Originally posted on the GBI Portal – Page 21

Financial services demonstrate the most proven sustainable business models within ICT4D

The following is a guest post we’re pleased to share by Hystra Consulting and Ashoka.

A recent study reveals how Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can viably provide access to education, healthcare, agro-services and financial services to the Base of the Pyramid (BoP). The study reviewed more than 280 initiatives set up by various types of actors (corporations, Citizen Sector Organizations, social entrepreneurs…) in Asia, Latin America and Africa which are using ICTs to provide services to the BoP. Hystra, a French consulting firm and its partner Ashoka evaluated the projects based on their ability to solve a problem, their scalability and their financial sustainability. The report presents 15 of the most ground breaking market-based business models, which have reached a significant level of scale and have improved the living standards of the BoP using ICTs.

Financial sustainability varies across sectors, financial services being the most mature of the four areas studied.

3 of the projects featured as financial services case studies in the report serve profitably more than 5 million customers each via different business models: M-PESA in Kenya with mobile money, Bradesco in Brazil with branchless banking via post offices and small retail shops, and FINO in India with a suite of POS-powered financial services available to over 40 million clients via door-to-door agents.[1]

Why are financial services the most developed area in terms of business model sustainability? One of the reasons cited is the willingness of clients to pay upfront for the service, because it offers them immediate savings compared to previous practices (such as cheaper money transfers). Moreover ICT-based financial services often go well beyond previous offerings, creating new practices for unbanked populations such as savings or insurance schemes that lower their vulnerability to adverse events. For example, some MNOs have developed innovative loyalty-based life insurance covers. These types of products help reduce churn and attract new customers for MNOs while providing a new valuable service to customers.

Establishing trust in the service is a key factor of success for ICT-based financial services, as they deal directly with people’s money. These services require robust and secured platforms, in addition to trusted agents who are able to sell the service, manage liquidity and provide a direct interface between the technology platform and end-users. Leveraging existing trusted networks such as Safaricom’s airtime resellers (in the case of M-PESA) or post office agents (in the case of Bradesco) appears as an effective way to create trust in these services.

The business models studied in the report tap into multiple revenue sources, getting commissions from governments for g2p payments, banks and insurance companies for the opening of new accounts, end-users for the transactions they perform, and MNOs which benefit from customer retention and higher end-users fees. Governments can actually play a large role in promoting such services: using them for their G2P payments, they can be a sufficiently large first client of ICT-based financial services to justify the initial investment in the technology that new companies entering this space need to make – one of the first services offered by FINO was G2P payments and state health insurance, for example. Many actors have tried – with mitigated success – to replicate M-PESA. However, the study points out to a wider range of models which can be just as effective in providing financial services using ICT. The key is to find which business model is suitable in each local context.

The study was sponsored by AFD, Ericsson, France Telecom-Orange, ICCO and TNO and conducted by Hystra and Ashoka. The full report is available for download in the MMU library.

[1] The number of FINO clients stood at “only” 28 million when the case study was done in February 2011, but FINO grows by over a million customers each month!

January 25, 2012/by actualize

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

Biofuels: Off-grid answer for ICT access?

Biofuels… Good or Bad Idea? They’ve received positive hype from non-profits, corporations, and individuals only to be scorned by some environmentalists, economists, and other groups.

Photo Credit: GSMA

A common barrier facing rural regions is a lack of access to a reliable power supply. Being off the grid limits the ability to take advantage of information and communication technologies (ICTs) that could provide economic gain and increase quality of life. What’s the use of a mobile phone with innovative software applications if it can’t be recharged?

One popular answer for off-grid communities is building biofuel-based facilities that are run off of renewable resources. Biofuel is simply energy released directly or indirectly from living or recently living organisms. Wind and solar power are included, but fossil fuels are not because they are embedded in geological formations and nonrenewable.

Biofuels have been used for over a millennia, such as the simple method of burning wood for fuel. Other traditional methods used throughout the developing world include using conventional feed such as maize, wheat, sunflowers, and switchgrass for combustion that are then used for cooking, heating, and lighting.

Modern bioenergy used for fuel can be more complex, taking advantage of residue, bacteria, and other organic components of waste that produce a higher value energy carrier, meaning they are more efficient and versatile than traditional methods. The most common method for converting biomass into fuel is by combustion that generates heat. Other known methods include gasification, extraction, and fermentation (used for converting starch or sugar crops into ethanol). In recent decades ethanol and other forms of biofuels have increased in popularity due to the fluctuation of oil prices, carbon emission, and as an option for rural development.

Photo Credit: Prof. Thomson Sinkala, Chairman, Biofuels Association of Zambia

So are biofuels the answer for connecting rural communities with the greater world? Let’s weigh some notable advantages and disadvantages:

PROS

+ Biofuels are locally harvested, decreasing transportation costs.

+ The harvesting and processing of biofuels creates local jobs.

+ Biofuels are renewable.

+ Plants used for making biofuels can be grown on marginal lands.

+ The cost of renewable energy technology is falling, making energy projects more affordable and easier to maintain.

CONS

– Not all biofuels are sustainable.

– Traditional forms of bioenergy can cause unpleasant consequences such as deforestation.

– Traditional biofuels are highly inefficient when compared to fossil fuels and nuclear energy.

– Biofuels derived from vegetation require a lot of water, adding pressure to an already limited and fragile source.

– Instead of using limited arable land for food production, it’s used for growing biomass that can be improperly fertilized, further harming water systems.

– It can negatively impact life-cycles, species health, and biodiversity.

So are biofuels a good or bad solution for rural areas? The decision must be made at the local level; weighing costs, benefits, and sustainability. Below are examples of successful projects where biofuels are used to supply power.

Indonesia– Instead of depositing livestock waste in waterways, it is processed in a biodigester, creating biogas used by the local population.

China – Rice ‘straw’, the stem and leaves left behind after harvesting to be burnt can be mixed with an alkaline solution to create biogas.

Mali– Jatropha, a poisonous weed used to keep away grazing animals thrives in marginal soil is used to power generators.

Kenya– Solar and hydro energy is used for a power center that provides access to Internet and mobile phones for local farmers.

January 25, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Health, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Guide to Scale and Sustainability in mHealth: Moving Past Pilot Projects

A white paper release by the Advanced Development for Africa (ADA) last month laid out the necessary steps to scale mHealth projects in the developing world. Its goal was to provide governments, donors, and the private sector with the essential knowledge to push mHealth from pilot projects to scalable and sustainable solutions.

The report, entitled “Scaling Up Mobile Health: Elements Necessary for the Successful Scale Up of mHealth in Developing Countries” and authored by Jeannine Lemaire, preformed an extensive review of the sector. It focused on multiple case studies and pulled best practices and recommendations from organizations and thought leaders in the sector. With the current mHealth in a transition stage from proof of concept to widespread scale and adoption, there is a need to show key stakeholders that scale and sustainability is possible and necessary to improve health outcomes in the developing world. The ability to be sustainable and scale will push the sector forward and make the case for greater investment by governments, donors, and the private sector.

The author provided nine case studies including TulaSalud, TXTAlert, mPedigree, and ChildCount+. She also included the insights from thought learners in mHealth (David Aylward – Ashoka, Patricia Mechael – mHealth Alliance, Brooke Partridge – Vital Wave Consulting, Anne Roos-Weil – Pesinet, and Getachew Sahlu – WHO).

Photo Credit: IICD

Through the interviews and case studies, multiple best practices were established in order to properly implement a pilot with the ability to scale and be sustainable in the future. These best practices included the idea that sustainability and scale must be planed from the program’s inception, the necessity to perform a needs assessment for the local region, facilitating collaboration in order to avoid duplication, the inclusion of targeted users and beneficiaries during the development phase, getting buy-in from multiple stakeholders (governments, communities and local healthcare providers), collaborating with local implementation partners, creating partnerships with a focus on scale up, and including M&E to assess the impact off the interventions.

The research also provided recommendations at multiple levels of mHealth policy and development – programmatic, operational, policy, and global strategy. The recommendations were:

Programmatic:

Integrate the program within existing healthcare structures.
Employ an integrated solution and/or holistic approach rather than a silo single-solution approach. Identify innovative ways to incorporate other mobile services using cross-sectoral approaches.
Identify a sustainable and scalable business model that is applicable for large-scale implementations and can bring in valuable strategic partnerships to support scale up.
Build partnerships with the private sector after a successful pilot phase.

Operational:

Seek out and invest in building local capacity to minimize costs and support local ownership of the project.
The software and mHealth application should be geared towards the objectives of the program, suitable for local conditions and designed with the end-user in mind.
Identify what motivates the end-users, not just what the objectives of the program are. Use incentives to promote the consistent and effective use of the mHealth tool.
Perform social marketing.
Empower users through the mobile phone technology, particularly women.
If an area of the project is failing, fail quickly and publicly; adjust the program accordingly.

Policy:

Mainstream mHealth in the MOH and relevant government bodies.
Establish an e/mHealth structure to support the multi-sectoral mainstreaming of mHealth and advise the decision-makers on creating an enabling policy and regulatory environment for mHealth scale up.
Create an inter-ministerial working group and collective agreement involving stakeholders from the various ministries to support the scale up of mHealth programs.
Identify and promote the use of specific data, technology and interoperability standards.
Advocate for the integration of mHealth within local public and private healthcare initiatives; prioritize mHealth training for healthcare workers.

Global Strategy:

Establish a global network of key institutional players to inform an overall global approach to support the scale up of mHealth in developing countries.
Establish a global repository of mHealth applications, tools, best practices, recommendations and evaluation data. Institutional players must be willing to share and connect their existing repositories.
Create frameworks for success targeted towards informing policymakers, project designers and implementers, and donors.
Advocacy by institutional players to both internal and external stakeholders, particularly to donors, to utilize and integrate mHealth into programs in developing countries.
Donors and institutional players need to support the evaluation of initiatives in developing countries and the creation of common metrics, indicators and methodologies to evaluate impact on health outcomes.

The ADA is African-based nonprofit which focuses on scaling development in Africa through innovative solutions. This includes building capacity, transferring technology, hosting forums, and establishing cross sector partnerships. Jeannine Lemaire is the Director of eHealth and New Media at Actevis Consulting Group.

January 25, 2012/by actualize

Democracy & Governance, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Uganda urging citizens to register SIM cards

The Ugandan government has urged its citizens to ensure that their SIM cards are registered ahead of an upcoming deadline, in order for services to be uninterrupted.

The Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) made the appeal on Monday as they attempt to have all mobile phone cards registered with the government in an effort to crackdown on piracy and enable new technologies to be rolled out.

“The only person who should be afraid of SIM registration, naturally, is the criminally-minded, who knows that their days are numbered after all existing SIM Cards are registered,” said the commission head of communication, Fred Otunnu.

The UCC added in a statement that “as technology becomes a necessity in daily transactions like mobile money, banking and utility bills payment as well as communication, the exposure to ICT based crimes is on the rise.”

They believe that many crimes in the country are a result of a lack of oversight of mobile phones and its technology and the UCC says that the registration process will enable the government and service providers the ability to better track criminal activity in the country.

“SIM card registration ensures that all subscribers’ data is captured to curb crime. Given the fact that Uganda still lacks an effective Identity Management System, or a national identity database of its citizens,” according to Otunnu, adding that “the exercise is necessary to prevent the harassment people go through as regards other people using mobile phones to perpetrate crime.”

Otunnu added, in a statement to Bikyamasr.com, that the anonymous nature of the unregistered SIM cards “that kidnappers exploit.

“It is how extortionists are able to get away with their deed. Text scams flourish in such an environment. Terrorists, insurgents and enemies of the state and society hide behind untraceable numbers. Rumour mongers use it to sow confusion, spread malicious information or start hoaxes,” he explained.

He argued that SIM card registration promotes user accountability, since telecom companies keep details of all users.

“It also promotes national security and social order, in addition to making it easier to enforce existing legislation.

“When you receive a threatening call from an unknown source, the first step is to report to the Police. A case file is opened after taking your statement as a complainant. An investigation with the objective of identifying the caller gets underway.

“Usually the basic procedure is for the investigating officer to apply for a court order, which is presented to the respective telecom company for a printout of the phone call logs (list of all incoming and outgoing calls) on your mobile number,” he added.

Andrew Matapare

January 24, 2012/by actualize

Education, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

ICTs in the Classroom: 8 Recommendations from Zambia

A new report by Aptivate and the Centre for Commonwealth Education (University of Cambridge) suggests that there are practices that can be utilized to make ICT use in classrooms more effective. The study, conducted in part by iSchool.zm, an online multi-media eLearning package designed to cover the whole of the Zambian school curriculum, examined underprivileged school communities in Zambia.

The project entitled Appropriate New Technologies to Support Interactive Teaching in Zambian schools (ANTSIT) was funded by the UK government’s Department for International Development (DFID), and provided a detailed report including recommendations for introducing future ICT4Ed projects in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Future ICT4Ed programs can benefit from the researchers’ recommendations detailed in the report:

Purchase classroom sets, including a teacher laptop and student laptops, and don’t forget storage and transport needs

Provide training to teachers on the ICT tools and how to use them creatively, incorporating them into a participatory teaching approach

Use ICTs with non-ICT resources, such as mini blackboards, a cheap and invaluable teaching aid

Choose cheap netbooks (e.g. the Classmate netbook) over Android-based tablets which may be promising in the future but currently make keyboard-based entry activities difficult

Don’t mix multiple ICT devices within a single class if cost and maintenance problems are an issue

Invest time in setting up and configuring computers well so that tech problems don’t interfere with lesson planning or class time

Consider resource sharing between student computers through local wireless networks

Enable ICT ownership through microfinance

During the 6-month project, a team of researchers conducted over 30 visits to two under-resourced Zambian primary schools. Through observing classes and working with local science and mathematics teachers, the team was able to analyze and compare the effectiveness and applicability of a variety of mobile technologies in the classroom. Netbook, tablet and laptop computers, e-Book and wiki readers, digital cameras and mini-projectors along with Open Educational Resources and Open Source software were all considered when determining the most appropriate and versatile resources for creating an environment supportive of learning through active participation.

“Based on our understanding of ICT use in schools and of successful pedagogies such as interactive teaching plus collaborative, project- and enquiry-based learning, and given limited resources, what does an effective ICT-enabled Zambian school look like?”

The team worked with participating teachers not only to create lesson plans utilizing assigned ICTs, but also to ensure a participatory and interactive learning approach which research shows is key to ownership, sustainability, and replication. The report concluded that considering the often outdated and passive pedagogies used in many Zambian schools, the ‘most appropriate’ device is largely dependent on the particular classroom circumstances and the teaching goals and methods used by the teacher.

In addition to the full report, researchers from the Centre for Commonwealth Education, Bjoern Hassler and Sara Hennessy, created a video clip summarizing their findings that they presented at the “Mobile Technologies for Education: The experience in the developing world”, an event sponsored by Cambridge Education Services and co-hosted by the Humanitarian Centre and the Centre for Commonwealth Education at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. The event was part of a themed year on ICT4D (ICT for Development) run by the Humanitarian Centre in partnership with technology company ARM.

January 24, 2012/by actualize

Connectivity, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Orange to provide free access to mobile Wikipedia

In the first partnership of its kind, mobile telecommunications operator Orange and the Wikimedia Foundation will provide more than 70 million Orange customers in Africa and the Middle East (AMEA) with mobile access to Wikipedia – without incurring data usage charges.

Orange and the Wikimedia Foundation will provide 70 million Orange customers with mobile access to Wikipedia (image: PHP Magazine)

Orange and the Wikimedia Foundation today announced a major partnership designed to make knowledge more easily available to Orange mobile customers throughout Africa and the Middle East.

In the partnership Wikipedia, Orange and the Wikimedia Foundation will provide customers in both remote and urban areas of AMEA with access to Wikipedia.

“Wikipedia is an important service, a public good — and so we want people to be able to access it for free, regardless of what device they’re using,” said Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation.

“This partnership with Orange will enable millions of people to read Wikipedia, who previously couldn’t. We’re thrilled to be Orange’s partner in this important endeavour.”

In 2009, Orange and the Wikimedia Foundation formed the world’s first mobile and Internet partnership to expand the reach of Wikimedia’s projects through channels on Orange mobile and web portals in Europe.

“In countries where access to information is not always readily available, we are making it simple and easy for our customers to use the world’s most comprehensive online encyclopaedia. It is the first partnership of this kind in the world where we are enabling customers to access Wikipedia without incurring any data charges; and shows Orange’s ability, once again, to innovate in Africa and the Middle East, and bring more value to our customers,” added Marc Rennard, Group Executive Vice President of Orange, Africa, the Middle-East and Asia.

This new partnership will be gradually launched throughout 2012 across 20 African and Middle Eastern countries where Orange operates, with the first markets launching early in the year.

Staff writer

January 24, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Humanitarian Assistance, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Tapping into Local Knowledge in Times of Disaster

Photo Credit: iRevolution

The World Bank and Google have announced a collaborative agreement to use a free, web-based mapping tool called Google Map Maker that enables citizens to directly participate in the creation of maps by contributing their local knowledge.

The agreement is aimed at improving disaster preparedness and development efforts in countries around the world. Under the agreement, the World Bank will act as a conduit to make Google Map Maker source data, more widely and easily available to government organizations in the event of major disasters, and also for improved planning, management, and monitoring of public services provision.

The Importance of Local Knowledge

The most innovative component of this agreement, I believe, is the effort to blend scientific and local knowledge to solve local solutions. The need for integrating modern technology and indigenous knowledge into disaster management and prevention has long been overdue. While the technical capability of the new ICTs is huge, it also requires the mobilization of human resources, especially locally available human resources in tackling such disasters.

Just as the expertise of local citizens are being utilized to project their views in urban centers/cities through data-mapping, local knowledge, which is context specific, could be used to interpret the natural landscape of past natural disasters and using these indicators to help in forecasting future disasters. Studies have shown that local knowledge practices are cost effective, and incorporating them into scientific projects could help build local trust of the people. The use of local knowledge such as weather predictions, smells, sounds, cloud color, direction and types of wind, appearance and movements of insects, etc. could be tapped into, in disaster prone communities to help develop sustainable measures in interpreting early warning signals of natural disasters.

Google Map Maker

The Google Map Maker data includes detailed maps of more than 150 countries and regions, and identifies locations like schools, hospitals, roads, settlements and water points that are critical for relief workers to know about in times of crisis. The data will also be useful for planning purposes, as governments and their development partners can use the information to monitor public services, infrastructure and development projects; make them more transparent for NGOs, researchers, and individual citizens; and more effectively identify areas that might be in need of assistance before a disaster strikes.

The World Bank Institute (WBI) and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) will manage the World Bank’s involvement in the collaboration, building on previous joint mapping efforts. For example in April 2011, members of the Southern Sudanese Diaspora participated in a series of community mapping events organized by World Bank and Google to create comprehensive maps of schools, hospitals and other social infrastructure in this new country via Map Maker technology.

Google has enjoyed a strong relationship with World Bank for many years. As indicated by the World Bank Vice President for the Africa Region Obiageli Ezekwesili, “Today’s technology can empower civil society, including the diaspora, to collaborate and support the development process. This collaboration is about shifting the emphasis from organizations to people, and empowering them to solve their own problems and develop their own solutions using maps.”

Read more on the agreement and possible partnership and collaborations with the World Bank offices.

January 23, 2012/by actualize

Connectivity, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Public access to ICTs in Ghana

These days, it is common knowledge that the typical Internet café user is young and male. However, have you ever wondered how often these users access the Internet, how far they travel to reach the public venue, or how long ago they first used the Internet?

Recently, the Global Impact Study, a five-year study researching how libraries, telecentres, and cybercafes make a difference, released its first working paper. The study, spearheaded by the Technology & Social Change Group (TASCHA) at the University of Washington Information School surveyed “public venue ICT users” from Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, Ghana, and the Philippines on how they use information communication technology. One-thousand users per country were interviewed at approximately 250 public access locations scattered across a diverse geographical area.

Highlights of the working paper as they relate to Ghanaian public Internet users are noted below:

Age:

66% of users were under the age of 25
35% of users were between 20 and 24 years of age
Only 1% of users were age 50+

Gender:

25% of users were female (75% male)
33% of female users were between 12 and 15 years of age

Education:

The majority (82%) of users had at least a secondary level of education
51% of users were currently students
32% of users were currently employed

Income:

52% of users reported a family income of less than 100 cedis
27% of users reported a family income of greater than 300 cedies

Access:

26% of users have Internet access at home
97% of users have mobile phone access
47% of users use a public venue because there is “no other option for internet access”
6% of users use the public venue to get help from other users or staff

Distance:

62% of public access venues were within 1km from the user’s residence
6% of users traveled farther than 5km to reach the venue
78% of users first used the internet at a public access venue

Frequency:

41% of users use the venue nearly every day
88% of users use the venue at least once a week
49% of users have used a computer for over 5 years
Only 8% of users are new to using a computer in the past year

Misc:

Only 1% of users reported having a disability

Source: Sciadas, G., with Lyons, H., Rothschild, C., & Sey, A. (2012). Public access to ICTs: Sculpting the profile of users. Seattle: Technology & Social Change Group, University of Washington Information School.

January 20, 2012/by actualize

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

Ghana’s NCA Completes Strategic Plan

Photo Credit: NCA (Ghana)

The National Communications Authority (NCA) of Ghana has completed a project agreement with the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organization (CTO) to assist with the development of its 5-year Strategic Plan. The Plan will help the NCA to continue facilitating the fast growth that the country’s ICT sector has witnessed over the last decade, over which period, for example, Ghana’s mobile penetration rate grew from 0.67% to 81%.

The Strategic Plan provides the NCA with overarching Strategic Objectives, including:
•    ensuring effective market competition,
•    streamlining spectrum regulation,
•    improving consumer relations and perhaps most importantly,
•    accelerating broadband communications in Ghana.

The development of Internet and broadband usage in Ghana has been slow to date, as in much of Sub-Saharan Africa. Much of this can be attributed to the limited penetration of fixed line phones, the traditional means of Internet access. Though the proliferation of mobile networks has helped increase mobile Internet penetration in Ghana to 22%, the number of broadband users is still low when compared with more developed countries. In light of the disparities in usage, Ghana’s Ministry of Communications and NCA want to see a substantial rise in the number of users in order to induce the multiplier effect broadband can have on socio-economic development efforts.

In addition to formulating new strategic objectives, the CTO worked with their counterparts at the NCA to design a new institutional framework for the agency to ensure the Authority has the structure and human capacity to meet its objectives. As well as proposing some changes to the structure of the Authority, the framework details training requirements that will help the NCA meet current and future challenges.

The NCA’s Director General, Mr. Paarock VanPercy said: “The Strategic Plan developed with the assistance of CTO has helped to further crystallize our most important goals for the coming years and it ensures that the NCA remains focused on serving all ICT stakeholders, deepening competition and fostering growth and opportunity in the ICT/Communications industry. This should in turn ensure that service providers deliver the best quality of services to consumers.”

Speaking after NCA’s acceptance of the CTO final report, the CTO’s CEO, Professor Tim Unwin said, “The development of new Strategic Plans by Regulators is becoming ever more important as ICT sectors become more competitive, complex and diverse. The CTO is delighted to have been able to assist the NCA with the development of its Strategic Plan that will enable it to seize the opportunities created by the improvement in ICT infrastructure and access. Collaboration between the NCA and CTO has been very successful, and the CTO looks forward to assisting the NCA implement the plan over the coming years.”

January 20, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

The World Bank Launches e-Sourcebook on Ag.

Photo Credit: The World Bank

The official launch of the World Bank’s e-Sourcebook, “ICT in Agriculture: Connecting Smallholders to Knowledge, Networks and Institutions” took place at the premises of the Bank on Wednesday January 18 2012, with a number of activities.

Among these activities was a panel discussion on the key modules in the book moderated by Mark E. Cackler, the Manger of the Agriculture and Rural Development Department of the World Bank. Members of the panel included Willem Janssen, the Lead Agriculture Specialist in the Latin America and Caribbean Region; Laurent Besancon, Senior Regulatory Specialist in charge of ICT portfolio for the Sub-Saharan Africa region; Tuukka Castren, Senior Forest Specialist at the Agriculture and Rural Development (ARD) department of the Bank; Aparajita Goyal, an Economist at the Agriculture and Rural Development (ARD); and Shaun Ferris, Senior Technical Advisor for Agriculture and Environment at Catholic Relief Services (CRS).

Introducing the book, Tim Kelly, the Lead ICT Policy Specialist in the ICT unit of the Bank stated clearly that the e-Sourcebook is neither academic paper, a report nor cookbook for use. However, it provides development practitioners and governments with examples of where ICT in agriculture has been used, challenges and lessons learned using ICT, and guidelines on project development. It also attempts to address how ICT can be mainstreamed into agricultural interventions, research and entrepreneurship.

A Science Advisor at the Agriculture and Rural Development Department at the Bank, Eija Pehu shared some of the key findings and themes from the book. This includes the need to focus on the demand for services but not on the technology, understanding the users and their demands, providing the enabling environment, exploring sustainable business models, being aware of differential impacts of ICT projects such as gender, age and socio-economic status of the users, and recognizing that smart and higher capacity tools are becoming more affordable.

The highlight of the panel presentation featured an interesting mobile application demonstrated by Shaun Ferris from CRS that is being used for data collection, monitoring and assessment by agricultural field workers to share information and report to the main office. iFormBuilder is currently being used by Catholic Relief Services in a number of remote communities to facilitate data sharing and reporting.

Questions and Answer Session

Two main themes that emerged during the Q&A session were the need to i) identify and show evidence for the impacts of these ICT applications in agriculture on the socio-economic status and livelihood conditions of the farmers; and ii) look more into innovative ways of using ICTs to increase productivity of farmers in addition to the current emphasis on market information systems. It was pointed out that while the e-Sourcebook has good examples of each of the two above areas, more need to be done.

Also a number of academic and research institutes are currently working with some of the ICT projects to understand the relationship between ICTs use by local farmers and improvement in their socio-economic conditions. The conclusion, however, was that it is going to be a difficult task identifying this relationship looking at the number of ways by which the farmers use a given ICT. For example a mobile phone may be used to check weather updates, as an alarm clock, a clock to inform farmers about when to leave for home, make phone calls, check emails, etc.

The Structure of the Book

Organized into 4 main themes and 15 modules:

Section One (Introduction) covers topics like ICT in Agricultural Development (Module 1); Making ICT Infrastructure, Appliances and Services More Accessible and Affordable in Rural Areas (Module 2); Anywhere, Anytime – Mobile Devices and Their Impact on Agriculture and Rural Development (Module 3); and Extending the Benefits: Gender Equitable-ICT Enabled Agricultural Development (Module 4).

Section Two (Enhancing Productivity on the Farm) includes Increasing Crop, Livestock and Fishery Productivity Through ICT (Module 5); ICTs As Enablers of Agricultural Innovation Systems (Module 6); Broadening Smallholders’ Access to Financial Services Through ICTs (Module 7); and Farmer Organizations Work Better with ICT (Module 8).

The Third Section (Assessing Markets and Value Chains) addresses issues of Strengthening Agricultural Marketing with ICT (Module 9); ICT Applications for Smallholder Inclusion in Agribusiness Supply Chains (Module 10); ICT Applications for Agricultural Risk Management (Module 11); and Global Markets, Global Challenges: Improving Food Safety and Traceability While Empowering Smallholders Through ICT (Module 12).

The Fourth and Final Section (Improving Public Service Provision) covers Strengthening Rural Governance, Institutions, and Citizen Participation Through ICT (Module 13); ICT for Land Administration and Management (Module 14) and Using ICT to Improve Forest Governance (Module 15).

What Next at the Bank?

The Bank will be looking into the operational challenges of some of these ICTs applications identified in the book, develop regional task force to follow-up with the progress, and also continue to organize online fora on selected topics in the book, the first of which took place in December 2011 on “Strengthening Agricultural Marketing with ICT.“

The e-Sourcebook is freely available here.

January 20, 2012/by actualize

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