Originally posted on the GBI Portal – Page 17

Made in Cameroon: Touch Screen for mHealth

Arthur Zang - Photo Credit: http://www.rnw.nl/africa

A 24 year-old Cameroonian has invented a touch screen medical tablet that enables heart examinations such as the electrocardiogram (ECG) to be performed at remote, rural locations while the results of the test are transferred remotely to specialists for interpretation.

The touch screen tablet – Cardiopad was invented by Arthur Zang, a young computer engineer born and trained in Cameroon at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure Polytechnique (ENSP) in Yaounde.

According to Zang, the Cardiopad is “the first fully touch screen medical tablet made in Cameroon and in Africa.” He believes it is an invention that could save numerous human lives, and says the reliability of the pad device is as high as 97.5%. Zang says he invented the device in order to facilitate the treatment of patients with heart disease across Cameroon and the rest of Africa. So far, several medical tests have been carried out with the Cardiopad which have been validated by the Cameroonian scientific community.

“The tablet is used as a classical electrocardiograph device: electrodes are placed on the patient and connected to a module that, in turn, connects to the tablet. When a medical examination is performed on a patient in a remote village, for example, the results are transmitted from the nurse’s tablet to that of the doctor who then interprets them, says Radio Netherlands.”

While doing his academic internship at the General Hospital of Yaounde, in 2010, Arthur Zang became aware of the difficulties faced by Cameroonians in accessing care related to the heart. The Central African country has an approximately 40 cardiologists for about 20 million population with almost all these cardiologists located in the two large cities of Yaounde and Douala.

Access to cardiologist by patients especially those living in remote cities is therefore a huge challenge. This severe deficit of medical personnel means that patients with heart ailments usually have to travel long distances to undergo heart examinations and consult with doctors. Even at that, it is still not easy. On some occasions, patients must make appointments months in advance, and some even die in the process of waiting for their appointment.

Photo Credit: Cardiopad

This is how the technology works. Both the cardiologist (in the city) and the nurse (in the remote community) need to have the Cardiopad. A patient in the remote community is connected to electrodes placed on his heart. These electrodes are connected to a module called Cardiopad Acquisition Mobile (CAM) via a Bluetooth interface, which transmits the heart signal to the Cardiopad after the signal has been digitized. The nurse can then read the heart beats, heart rate, and the intervals between each beat displayed on the Cardiopad, etc. All these data are then stored in a file and sent to the cardiologist’s Cardiopad via a mobile telecommunication network.

The Cardiopad is already generating a lot of interest in African tech and medical circles. Zang believes his invention will cut down the cost of heart examinations and he is currently looking for venture capital to commercially produce the device. Visit here for detailed information on the Cardiopad and its inventor.

February 14, 2012/by actualize

Zimbabwe’s Telecel set to invest US$70 million

Zimbabwe’s Telecel has announced a US$70 million investment in network expansion. John Swain, Telecel Zimbabwe Managing Director, also said its recent rebranding aligned them with Telecel affiliates such as Orascom Telecom Holdings.

Telecel Managing Director John Swain (image: TechZim)

“We are planning, with the assistance of our strategic partners, to invest more than US$70 million in the geographic expansion of our network and improving our core network systems. We are also investing in human capital and in management and technical training to ensure efficiency and improved service delivery,” Swain said.

“We have just introduced an emergency credit service, in response to requests from our customers. This allows active customers, who have been active on our network for at least three months, to access emergency credit,” he added.

Telecel Zimbabwe recently became the first mobile operator in Zimbabwe to offer its subscribers a credit facility.

Charlie Fripp – Online editor

February 14, 2012/by actualize

Connectivity, Legal & Regulatory, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

10% penalty for poor telecoms service

Uganda’s Communications Commission is investigating possible penalties to telecommunications providers delivering poor service quality. New proposed companies could face a 10% of their gross income.

: Uganda might penalise telecommunications providers who deliver poor service quality (image: instablogs)

“We are in consultations with all telecoms to come up with a detailed report indicating how much to be fined for which offense. The law allows us fines of up to 10 per cent in comparison to gross income,” Fred Ottunu, the UCC communications and consumer affairs manager told Uganda’s Daily Monitor recently.

The public outcry about poor service quality sparked discussions the UCC added.

Various telecommunications companies said they are yet to come to an agreement, but do not expect any penalties.

“There is nothing conclusive yet and I hope the commission will first consult widely before it introduces penalties,” said Shailendra Naidu, the Warid chief commercial officer.

UTL’s Jamal Sultan added that “Even as UCC’s recent Quality of Service report placed Utl in the lead in terms of service, we have not tired of laying strategies for improving our services.”

February 10, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Environment, Environment, Originally posted on the GBI Portal, Pollution Prevention

Air Quality at Your Fingertips

Amobilefuture released a free app called Pollution that features realtime air quality on an interactive geolocative regularly updated map for more than 1,380 cities worldwide. The app takes advantage of 100,000 base stations worldwide, allowing anyone to track measured exposures to electromagnetic, air and water pollution. It also monitors pollution and emissions to soil. It provides detailed lists of nearby pollutant facilities, with discharge details and volumes. The app’s purpose to to inform about the potential presence of pollutant sources in a comprehensive way.

February 10, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Health, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

How Design and Collaboration Can Improve mHealth

We have all seen or heard of an organization developing and implementing an innovative solution and then one or two months later the product is in the corner of the health clinic. It has not been used since the organization finished its initial training. While the outsiders who came in saw it as innovative, it clearly did not resonant as a solution to the users. But why? It seemed so obvious to the developers that this product would solve a glaring problem. Why wouldn’t these health workers want to use this application?

Photo Credit: Tecca

But not to worry. This is something that all organizations and companies deal with. Do you remember Windows Vista, Nokia’s N-Gage, and HP’s TouchPad? Well, each company would hope that you do not. There is an endless list of failed technology products and services. With the movement of leveraging high tech products in international development, especially in global health, failure has become a part of the dialogue in the sector. So much so that MobileActive began hosting FailFaire, where organizations utilizing technology in their projects can come and speak about their “failures.” The idea is to learn from mistakes that others have made. In the most recent FailFaire in New York, many of the stories were focused around design and collaboration issues. Not simply physical design issues (like there were too many buttons on the device), but multiple issues that the designers and implementers did not take into account.

While design has been on the forefront minds in the corporate world for many years (see iPhone and IDEO), design in the social sector is a relatively new idea. In order to decrease the number of failures, organizations have created partnerships with design firms. They are bringing user-centered design to the social sector. Below are some examples:

Reboot has worked with United Bank Limited (UBL) in Pakistan and the Gates Foundation to expand branchless banking via mobile phones.

IDEO.org is assisting Evotech in the further development of their low-cost endoscopy device. It is used during obstetric fistula procedures in developing countries.

Frog Design teamed with the Aricent Group, PopTech, iTeach, the Praekelt Foundation, and Nokia Siemens to design programs to support HIV/AIDS patients as well as expand awareness and knowledge about the disease.

Design Strategy

By focusing on the human-centered design, the product/service takes into account the culture and needs of the targeted consumer. As the pioneer in human-centered design, IDEO wrote a paper in 2010 for the Stanford Social Innovation Review entitled “Design Thinking for Social Innovation.” In the paper, they discuss some of the issues with design in social projects. Along with looking into the culture and needs of the end-users, they mentioned that the project failed because the intervention had not been properly prototyped with the users and receive direct feedback from them. Human-centered design also sees a need to have the intervention fit into the infrastructure of the communities. The overall idea is to have the product/service that solves a problem that the user or community has. In order for this to occur, IDEO sees the solutions coming from focusing on those on the ground instead of the design process occur from outside the targeted community. Along with the design, they also believe that there must be a well thought out distribution and implementation strategy because that can kill a project too. Their most important strategy to the human-centered design process is observing people in their experiences and behaviors. This will tell the designers more than any survey because it can be difficult for people to explain what they need, especially if they do not know what that really is.

Collaboration

In order for the human-centered design to occur, there is a need for greater collaboration in mHealth. mHealth is a complex web of networks as it includes individuals from all areas affected in the sector – mobile operators, ministries of health, telecommunications regulators, community health workers, doctors, technology developers, global health NGOs, etc. As mentioned before, by understanding the problem and how a solution would be used in the field, the technology is more likely to be adopted. The creation process needs to understand all the aspects involved in the usage of the product/service. By creating a collaborating environment, no matter who the end user is (a mother, family, community health workers), the team has the experience and knowledge to look deeply into all the internal and external issues that are causing the problem. Once those are understood, then the group can start to see how the intervention can be both designed and implemented in the field with the end-user in mind. With this focus, there will be a clear incentive for the end-user to utilize the technology. Without understanding how a technology will improve their lives, there will be a low adoption rate. And then the technology becomes useless and another wasted investment.

The process of creating greater collaboration and utilizing a design strategy is easier said than done. Clearly money is an issue when including a design firm in the development of a mHealth product. It would be beneficial to include extra funds in budgets for the design process. The funds should be used to design the look, functionality, and business plan of the mHealth intervention as well as allow for greater collaboration. The end goal of developing a design strategy and increasing collaboration is to create products/services that will solve a problem but also that will be used by the indented users.

February 10, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

“What’s missing is….” ICTs in the Value Chain!

Photo Credit: Ben Addom

“Meeting the Challenges of Value Chain Development: A Learning Event,” was the subject for discussion at the just ended 2-day conference organized by USAID at the Night Conference Center, Newseum, Washington DC.

The learning event was hosted by the USAID Microenterprise Development office with funding from the Accelerated Microenterprise Advancement Project (AMAP), implemented by ACDI/VOCA and its partners. It was attended by a wide range of actors including donors, private consultants, practitioners, researchers and academics, and administrators.

Activities during the 2-day event included a keynote address, concurrent electives (sessions) covering topics like understanding gender and culture in market systems; engaging the private sector; creating an enabling environment; integrating food security and nutrition; financing value chains; reaching the very poor; facilitating sustainable change; learning and evaluating within dynamic systems; and a final panel session on challenges of value chain development.

My reflections – “What is missing is….”

I would like to state that the event was really an excellent learning event for me due to my interest in the use of the agricultural value chain to ensure efficiency and effectiveness of programs and activities that aimed at reaching the poor and vulnerable.

An observation that I made from the sessions that I attended is that, while contributing during the question and answer (Q&A) sessions, participants mostly used the phrase “what I think is missing from the presentations is that….” to point out some loopholes in the sessions. These missing links observed by the participants are in one way or the other related to the individual interests and experiences of these contributors with respect to the subject under discussion. As an agricultural information specialist, I also think that what was prominently missing during the entire 2-day event is the absence of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in facilitating communication between and among the value chain actors in the system. This, I think, is one of the challenges to the development of the agricultural value chain.

Why the need for communication tools within the value chain?

In her keynote address to the conference participants, Tjada D’Oyen McKenna, the Deputy Coordinator for Development for the Feed the Future, the U.S. global hunger and food security initiative, asked the conference participants to explore how to create synergies between programs and activities being designed and implemented.

Synergies will result when stakeholders within the value chain work together so that their combined actions lead to outcomes greater than the sum of their individual effects or capabilities. In order for this to happen, an effective communication system is needed to facilitate exchange of resources between and among the individuals and organizations within the value chain. Not integrating ICTs into the communication process in this information age can be disastrous. Unfortunately, this was clearly missing at the sessions, something I believe is the reflection of what is on the ground.

Another important component of the value chain that calls for incorporation of ICTs, is its systemic nature. Several contributions during the event have alluded to the complex nature of the agricultural value chain, and the increasing dependence of the key stages of the chain – R&D, production, market, and M&E, on each other as a prerequisite for a reasonable return on investment.

From my years of experience working with the agricultural value chain and assessments and analysis carried out on ICT solutions for collaboration and coordination, I believe specific ICTs solutions are necessary for each of the stages within the value chain. The World Bank’s eSourcebook that was launched recently has briefly touched on some specific examples of applications of ICTs in agriculture across the world. These solutions when strategically deployed can have significant impact on internal communication within the institutions involved in the value chain as well as external communication with other partners.

An assumption and “aha” moment!

I have observed that either the organizers of the event, the presenters or both who might have had extensive experience with the agricultural value chain system, assumed that all participants knew what the value chain is. But my conversation with few people during the networking time and also observation during some of the discussions revealed that it was not the case. A number of participants at the event actually had little experience on the agricultural value chain and were there to learn – a learning event.

On the other hand, one revelation that I got from the session “integrating food security and nutrition” is that while value chain approaches aim at increasing income by targeting the productive population, food security approaches target the vulnerable population and aim at improving their nutrition and food security situation.

Participants at the closing panel session (Photo Credit: Ben Addom)

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) works with a variety of implementing partners to accomplish its strategic objectives in microenterprise development. The vision of the Agency for microenterprise development involves addressing the needs of poor people within the context of globalization and dynamic domestic and global markets to help them harness the resources they need to participate meaningfully in markets (often through market linkages to larger firms). The microLINKS website hosts a number of innovative, interactive learning tools and thousands of resources to serve a global community of practitioners by helping to link knowledge with practice. Visit the Microlinks site for detailed information on this event – slides, recording and other resources as well as future events.

February 10, 2012/by actualize

Connectivity, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Partnership deal bolsters Nigerian broadband

Nigerian carrier services provider Phase3 Telecom and Dancom Technologies have announced their partnership deal boosting broadband services in the country.

Phase3 Telecom and Dancom Technologies’ partnership will boost broadband in Nigeria (image: stock.xchng)

Phase3 Telecom and Dancom Technologies' partnership will boost broadband in Nigeria (image: stock.xchng)

They said in a joint press statement they would upgrade their respective networks in order to “provide robust transmission services to deliver reliable broadband services to individual end-users and businesses.”

Stanley Jegede, Phase3 Telecom chief executive officer, said both firms “have made extensive investment to deliver transmission services that will enhance and ensure that high-quality broadband services are available to all users and businesses in line with global realities of today.”

Telecom experts are excited about the IT and telecom infrastructure boost in Nigeria. They believe the partnership will lead to others pushing for similar endeavours.

“We realise that there is an increasing requirement for broadband services in Nigeria in line with global development and we at Phase3 Telecom are ready to facilitate the effective delivery of (the) same to businesses and all other users using our reliable aerial fiber optic network. This informs our partnership with Dancom Technologies which has resulted in the development of one of the most robust and extensive fiber optic network coverage in the country. We are ready to lead the broadband revolution and ensure that we help Nigerians enjoy the benefits and comfort of broadband connection,” Jegede said.

Boye Olusanya, Dancom Technologies chief executive officer, stated the companies installed some of the most advanced technologies in their networks to meet customers’ expectations.

“Our aim has always been to provide quality service to our customers. In driving this, we have invested significantly in the latest technologies that can deliver required services to our customers. This investment, coupled with our use of aerial fibre as well as our partnership with Phase3, allows us to meet and surpass the quality threshold we set for ourselves,” he said.

David Eto

February 9, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Education, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Open Education 101: Changing What You Know and How You Know It

If new developments in information communications technologies (ICT) are the bridge for the digital divide, what is the content — and, more importantly, the quality of it — that is going to be delivered?

This question, at the heart of developing any ICT4Education program, seemed more relevant and crucial yesterday while listening to US Under Secretary of Education, Martha Kanter, give her keynote speech at the Open Source Higher Education event at the Center for American Progress here in Washington, DC.

Kanter clearly understands the potential value and opportunities for open educational resources (OER) as well as the government’s role in facilitating and monitoring their use. A long standing advocate for open education and government policies to make it sustainable, she and a panel of experts from several universities and OER interest groups discussed how these resources can impact the affordability and access to education in the US.

Giving a brief description of the current OER field, External Relations Director at MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW), Steve Carson, used The Hewlett Foundation’s definition of OER as “high-quality, openly licensed, online educational materials that offer an extraordinary opportunity for people everywhere to share, use, and reuse knowledge.” MIT’s OCW Consortium, a community of over 250 universities that offers roughly 17,000 courses in 20 languages, is just one of several examples of how institutions and education professionals are using this technology to build networks and pool information and resources that can be continually reviewed and revised, essential to setting high standards for the quality of the materials.

But how are OER programs and policies affecting the developing world? Sally Johnstone, Vice President for Academic Advancement at Western Governors University, spoke about a few exciting new initiatives such as the UNESCO/Commonwealth of Learning (COL) Guidelines on Open Educational Resources (OER) in Higher Education, a new framework for using OER in appropriate ways. UNESCO has also created an OER Wiki allowing the global OER community to share and collaborate on developing new resources, as well as an innovative OER Platform for sharing resources between teachers, learners, and education professionals.

In addition, Johnstone mentioned OER Africa, an revolutionary initiative and first of it’s kind in the region which was established by the South African Institute for Distance Education (SAIDE). Focusing on agriculture, health education, foundation courses, and teacher education, the program supports and develops digital materials to increase equitable and meaningful access to knowledge, skills and learning across the African continent.

It was clear by the end of the panelist’s discussion that open education is changing the way that classes and textbooks are being developed and accessed in America. However, some issues still need to be addressed such as creating standard quality evaluation techniques and developing policies for a sustainable market. The US government has already taken a step in this direction when the Department of Labor and the Department of Education created an education fund in January 2011 that would grant $2 billion to create OER materials for career training programs in community colleges.

Perhaps with more government initiatives such as this, as well as guidelines that encompass both OER and ICT technologies, open education will create more networks and cross more borders to make education accessible on a global scale. When discussing the government’s role in open education, Under Secretary Kanter quoted president Obama from a speech he gave at Macomb Community College in Michigan in 2009. “Even as we repair brick and mortar buildings, we have an opportunity to build a new virtual infrastructure to complement the education and training community colleges can offer. We’ll support the creation of a new online – and open-source – clearinghouse of courses so that community colleges across the country can offer more classes without building more classrooms.”

February 9, 2012/by actualize

Climate Change, Environment, Natural Resources Management, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Combating Climate Change in Nepal

How can mobile phones address issues raised by a changing climate? A study by Shrandha Giri and Yuwan Malakar of the University of Manchester with support of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) looks at a successful campaign in Nepal that takes advantage of the widespread usage of mobile phones.

Greater variation in precipitation, higher average temperatures, and a fragile geography prone to flooding have been noted by Nepalese farmers as signs of climate change. In light of these concerns, a phone-based early warning system was created to exchange information on flood signs and other occurrences among communities. The system also provides a list of service providers and traders in the agricultural field. The study notes three critical ways in which mobile phones benefit these farmers:

1. Agricultural Practices: alongside the typical problems of low-productivity agricultural practices and poor access to inputs, farmers in the villages are also reporting with a presumed link to climate change the arrival of new pests and diseases about which they have limited knowledge. This has affected the level of outputs because of the novelty of these challenges and the lack of availability of local agricultural technicians. The project provides the farmers with the phone contacts of technical service providers, which they have then used to get advice about treating crops and livestock. They also use this service for more general advice on seed varieties, planting times and methods with the aim of raising incomes and thus reducing vulnerabilities.

2. Market Prices: in order to reach the nearest market, farmers in Kirtipur have to walk 10km along a train route and then travel a further 5km by bus. Because of the higher costs of reaching other markets and complete uncertainty about prices in those markets, farmers would always sell in the nearest market at whatever price the local traders would offer. With climate change and flooding potentially suppressing the level of outputs they could achieve, this was a severe threat to income levels. The project therefore also provided the farmers with a phone contact list of agricultural traders in a number of nearby markets. As a result, not only are they better informed about reasonable market price levels for their outputs, they can also compare prices between traders and justify journeys to whichever trader is offering them the best price.

3. Disaster Early Warning: Flooding, particularly the recent growth in occurrences and severity which is assumed to be linked to climate change, causes problems to the farmers in loss of crops and livestock, inability to access markets when there are landslides, and more general dangers to life and property. The project provided a phone list of key contacts in both upstream and downstream communities. When there is continuous heavy rain, those in the upstream areas phone and warn those in the downstream communities, who are then able to prepare and evacuate livestock, property, family, etc. They also warn about landslides that may block planned transport routes. In return, those in the downstream, more populated, better connected and more commercial areas, provide information on markets, agricultural practice and development opportunities.

The information needed to create this network was provided through a participatory vulnerability assessment (PVA) conducted by Practical Action, village development committees, and agricultural groups affiliated with government district offices. In this survey farmers noted the changing dry season, erratic rainfall, and movement of farmers due to a lack of irrigation. The project is deemed successful because it involved local people’s motivations such as financial gain. The use of ICTs reduces vulnerabilities and makes communities more resistant and perhaps productive by mitigating long-term changes in the local climate.

February 9, 2012/by actualize

Mobile Money, Originally posted on the GBI Portal, Women in Development

Benefits and challenges of using Mobile Money to reduce poverty for women in Kenya

This is a guest post by Dr Ndunge Kiiti of Houghton College, New York and the GSMA mWomen programme.

Women using mobile money Over the past seven months, my colleague Dr. Jane Mutinda from Kenyatta University in Kenya and I have been studying how mobile money services impact poverty reduction in rural Eastern Kenya. So far we’ve seen that Safaricom’s mobile money service M-PESA has proved very popular amongst women’s groups and today I’ll be sharing with you insights into this phenomenon, from the research process which included a workshop. The workshop brought together representatives from the women’s groups with M-PESA staff to share thoughts on the benefits and challenges presented by the service and ways users can improve their experience.

Profiles of the Women’s Groups

Gross inequalities exist between men and women in Kenya. These gaps and inequalities are evident in access and control of resources, economic opportunities and power, and political voice. For example, an estimated 95% of all land holdings in Kenya are owned by men,; while women own only 5% (UNDP & UNIFEM, 2005, p. 11). These challenges have translated into high levels of poverty, mainly concentrated among women in rural areas. According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, the Eastern Province of Kenya is one of the poorest regions of the country. Among the many drivers of poverty in this region is lack of information about socio-economic services, rights and obligations is key and this problem especially affects women.

The 21 women’s groups we studied are working on addressing poverty from social, economic, and psychological perspectives. Currently, all the groups have savings accounts (as a group and many as individuals) and some form of financial investments. Additionally, most of the groups continue using the Merry-Go-Round system, a basic example of what Stuart Rutherford (1999) calls the Rotating Savings and Credit Associations or ROSCAs. These are a form of lottery where members save a fixed amount every period (weekly or monthly, for example) and the total amount saved during a given period is given to one member of the association, either based on need or randomly.

From our research, it is clear that mobile money services are central to the success of these groups. Each of the groups uses M-PESA as their main avenue for transactions, as individuals and groups. As one group member put it, “The use of M-PESA has been extremely beneficial to many people.” Many of the group members expressed that they couldn’t imagine not having access to M-PESA as a service.

Benefits of M-PESA

A key reason we found for the service’s popularity was that M-PESA was the initial service introduced to rural areas. Therefore it already serves a large portion of the population that has no access to banking services and clearly builds on the social ties that exist across urban and rural areas in Kenya.

For the women’s group activities, it was clear that M-PESA assists in facilitating group payments, especially for members who might live away from their groups or be traveling during the monthly meetings. For example, although all the groups have their base in the rural areas, some group members live in urban areas because of family commitments or employment opportunities. M-PESA allows them to still contribute to their group although they are not always physically there. As one group mentioned, “People are able to pay their dues on time even if they are not present.” This efficiency is perceived as essential to group planning. “It enables us to plan….what we want to do with that money and whatever we wanted to do is done.”

M-PESA also assists some of the groups with their microfinance transactions, whether they are purchasing or selling a product for their businesses. In one of the group discussions, this was highlighted, “On the side of purchasing goods, it’s like we have been freed from traveling by vehicles. We just send the money and the goods are delivered to us….you have paid for everything including transport.” This was also mentioned in the context of supporting rural businesses. There was strong support for M-PESA as a service that promotes more economic transactions in the rural areas; thus leading to rural development and arguably, the reduction of poverty.

In addition, from a basic usage standpoint, the women emphasized that M-PESA is convenient, safe, accessible, efficient and affordable. The fact that M-PESA creates opportunities for employment was also viewed as a positive aspect of the service. However, there were some challenges in relation to their use of the M-PESA services that the women highlighted. The following were most frequently described.

Challenges

Fraud

Several of the women had lost money to fraud. The most common type of fraud was receiving a call or SMS from an individual who claims they have sent money to your M-PESA account by mistake. They usually request you to send it back to them. One group member explained a personal experience with fraud: “For example, last week I got three SMS messages continuously; same number, one minute between each. They were asking me to confirm that I had received several amounts of money. At the end it said ‘your M-PESA now is eight thousand. And in my phone I knew I had about two thousand. So immediately, I knew ….it was a hoax.”

Network/Connectivity Problems

In rural areas network reception can create challenges. One group member explained the problem they often face, ‘The network is low, so you are told, “there is no network”…..which means today there is no M-PESA. So you find you wanted to send that money quickly but it can’t go because of the network.’ This seems to be a key problem in very remote areas.

Cost

The general cost of M-PESA services seemed to be accepted. The cost issue was mainly highlighted because of the high levels of poverty, especially in rural areas. Even though the service is greatly appreciated for its convenience and security, the charge is often viewed as an additional cost that uses resources that could be used elsewhere. One woman noted the additional cost , “If you send money through the M-PESA to the treasurer [of the women’s group], you should send with the money for removing it.”

Services for Special Populations

Some of the elderly women emphasized that sometimes their main challenge is the inability to read and that often translates to having to give out their personal information, recognizing that it could be used for fraud. This issue was also expressed by the group with members with visual impairments. One of the respondents who lived with sight problems shared her concern: “The phones which are available nowadays, they are not audible, they don’t talk. You can’t operate it in a manner that it can tell you everything, so it’s easy for a person to read for you the wrong money figure that is in the phone account and take a share of what is there.” They made a request to the M-PESA staff, to advocate and push for the development of more products and services that are friendly to special populations.

Group Communication Dynamics

The irony of the M-PESA service is that it can impact group communication and interaction both positively and negatively. On one hand, it allows for money to be sent to facilitate planning at meetings, even if a member needs to be absent. On the other hand, as one member put it, “Many people feel that they can fail to attend the group meetings as long as they send the money.” Most groups charge a fee if monthly contributions are sent late. Thus, most group members would be inclined or motivated to send their payments in on time. M-PESA helps facilitate this. However, some groups argued this can perpetuate the lack of meeting attendance, thus, limiting the social aspects of the group meeting and affecting the socio-psychological support that comes from face to face group interactions.

Although there were numerous challenges mentioned, the groups made it clear that the benefits outweighed the disadvantages, summarized by one respondent: “The positives are more than the negatives.”

Check back next week for the second part of this post.

For a more detailed presentation of their study, please visit the IMTFI Website.

February 9, 2012/by actualize