT solutions that facilitate accurate data capturing, analysis and sharing on farmers, their farm sizes, assets, commodities and other key identifications for enhancing policy decisions making by field staffs, governments, investors, donors and feedback into research and development. Examples of apps identified in this category includes iFormBuilder, a mobile platform for building robust forms, offline data capturing and managing data and users from any browser with the iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad with image and audio recording, GPS and mapping functionality, etc; Mobenzi Researcher that uses simple feature phones to high-end handsets to provide a tried and tested solution to enhance field research and data collection; and PoiMapper, a mobile point of interest data collection and sharing solution for affordable GPS-enabled feature phones that can make agricultural fieldwork more efficient and reliable through planning and monitoring of field activities.

Potential ICT Solutions for Traceability and Quality Assurance

These are ICT solutions to facilitate data gathering on farmers, their fields and specific information on their commodities for traceability and quality assurance. Examples include SourceTrace, a suite of ICT applications including traceability module that records delivery and transaction of data both entered manually into mobile device as well as from GPS, RFID and bar code readers, certification module for internal agricultural monitoring processes of agricultural commodity firms such as Fair Trade, and processing module that automates the capture of valuable information on the various light industrial processes of any agricultural commodity; Reliable Information Tracking System (RITS), a new coffee traceability program that is helping coffee growers become more efficient, reliable, and quality-focused by tracking deliveries of coffee from each member down to the details of what coffee varietals and quality score each lot of coffee receives; and, Integrating ICT for Quality Assurance and Marketing, a project that helps to build an internal control system for inspectors of Organic Producers and Processors Association of Zambia (OPPAZ) for quality assurance and thereby improve the value of the products for increased income.

In summary, ICTs have great potential for data management within the agricultural value chain for increased agricultural growth. Improved data used will influence how research is conducted and subsequently the kind of policy decisions that need to be made for funding and investment. For detailed information on ICT solutions for monitoring, evaluation and quality assurance visit ICT4Ag Database by GBI for an interactive experience and feedback.

March 9, 2012/by actualize

GBI Highlights, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

GBI releases ICT Ag Value Chain database (beta)

In a complex system like the agricultural value chain, coordination of roles is key as the actors collaborate to exchange resources. Successful coordination calls for appropriate communication approaches and media for smooth flow of resources from one stage to another and from one actor to the other. The importance of communication within the value chain is becoming clear especially with the surge to develop new and innovative information and communication technologies (ICTs) for agriculture and food security.

Global Broadband and Innovations (GBI) has been exploring the role of the new technologies along the agricultural value chain for improved resource flow. Throughout our desk research, we have found that there are several discussions, and activities going on with the use of ICTs in agriculture and food security, and others specifically on value chain development. However, little is done to bring the two issues together.

The team has identified and selected over 125 ICT solutions (apps and projects) that apply to the various actors within the agricultural value chain, specifically for this initial stage of the project and has mapped out these tools along the chain. Our database is growing (please submit any apps or ICT solutions you think we’ve missed!), and we are constantly refining data. To browse the current database, download a pdf, or submit an entry, visit our ICTs Along the Ag Value Chain page.

March 9, 2012/by actualize

Connectivity, Originally posted on the GBI Portal, Women in Development

Campaing for Female Education (CAMPFED) builds three ICT centres in Northern Ghana

A non-governmental organisation in Ghana, CAMFED (Campaign for Female Education), is currently building three ultra-modern Information Communication Technology (ICT) centres, backed by Google’s Cooperate Giving Council.

Three ICT centres are currently under construction in Ghana to build knowledge and help communities. (image: womennewsnetwork.net)

Construction is currently underway in the Nanumba North (Bimbilla), Mamprusi East (Gambaga) and Gushegu districts in the Northern region. The Bimbila ICT centre has been completed and commissioned. Construction will wrap up in the coming months the organisation promised.

Deputy Communication’s Minister Ernest Atokwei Armah, last week encouraged students in the area at the launch to use the centre to gain ICT knowledge. “Every child everywhere in this world is expected to get a very good background in ICT. So to speak to a child in Accra, Bimbilla or anywhere in Ghana [they] should know what ICT is, so they will be able to chat and communicate,” he said.

Armah emphasized the need for Bimbilla township farmers and businessmen to support the centre, as it is their best means for online transactions. He further stated: “ICT can allow our farmers to communicate with the outside world to know good prices for their commodities.”

Staff writer

March 8, 2012/by actualize

Mobile Money, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Mobile Money for Women: Greater Mobile Adoption or Development of Specific Services?

Photo Credit: The Guardian

GSMA, through its mWomen program, has invested its resources in expanding the knowledge of why there is such a large gender gap in developing countries. As stated in the report entitled “Women & Mobile: A Global Opportunity” (written by Vital Wave Consulting), there is gap between male and female mobile phone ownership in low and middle-income countries which totals 300 million. The report also includes results from surveys about why women did not own mobile phones – cost, need, fear of technology, and cultural issues. In terms of mobile money, there seems to a clear benefit to families if mothers have access to formal financial services. This includes the ability to save and make payments. Research from around the world has shown that mothers are more likely than husbands to spend more on the health and education of their children. But, as shown in the large gender gap, women do not have the same access to mobile money simply because they are lacking the hardware in order to utilize the services. As the work to close the gap continues, it is important to understand how women are using mobile money. This allows for products and services to be designed for women and their needs and desires. Today there are clear examples of mobile money being leveraged by women in developing countries.

As written about last month on this blog, women in Eastern Kenya are utilizing mobile money to make payments into informal savings groups. It also has been used to make payments into a women’s co-operative in Zimbabwe. The convenience of sending payments via mobile money has allowed women to focus on their businesses and/or their families. Traveling long distances to markets not longer limits their ability to make payments on time. These are two examples in which women have decided to fold mobile money into their informal financial services. This is a clear sign that women are seeking more formalized financial services, specifically focused around convenience of mobile payments. Since they have limited access to services that men has access to, like bank accounts, they are using mobile money in innovative ways to make up for the lack of services they have.

So there is a large gap in mobile ownership between men and women. And women do not have access to some of the financial services provided to men. But there are examples of women creating their own services via mobile money. So the question is: if we want to increase women’s access to formal financial services via mobile money, should we focus more on increasing women’s mobile phone ownership or should the focus be on developing mobile banking services specifically for women? This is a difficult question, particularly because the elephant in the room is their husbands. And this elephant is preventing both issues: low mobile ownership and access to formal financial services.

As mentioned in an interview with Mary Ellen Iskenderian, President and CEO of Women’s World Banking, women have requested greater confidentiality. The goal of their request is to keep their husbands out of their finances. Mobile money is a possible way for women to hide money from their husbands, if they control the phone or own a separate one. If it is a shared phone, the ability to hide money from their husband becomes harder. This would be a reason to push harder to increase mobile ownership. But ownership with not immediately mean that women will begin to have financial freedom. Clearly mobile ownership needs to be pushed further but understanding the cultural dynamics in each country and region will be important in the development of future mobile banking products and services for women.

March 8, 2012/by actualize

Economic Growth & Trade, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

5 Gender-Integrated ICT Strategies for Trade!

Photo Credit: E-Cards

A 2007 publication by USAID on Gender Integration Strategies for Trade (GIST) argues that donors have developed an array of innovative programs for removing or mitigating gender-specific barriers to economic growth. Yet, moving from theory to action still remains a challenge for many program managers.

On this years International Women’s Day celebration, I would like to pick out five of these gender issues from the document for reflection.

1) Socio-Cultural Biases

Gender Issues: Are there socio-cultural biases that discourage women from entering the ICT sector?

Design and Implementation Approaches: Launch an educational campaign on the benefits of computer education and how women and girls could use the skills for a variety of careers: develop curricula on an experiential application of ICT, which studies show appeals more to girls.

Indicators: Number of people in target group trained in and adopting ICT before and after campaign, disaggregated by sex.

Photo Credit: Forbes

2) Level of Access to Market

Gender Issues: Do women and men have the same level of access to market and pricing information?

Design and Implementation Approaches: Business development service (BDS) training in ICT and other avenues for women to gain greater access to market and pricing information.

Indicators: Marketing practices adopted by enterprises as evidenced by a change in business plans, reorganization, product design, pricing, and strategic linkages with other firms or sub-sectors, disaggregated by size of enterprise and sex of owner.

3) Access to Training

Photo Credit: GCEP

Gender Issues: Do women and girls have equitable access to training at all levels, such as system design, networking, software development, content creation, web design, information management, maintenance, and system management?

Design and Implementation Approaches: Develop special ICT initiatives to train women, including those displaced from other sectors; include complementary interventions with training, such as job placement assistance, workforce development skills (hard and soft), and other ancillary services (banking for the poor, small “bridge” loan program, etc.).

Indicators: Number of displaced workers trained, disaggregated by sex; number of trained displaced workers hired for new ICT jobs, disaggregated by sex; levels of participant satisfaction with training, disaggregated by sex.

Photo Credit: Multimedia Learning

4) Affordability of Technologies

Gender Issues: Are technology choices affordable for women and men?; will technology be affordable? will prices be passed onto the consumer?; will rates be higher in rural areas where women predominate?; is there access in rural areas?

Design and Implementation Approaches: Address issues of access and affordability of ICT (e.g., fixed wireless rather than fiber optic cables, availability of mobile phones to promote connectivity in rural and poor areas, satellite or solar- and battery-powered connectivity, multiple-use computers) in project design and/or implementation; conduct gender analysis of telecommunications development fund activities to promote greater access and use of ICT for urban and rural women; conduct regulatory reform work to ensure continued affordability and accessibility of service.

Indicators: Number of users disaggregated by sex and geographical location.
Number of policy measures passed that deal with increasing affordable access to the rural poor.

5) Women’s Mobility

Tamil rural woman with a mobile phone facility

Gender Issues: How might women’s mobility affect their ability to access ICT?

Design and Implementation Approaches: Establish ICT access centers in rural areas and in locations in urban areas frequented by women, such as women’s bookstores, clothing stores, community centers, hair salons, or health clinics; consider establishing micro-telcos (telephone and Internet shops) as small businesses for women entrepreneurs located near health clinics, women’s stores, etc.; consider adding Internet service to existing telecenters; address women’s mobility constraints with mobile computer buses that travel to communities, or other mobile telecommunication projects, as a means of increasing women’s access to ICT.

Indicators: Number of centers established by geographical location; number and percentage of customers at telecenter, disaggregated by sex and telecenter location; change in user satisfaction of telecenters, disaggregated by sex.

The big question is how much of these do you have in your projects? Visit here for the detailed issues, design and implementation approaches and indicators.

March 8, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Education, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

How Technical Literacy Barrier is Widening the Mobile Phone Gender Gap: 3 New Reports to Consider

Photo credit: DIPTENDU DUTTA/AFP/Getty Images

With International Women’s Day this week on March 8th, several prominent aid and research organizations working in the developing world are releasing some fascinating new reports that explore how ICTs and gender impact each other. Creating a startling picture of the realities of gender disparities within an already gaping digital divide, the reports identify a technical literacy barrier that is hindering development for women at the Base of the Pyramid (BoP), or those living on less than $2 a day. It’s currently estimated that a woman is 21% less likely to own a mobile phone than a man, and of the large population of women that do not own phones, one report revealed that 22% of them claimed the main reason was that they “wouldn’t know how to use it”.

Termed the “mobile phone gender gap” by mWomen, a GSMA program which aims to reduce it by 50% by 2014, this inequality has recently been examined from several different perspectives: four case studies from India compiled by the Cherie Blair Foundation and International Center for Research on Women (ICRW); a research report that offers a narrative glimpse into the lives of BoP women, framework for designing business models and a set of research tools for conducting studies, all created by the GSMA mWomen Program; and an analysis of the results of several ICT gender focused projects conducted by the Swedish Program for ICT in Developing Regions (Spider).

Photo credit: Kelake.org

1. Connectivity: How Mobile Phones, Computers, and the Internet Can Catalyze Women’s Entrepreneurship

The Cherie Blair Foundation, a charity that supports women entrepreneurs in developing and transition countries, and the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), an organization which aims to improve gender equality and reduce poverty in the developing world, teamed up to investigate four initiatives to target women and observe how technology is helping them to earn income. Through in-depth research and analysis, the report focused on the opportunities and challenges involved to reach several important conclusions:

Women will utilize ICTs to develop their businesses when the technology is available to them, increasing both efficiency and social status
Out of all of the ICTs currently available, mobile phones are the first choice for successful business ventures, with portability and adaptability being the biggest draws
Women using ICTs in their businesses promote their benefits amongst friends and family
Out of the few thousand women highlighted in the case studies, there’s still a lot of potential — perhaps half a billion women — for new entrepreneurial ICT initiatives in India
Partnerships are essential between the public, for-profit, non-profit and social enterprise sectors
Sustainability is still a challenge but could be improved with more multi-sectoral partnerships bolstered by the economic and social benefits
ICTs are attracting women entrepreneurs for their efficiency and time-saving capabilities though exploring new ways the technology can foster support and communication between women entrepreneurs still needs to be explored

Photo Credit: Reuters

2. Portraits: A Glimpse into the Lives of Base of the Pyramid Women

To provide a snapshot of what life is like for women living on under $2 a day, the GSMA mWomen Programme, a global public-private partnership between the worldwide mobile industry and the international development community including USAID and AusAID, created Portraits, a summarized version of a larger research report entitled Striving and Surviving – Exploring the Lives of Women at the Base of the Pyramid, due to be released on March 8th. To represent the mass of quantitative data and information collected from one-on-one interviews during the research, the report presents 8 fictionalized life stories from varying regions, each representing a different important aspect of life for BoP women. Here are just a few of the statistics that can be found in the report:

Of the women who did not want to own a mobile phone, 22% said the main reason was that they “wouldn’t know how to use it”
74% of women chose “a good education for my children” as one of their top five life priorities
83% of the women surveyed had not completed secondary education. 31% had no formal education at all
47% of mobile owners said they had been taught to use their handset by their husbands, while 34% had taught themselves
Only 6% of the women in the study knew (without being prompted) you could access the Internet through a mobile phone, and less than 2% had done so. Amongst young BoP women ages 16-21, 39% had some awareness of the mobile web, though only 5% had used it

Photo credit: womendeliver.org

3. Empowering Women Through ICT

Summarizing the outcomes and conclusions from five different projects using various ICT platforms carried out in five countries — Bolivia, Kenya, India, Rwanda, Vietnam, and Bolivia — this report created by the Swedish Program for ICT in Developing Regions (Spider) focuses on how ICTs can support women in the rural regions of the global south. By observing the impacts of the projects on the lives of each group of women, Spider researchers considered the implications of how technology affects gender just as gender affects technology through:

2 projects in Bolivia: one focusing on empowering female community leaders and one supporting victims of domestic violence through a safe virtual environment
A project carried out in both Kenya and India which focused on ecological sustainability, diversification of livelihood, basic training in ICT through self-help groups
A project in Rwanda which explored the use of ICT in small business development through a women’s basket weaving initiative
A research project in Vietnam which considered gender in the development of ICT.

March 8, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Climate Change, Environment, Environment, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Enduring Change: Entrusting Women as Planners

It’s stacked against them. Climate change is impacting developing countries in a real way, disrupting ancestral patterns used by the rural poor for farming, fishing, and daily life. On top of this, women and men experience climate change differently as gender inequalities worsen women’s coping. Women traditional are responsible for the tasks most likely to be affected by climate change: agriculture, food security, and water management.

How can women in these communities be empowered? For one, there needs to be a gender-responsive approach towards climate change policymaking and programming so that women can be important stakeholders when addressing climate change with their skills related to mitigation, adaption, and the reduction of risks.

A manual has been created for including women in the design process by the Global Gender and Climate Alliance (GGCA). CRiSTAL, which stands for Community-based Risk Screening Tool – Adaptation and Livelihoods, is designed to help project planners and managers integrate climate change adaption and risk reduction into community-level projects. It defines gender and includes warm-up activities and exercises that explain climate change that empower poor women to be powerful agents of change. The CRiSTAL approach also “provides a gender-specific vulnerability analysis for different parts of the population, highlighting the specific coping strategies of women, and resulting in clear pointers for how gender specific measures will need to be incorporated into projects.” From this manual, women gain access to knowledge about different hazards, risk reduction, resources and technology that reshape negotiations of comprehensive regimes on climate change. The manual includes examples of natural resource management projects focusing on drought coping strategies in Bangladesh, Mali, Nicaragua, Tanzania and Sri Lanka.

The manual concludes with a call for more government and NGO support, including providing skill transfer through ICT training for women that can change the perception of women in their communities.

March 8, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Family Planning, Health, Health, Maternal & Child Health, Originally posted on the GBI Portal, Women in Development

mHealth for Women: A Diverse Set of Applications

Photo Credit: Anupam Nath / AP

In an ode to International Women’s Day, we wanted to review a few of the mobile health projects and programs directly focused on women’s health issues. mHealth has a great variance in the type of applications used to promote and assist in women’s health. This ranges from sending health information about pregnancy via basic text messaging to more advanced tools that allow community health workers to collect data, diagnosis diseases, and refer patients. As the need and ability to extend health information to women in developing countries increases, here is a diverse set of examples that have been used or are in current use.

MOTECH

Launched in Ghana, the Grameen Foundation’s Mobile Technology for Community Health (MoTECH) initiative has a duel focus – providing health information to pregnant women and arming community health workers with applications to track the services provide to women and children. This project was funded by the Gates Foundation and has worked in partnership with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and the Ghana Health Service. The “Mobile Midwife” application provides pregnant women with time-specific information about their pregnancy via text or voice messages. This includes reminders about seeking care, advice on how to deal with specific challenges during pregnancy, and knowledge about best practices and child development. The Nurses’ Application allows community health workers to register and track the care provided to patients in the region. By recording patient data in the MOTECH Java application and sending it to the MOTECH database, the system captures the data and can send automatic reminders to nurses for when and what type of follow up care to provide. For more information about the MOTECH as well as the lessons learned, read the report from March 2011, “Mobile Technology for Community Health in Ghana: What It Is and What Grameen Foundation Has Learned So Far.”

MAMA

Launch in May 2011, MAMA (Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action) is a public-private partnership focused leveraging mobile connectivity to improve information and access to health care for pregnant and new mothers in developing countries. USAID and Johnson & Johnson are the founding partners, and the United Nations Foundation, the mHealth Alliance, and BabyCenter are supporting partners. This initial 3-year, $10 million investment from USAID and J&J is being used to build and expand global capacity of new and current mHelath programs in three countries – Bangladesh, South Africa, and India. The beauty of the MAMA Partnership is the focus on country ownership through these partners. And each country has a separate focus based on the specific needs and problems of the maternal health. In Bangladesh, the focus is to decrease maternal morbidity and mortality through stage-based health messages via mobile phones to low-income and at-risk mothers. The public-private partnership network in Bangladesh has already been established. Lead by D.Net, it includes technology developers (InSTEDD, SSD-Tech), corporate sponsors (BEXIMCO), outreach NGOs (Save the Children, BRAC), mobile operators (Airtel, Grameenphone, Banglalink), content providers (MCC Ltd), media (Unitrend Limited, Brand Forum), researchers (ICDDR, B), and government agencies (Ministry of Health and Family Welfare). In India, MAMA is completing a landscape analysis to understand the complex cultural environment and see in what areas mobile phones can be utilized to improve maternal health throughout the country. Finally, in South Africa, MAMA has partnered with the Praekelt Foundation (lead partner), Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute, and Cell-life to provide messages to pregnant and new mothers about receiving earlier antenatal care, prevention mother-to-child HIV transmission, and exclusively breastfeeding.

CycleTel

Developed by the Institute for Reproductive Health (IRH) at Georgetown University, CycleTel is an innovative solution, combining a previously used family planning technique with mobile phones. In 2001, IRH created the Standard Days Method (SDM) as a low-cost alternative to family planning based on a women’s menstrual cycle. By avoiding intercourse on a woman’s most fertile days during her menstrual cycle, days 8 to 19, there is only a 5% chance of becoming pregnant. Having developed the system, IRH saw a natural fit with mobile phones. In the original set up, women would use Cyclebeads (multiple colored beads used to represent specific days of a menstrual cycle) to keep track of when they are more likely to become pregnant. Using the same idea, the CycleTel replaced the beads with a mobile phone. Each month on the first day of menses, a women text messages the system. Utilizing FrontlineSMS, it then responds by sending a message showing which days she could get pregnant. In 2009, IRH conducted a research study in the region of Uttar Pradesh, India. The pilot showed the need to tweak the system to fit the region context including the local languages and women’s past experience using mobile phones. But it also showed the willingness of women and men to pay for the service in order to avoid unwanted pregnancies. This program is being operated under to the Fertility Awareness-Based Methods (FAM) Project which is funded by USAID.

Dunia Wanita

Dunia Wanita, which means World of Women, was launched in February 2010 by Telkomsel, a MNO in Indonesia. It is a part of the MNO’s value-added services applications and is specifically for women to receive information on a number of different topics, including health. The subscription costs $0.12 per day. By dialing *468#, women have access to a “one stop info service.” By selecting “Cantik Sehat” (Health and Beautiful), women can receive health information and advice from famous Indonesian doctors. The voice messages include information about sexual health, pregnancy, and healthy living.

These are just a few examples of mobile health applications that are available to women in the developing world. The applications vary in information provided, media used, and business models utilized. This is a great illustration of how diverse mobile health can be in order to reach a targeted group within a country, based on infrastructure, location, health knowledge, and mobile usage/connectivity.

March 8, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Originally posted on the GBI Portal, Women in Development

How can we empower rural women with bamboo tablet PC designed for “Men”?

Photo Credit: flickspire.com

The theme for this years’ International Women’s Day celebration is “Empower Rural Women – End Hunger and Poverty.” This is in recognition of the critical role and contribution women, especially rural women are playing globally to enhance agricultural and rural development, improve food security and help reduce poverty levels in their communities.

Unfortunately, there are others in Africa (my continent) who still believe that women or girl-child should support their mothers on the farm to send their brothers or boy-child to school. They still hold onto the stereotypical believe that Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines are for boys. No doubt, there is a recent announcement by Debonair Limited that a tablet PC targeted at “men” will be launched in Ghana next month.

My concern is, why for ‘men’ and why in Ghana (Africa)? Is it the right time to develop such a technology for Ghanaian men to celebrate success? What success are we talking about here? Should we rather be thinking of gender specific technologies for production such as ICT solutions for rural women in agriculture? These are questions I wish we can reflect upon as the world celebrates the International Women’s Day (IWD) on this 8th of March for economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future.

ICTs are NOT Gender Neutral

At the February TechTalk organized by the USAID Global Broadband and Innovation (GBI) program on “How to Address Gender in Your ICT Projects” the CEO of Sonjara Inc., Siobhan Green, stated that ICTs are NOT gender neutral. Even though I have been thinking about gender specific ICT solutions for women in agriculture, and writing about ICTs for rural farmers before this TechTalk, my interest in the area has increased after hearing this statement. Are these new information and communication technologies (ICTs) really gender-biased?

With the above statement, it is therefore not possible for me to keep silence after reading the announcement from Debonair Limited. According to Debonair’s spokeswoman, ‘the fact is, men take their toys very seriously. After working so hard to achieve success, men deserve to own and play with the cars, the Yacht, the watches and quality clothes. The Bamboo D300 has been developed to celebrate a man’s success.’

Photo Credit: Debonair Limited

The CEO of the company also has this to say:

“Men will fall in love with the Bamboo D300 tablet because it is a simple, makes it easy to do the things men love – transact business, sports, watch movies, read books & magazines, listen to music, download apps, play games, check emails and surf the web on a simple touch-screen interface. It’s great for men of all ages, and provides a great intuitive experience; even for men who do not know how to use computers”- Mr. Adebola Omololu.

Even if this is just a marketing blurb, I think we have moved far beyond it in this information age. I’m wondering which of the above tasks listed by the CEO are beyond the reach of African women? What is so unique about business transactions, surfing the web, reading magazine, or listening to music on PC tablet that African women cannot do? For how long do we continue to widen this digital divide through our cultural and mental perceptions of women in Africa?

Making our priorities right!

Interestingly, I have been researching into ICT solutions – projects and mobile applications currently aiding agricultural value chain actors to increase information and knowledge exchange. Out of over 120 ICT solutions currently identified and analyzed, not a single one is gender specific. This means that it is up to the implementers of these ICT solutions to decide how best to increase women access to the technologies in their projects. Failure to do that will result in under-representation of women in these projects.

So why PC tablet for men in Ghana or Africa at this time? In Ghana, agriculture remains one of the key sectors with more than 80% of all agricultural production done on land holdings less than one hectare. The vast majority of these farmers are subsistence small-scale, rural women who lack access to improved technologies for production, storage, processing, and market information.

I believe what Ghanaian men need at this time is more than PC tablet for fun or pleasure. We need technology companies to think and design ICT specific solutions for our rural women who are “killing” themselves daily to keep us alive. At the just ended IFAD Governing Council meeting in Rome, Bill Gates stated that, “right now, a digital revolution is changing the way farming is done, but poor, small farmers aren’t benefiting from it.” And these poor small farmers are our women.

Women Agricultural Scientists Honored: From Left, Anne Gichangi, Ruth Wanyera and Esther Kimani

Instead of thinking and developing PC tablet for Ghanaian men for pleasure, fun and to celebrate success, I join Dr. Fenneke Reysoo to ask this interesting question: “Men, Where are the Women?”. On this International Women’s Day, Men In Africa, Where Are Our Women In Agriculture?

March 8, 2012/by actualize

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