Originally posted on the GBI Portal – Page 30

Mobile phones to lead a revolution in sub-Saharan Africa?

Social-media-driven Arab Spring uprisings brought an end to long-standing dictatorial regimes. If the movement is to spread south of the Sahara, it will be triggered by mobile phones.

A recent report by the GSM Association (GSMA), a global group representing the interests of mobile operators, claims that Africa is now the fastest growing mobile market and the second largest in the world with over 620 million mobile connections as of September, a figure expected to reach 735 million by the end of 2012.

“The mobile industry in Africa is booming and a catalyst for immense growth, but there is scope for far greater development,” said Peter Lyons, Director of Spectrum Policy, Africa and Middle East, GSMA.

The booming mobile industry is not only contributing to overall economic development but it is also empowering citizens.

For instance, the GSMA report estimates that the mobile ecosystem employs over 5 million Africans and contributes US$56bn to the regional economy, equivalent to 3.5% of total GDP.

Through m-Agri applications, farmers are able to access vital agricultural information, training, and advice on pests, diseases, weather, fertilizers, and best farming practices. According to the International Food Policy Research Institute, 65% of the population on the continent relies on subsistence farming. This underlines how crucial mobile connectivity can be to the livelihoods of most Africans.

Community Health Workers (CHWs) in UN’s Millennium Villages in Uganda, Rwanda, and Kenya receive professional training through m-Learning modules accessible on their mobile phones. CHWs do not have to travel in urban areas where they would have to pay exorbitant fees for an education.

Mobile technology is changing the way healthcare is delivered on the continent. In Rwanda, m-Health applications enable health workers in the field to use mobile phones in data collection related to outbreak of contagious diseases, for instance, and report the information in real time.

In Kenya, mobile phones have made money transfer as quickly and as easily as sending a text message. The most successful m-Banking initiative, and the first to operate on a large scale is, M-Pesa, a joint venture between mobile phone giant Vodafone and Kenya’s Safaricom. The M stands for mobile, and Pesa is Swahili for money.

The report credits market liberalization policies, foreign direct investment, rollout of mobile network infrastructure, affordability of mobile phones, and substantial regional economic growth for the mobile industry boom.

It is clear that a digital revolution is already underway and as mobile phones promotes information exchange within and among nations, and continue to empower citizens in the process, African will demand more from their leaders. That is a good enough reason to hope for revolutionary changes towards democratic governance.

November 14, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Climate Change, Energy, Environment, Environment, Environmental Compliance, eWaste, Natural Resources Management, Originally posted on the GBI Portal, Pollution Prevention

Nigeria’s Mobile Phone Base Stations Go Green

Photo Credit: E-Site

Bharti Airtel, an international telecommunications company, has announced a deal with Ericsson, a leading provider of mobile telecommunications equipment, to use Flexenclosure’s green energy solution called E-site for upgrading an initial lot of 250 mobile phone base stations powered by diesel in Nigeria.

The contract enables Ericsson to be responsible for implementation and maintenance services for all the sites. “The new green and highly cost efficient base station solution makes not only environmental sense, but also financial sense for our customers, enabling the efficient deployment of services to previously unserved or under-served areas,” Ericsson Head of Sub-Saharan Africa Region Lars Linden said.

Airtel has successfully tested the solution in Kenya and has experienced significant reduction in diesel usage and CO2 emissions against a round-the-clock diesel powered site. The company also believes that the ‘green’ mobile initiative will improve operations and minimize base stations’ environmental impact.

Flexenclosure is a Swedish start-up that develops innovative solutions for energy-efficient mobile phone coverage in developing nations. The advanced control system of the E-site solution assures the storage of optimal power from the alternative energy sources (solar or wind) and the process is efficiently managed through the utilization of its battery bank.

The company estimates that there are 40,000 mobile phone base stations in Africa, and most of those rely on a diesel engine for power. Each base station takes anything up to 5200 gallons of the increasingly expensive hydrocarbon soup each year to ensure that people will be able to use their mobile phones. That’s around 210,000,000 gallons of diesel every single year, which isn’t good for the environment or the profit margins of the mobile providers. The technology has the potential to lower diesel usage by up to 80% – that’s a saving of 169,000,000 gallons of diesel each year for African telecommunication companies and that’s the byproducts of burning 169 million gallons of diesel that won’t be entering our atmosphere.

November 14, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Extension Service, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

“Agriculture Goes High Tech” – A Decade of Digital Video!

Photo Credit: Penn State Extension

It is over 10 years now that the Commonwealth of Learning Media Empowerment (COLME) program hit the media with the headline “Agriculture Goes High Tech With Digital Video”. This came up as a result of the success of their pilot project that used digital technology to produce farm instructional videos in Ghana and Jamaica for extension purposes.

Ever since, agriculture has gone up from one level of “high tech” to another where we now use thousands of “apps” for agriculture, even in the remotest part of the world. But what is the progress made so far in the development and implementation of digital video technologies in agricultural extension over the years? Have we been circling around the same principle with different technologies over the years? Is there a room for improving the application of videos in agriculture? What are some of the similarities and differences between some of the models used or being used by the implementing agencies?

I believe the incorporation of high techs in agriculture is not just to “romanticize” it but to ensure the benefits of the users – mostly rural farmers who are disadvantaged by virtue of their location (see my previous post on “Rurality”). As a result, the premise for the COLME program at the time was based on a feasibility study conducted in Jamaica that showed that agricultural extension workers had access to training but the system of ‘disseminating’ the information to farmers was not effective or efficient. Ever since (late 2000), the use of videos in capturing and disseminating agricultural information has progressed with several improved models currently being used by farmers all over the world. These models could be classified into either using videos to transmit scientific knowledge and innovations to farmers or using videos to share practices and experiences between and among farmers.

Below are few models that worth mentioning as I reflect on the future of digital videos in agricultural research and extension:

1 – Commonwealth of Learning Media Empowerment (COLME) and Communication of Scientific Knowledge

Beginning from the COLME program, the use of digital video has improved extension services delivery over the traditional radio technology, which is use to support face-to-face information delivery to farmers. The COLME program acknowledged that using videos instead of radio could improve the efficiency and effectiveness of agricultural extension delivery. In collaboration with the Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA) in Jamaica, COLME assisted agricultural extension workers to use low-cost video production tools to develop training materials on good farm practices. Improvement is seen in visual content for demonstration to farmers, step-by-step training methods watched by farmers, and increasing access to content by illiterate farmers who could not read.

This was an excellent innovation at the time with emphasis on scientists using video technology to improve the delivery of their innovations to farmers. Scientists capturing their own demonstrations on videos and sharing them with farmers resulted in improved farm management practices by the farmers who were invloved.

2 – PROLINNOVA (PROmoting Local INNOVAtion) and Sharing of Local Knowledge and Innovations

Around the same time as the COLME program, PROLINNOVA an NGO-initiated multistakeholder program that promotes local innovation in ecologically oriented agriculture and natural resource management (NRM) also started using videos to capture and document farmers’ local knowledge and innovations. With the emphasis on farmers’ local innovations, PROLINNOVA went a step ahead of the COLME program to not only disseminate external content through videos but also utilize internal innovations. Approaches such as Farmer Led Documentation (FLD) and Participatory Innovation Development (PID) have been used extensively in the developing nations to demonstrate the effectiveness of user-led innovation for sustainable development, and the advantages in building strong farmer-extension-researcher partnerships.

The strength of PROLINNOVA in the use of digital videos for agricultural improvement could be attributed to their use of local knowledge and innovations of the people. This I believe is key for the future use of videos in agriculture. When local farmers from one community watch farm management practices of their colleagues from another community, it gives them a better understanding of the process than the traditional extension service delivery.

3 – Agro-Insight and the use of Socio-Technical System in Video Production

The work of Agro-Insight in the use of digital videos for improving extension services delivery cannot be overlooked. As a dynamic enterprise that merges expertise from science, communication and arts to support sustainable agriculture and equitable trade, Agro-Insight works closely with institutions and organizations to enhance their impact on rural communities through reflective research and effective video, radio and print material production. In addition to the emphasis on local farmers activities, Agro-Insight aims at contributing to a more sustainable agriculture and trade by enhancing reflection and learning among farmers, the R&D community, agribusinesses and civil society.

The combination of R&D with local practices through videos is a plus with the Agro-Insight innovation. Rural farmers do believe in their local innovations but understanding these innovations through research, and seeking farmers view on the potency of these innovations in the current technological age is needed.

4 – Video Viewing Club (VVC) and Farmer Involvement in Production and Analysis of Videos

Another specific project that is using videos to improve agricultural production is the Video Viewing Club (VVC) of the Sustainable Tree Crop Production (STCP) program of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA). Using farmer training activities such as Video Viewing Clubs, local farmers are trained to collect data on their own farming activities, write scripts, edit and produce short videos/clips that cover a number of farm practices. The project, which started mainly within the cocoa sector, is expected to cover some other food crops such as cassava in the near future. Cocoa farmers in clubs are trained to document farm management practices in topics such pruning, black pod disease control, harvesting/pod breaking and fermentation techniques. These clips are viewed with experts and discussions take place for further explanation of issues arising from the videos.

VVC innovation is also unique by putting local farmers into small groups and training them to be in charge of the research process – observing issues in their communities, gathering data through interviews with their colleagues, writing scripts and producing videos. The most positive part of this innovation, I think, is the discussion that takes place between the club members, other community members and the scientists during the viewing of the clips. This will lead to greater understanding of the process and activities that have been documented.

5 – Digital Green and the Combination of Science and Technology in Videos

Digital Green is a newer approach to the use of digital videos in agricultural extension services delivery. It emphasizes a socio-technical system approach by combining the technologies with existing people-based extension systems to amplify their effectiveness. It taps into local social networks to connect farmers with experts to minimize the distance between teacher and learner. Videos are produced by farmers; of farmers; and for farmers across the field locations. The video production process is participatory, human-mediated instruction model for video dissemination and training, a hardware and software technology platform for exchanging data in areas with limited Internet and electrical grid connectivity, and an iterative model to progressively better address the needs and interests of the community with analytical tools and interactive phone-based feedback channels.

Digital Green is also utilizing farmers as a key resource in the documentation process. Also acknowledged by this innovation is the importance of the social processes rather than the technology. If the technology is to have impact, the social processes need to be well organized.

So what is the future of Digital Videos in Agricultural Research and Extension?

I believe there are a great number of projects and programs out there that are currently using videos in agricultural extension service delivery. These other programs as well as those mentioned above do all have one common goal – to improve knowledge sharing through digital technologies for increased agricultural productivity. These approaches are seen in agricultural experts developing scientific methods of farming through videos for farmers’ use; training farmers to use videos to document their farm management practices (not necessarily their local knowledge and innovations); and then training farmers to document their own local knowledge and innovations that could be shared with other farmers.

In addition to the use of videos in extension services delivery, videos are also being used in agricultural research work. The Power of Video in Research by ICT-KM at CGIAR argue that videos and the Internet have revolutionized the way in which an increasing number of scientists are now communicating ideas and the results of their research. There are easier ways now to use videos to record scientific results and then use them in farmer education. Videos are being used to efficiently convey large amounts of information and depict scientific procedures that would otherwise require pages upon pages of written text to achieve the same level of understanding; show things that take place over time as if they are face-to-face events; raise awareness of issues; document science and share new scientific methodologies that can help build capacity; and generate new applications and innovation.

November 10, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Health, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Mobile Health App Launched in Kenya Will Increase Access to Healthcare Information

MedAfrica, the Nairobi-launched mobile health app that makes basic health information more readily available through phones, is generating buzz in mHealth for Africa.

The app was developed by the start-up tech firm, Shimba Technologies, and boasts a sustainable, innovative business model. Shimba CEO Steve Mutinda says the tech company “aims to achieve by creating platforms that facilitate dissemination of information and build communities around the different issues and conditions [in health] while at the same time converging all stakeholders and amplifying their efforts.”

The platform provides information such as doctor and hospital listings, drug authenticators, and lists of symptoms with suggestions for self-diagnosis. This sort of symptom checking could be very useful in countries like Kenya, where as little as 14 physicians exist for every 100,000 people. Members of MedAfrica explain that because the app is providing such valuable information to clients, as well as recommending good doctors and dependable, lab-tested drugs, users are willing to pay for the service.

Originally meant to provide health information solely in Kenya, MedKenya was the overall winner for the East African mobile tech event Pivot25 competition. Changing the name to broaden the app’s potential scope, MedAfrica presented at Demo Fall 2011; in video below, VentureBeat interviews Mutinda and a colleague.

The best news about the launch of the app is its potential scalability. The organization wants to use its launch in Kenya as a road map to scale the product to other African countries. MedAfrica’s mission is to reach every household in Africa.

The content for the app will come from partners such as the Nairobi Hospital and open data from the Kenyan government. During the launch, Kenya’s ICT Board Chairwoman Catherine Ngahu called on other medical institutions, physicians, and health providers to supply content for the app as well.

Given Kenya’s track record in developing some of the most innovative apps in Africa, if not the world, it’s no surprise that MedAfrica has garnered so much attention and holds so much hope for expansion.

November 9, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Energy, Environment, Environment, Environmental Compliance, Natural Resources Management, Originally posted on the GBI Portal, Pollution Prevention

Join the World’s First Social Energy Marketplace Today!

At a recently ended Web 2.0 Summit held in San Francisco California, a Berlin-based startup called Changers announced the release of a portable solar charging system that aims to reduce global warming by shifting society to the use of a currency backed by the sun. The Changers Solar System gives the user a way to harness the sun’s energy, liberates the user from the grid, recharges all kinds of devices, helps the user to socialize his/her energy production, and enables him/her to compete with others to earn Changers Credits that can be spent in the Changers Marketplace.

The Changers Starter Kit which is open for a pre-order beginning now as you read this piece, includes the revolutionary Changers Kalhuohfummi solar battery and the Changers Maroshi solar module and costs $149. The Changers Kalhuohfummi is a simple, one-button device that communicates with Changers.com. Inside is advanced intelligence that accurately measures how much energy it captures and stores in the built-in battery, ready to charge any smartphone or tablet. The Changers Kalhuohfummi solar battery is powered by the Changers Maroshi flexible solar module, which generates up to four Watts per hour — enough to charge the Kalhuohfummi battery in four hours. The Changers Maroshi solar panel, which is produced in Colorado, USA, can be attached to any window or sunny surface.

The Director of Communications, Hans Raffauf explains how the technology works:

http://youtu.be/Ee9WW2J8FdE

The system helps you to:

Capture the Sun: Produce your own energy. The Changers personal solar charging kit enables any of us to produce and consume renewable energy. Now, anyone can start producing energy and know exactly how much CO2 they’ve saved. Find a sunny spot, plug it in, and start harnessing the natural energy of the sun. Pretty soon, you’ll be much more aware of where you get the best sunlight and how to optimize your energy production and consumption.
Charge your Device: Change your thinking. Plug in your Apple iPhone/iPad/iPod, Android, Kindle (or any of 1,000 other devices) and charge it using the energy you captured. The Changers Kalhuohfummi will recharge your device as fast as a regular charger and radically change the way you think about energy. Now, you’re a Changer – an autonomous producer and consumer of your own renewable energy.
Become Part of a Movement: Tell the world. Upload your energy production statistics to the Changers community to visualize your actual CO2 savings. See how much energy you’ve produced and compare your score with others. Share your experience and contribution via Facebook and Twitter. Your pioneering actions will inspire others to follow.
Get Rewarded: Turn your green behavior into Changers Credits. The amount of energy you produce is automatically converted into Changers Credits, which can be spent at retail partners on the Changers Marketplace who share your commitment to a greener planet.

To know more and become social with green energy use go to Changers

November 8, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Climate Change, Extension Service, Farmer to Farmer, Food Security, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Farmer Innovations – The Case of Tanzanian Farmers & Smartphones

Photo Credit: Sauti ya wakulima

Through a collaborative knowledge base, farmers from the Chambezi region of the Bagamoyo District in Tanzania are using smartphones equipped with GPS modules and an application that makes it easy to send pictures and sounds to the Internet. The smartphones are used to document their daily practices, make reports about their observations regarding changes in climate and related issues, and also to interview other farmers, expanding thus their network of social relationships and engaging in a process of mutual learning.

This is just one of the stories of local people innovating through the challenges they face on the field. Over the years, local people are known to innovate due to necessity, changing conditions, and curiosity, doing informal experiments on new ideas either from their own ingenuity or learned from other farmers, researchers, extensionists and other information sources like the mass media. But over and over again, scientists have learnt very little about these innovations in order to take advantage of them to improve their scientific research work.

The farmers at Chambezi not only struggle because of insufficient infrastructure and unreliable markets for their products, but they are also facing the challenges of a changing local climate. Less rains, less underground water and unprecedented threats caused by pests and plant diseases are some of the pressing issues that they have to deal with. However, they know that by sharing their knowledge on how to cope with these problems, they can become stronger and find ways to overcome them. They hope that, by communicating their observations to extension officers and scientific researchers, who can be in remote locations, they can participate in the design of new strategies for adaptation.

In order for their voices to be heard, the farmers gather audiovisual evidence of their practices using smartphones and publish images and voice recordings on the Internet. The project, which started early this year, is currently being sponsored by the North South Center of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, with the support of the Department of Botany of the University of Dar es Salaam and the Zurich Node of the Planetary Collegium (Z-Node). The participants of Sauti ya wakulima, a group of five men and five women, who gather every Monday at the agricultural station in Chambezi, use a laptop computer and a 3G Internet connection to view the images and hear the voice recordings that they posted during the week. They also pass the two available smartphones on to other participants, turning the phones into shared tools for communication.

For more information about this innovation, visit the Sauti ya wakulima blog and site.

November 8, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Environment, Environment, Environmental Compliance, Forestry, Natural Resources Management, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Mobile Innovations for Climate Change Resilience!

Photo Credit: Resurgence

One of the new approaches to the Climate Change menace being explored by most of the key stakeholders in the sector is the “Resilience” approach which focuses on enabling communities to better withstand, recover from, and adapt to the changing conditions posed by climate change.

This approach cannot be fully functional in this information age without the central role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in general, and mobile technologies in specific. This is becoming obvious especially in the continent of Africa where the increase in terms of the number of mobile phone subscribers and penetration has been greatest. Recognizing this, the Global Humanitarian Forum together with Ericsson, the World Meteorological Organization, National Meteorological Services (NMSs), the Earth Institute at Columbia University, Zain and other mobile phone operators are aiming to deploy up to 5,000 automatic weather stations (AWSs) at wireless network sites across Africa within the next few years. This public-private-partnership aims to reinforce the capacities and the capabilities of national meteorological services with the goal of supporting local communities worst impacted by climate change through the improvement of weather monitoring.

In early 2009, the president of the Global Humanitarian Forum, Mr. Kofi Annan announced the Weather Information for All (WIFA) Initiative and as of the end of June, the WIFA Initiative have completed Phase I through installation of 19 AWSs in three East African countries – 1 in Kenya, 9 in Tanzania and 9 in Uganda. All 19 AWSs are fully operational and successfully transferring raw weather data to the National Meteorological Stations (NMSs). Automatic weather stations (AWS) are automated type of traditional weather stations that enable measurements from remote areas to save human labor. While AWS are known to deliver via local link to a computer system or via telecommunications or satellite systems, GSM mobile phone technology has also been used.

The clip below tells the Climate Change story and the efforts by the Global Humanitarian Forum to build the resilience for vulnerable communities:

The phase II of the Initiative is currently ongoing with the target of about 500 AWSs to be progressively installed throughout Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, with the later addition of Burundi and Rwanda. A recent report by Uganda at the beginning of this year emphasized the utilization of mobile phone technology to develop a sustainable warning service that reduces the vulnerability of communities in the Lake Victoria Region to weather hazards. The report indicated that the quality of data being collected by the AWSs located at mobile phone mast sites is evaluated through a systematic and scientific (peer reviewed) data trial. This has led to the routine dissemination of more accurate, timely and reliable weather forecasts and warnings to the pilot communities of fishermen, in Uganda, for the duration of the trial. Seasonal and other weather information provided via Uganda Department of Meteorology website and disseminated via mobile WEB, or WAP, for the duration of the pilot for the chosen agricultural communities.

Approximately 70% of Africans rely on farming for their livelihood, and over 95% of Africa’s agriculture depends on natural rainfall – rain-fed agriculture. At the same time, rural farmers across the continent are known to utilize the strength of their local knowledge, skills, experiences, observation and insights to maintain or improve their livelihood in the absence of scientific resources. Unfortunately, the “Wicked Problem” of climate change is rendering some of these innovations and experiences unreliable. The dwindling weather and climate is preventing rural farmers from accurately predicting the weather and thereby thwarting them from making informed decisions, such as when to plant and harvest their crops.

In addition to this direct utilization of mobile technologies to gather weather information remotely and deliver up-to-date information to computer systems that are being used by rural communities, the ubiquitous use of mobile technologies could be see in a host of other subsidiary areas. A Reuters article pointed out at least ten ways by which ICTs and mobile technologies could help in climate change adaptation. Among these are:

i) The use of mobile phones, community radio and the Internet to enable information sharing, awareness raising and capacity building on key health threats, enabling effective prevention and response;

ii) ICT applications such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are being used to facilitate the monitoring and provision of relevant environmental information to relevant stakeholders, including decision-making processes for the adaptation of human habitats;

iii) Mobile phones and SMS are being used for reporting locally-relevant indicators (e.g. likelihood of floods) to greater accuracy and more precise flood warnings to communities;

iv) Access to insurance and information about national programs/assistance available to support vulnerable populations after floods, hurricanse, and others are being made possible through the Internet or the mobile phone;

v) ICTs are being used to enhance information about pest and disease control, planting dates, seed varieties, irrigation applications, and early warning systems, as well as improving market access, among others;

vi) Mobile phones can serve as tools to disseminate information on low-cost methods for desalination, using gray water and harvesting rainwater for every day uses, as well as for capacity building on new irrigation mechanisms, among others.

Mobile technologies are of no doubt capable of helping to prepare vulnerable communities to deal with stresses and disturbances as a result of climate change, while retaining the same basic structure and ways of functioning, hence an excellent tool for climate change resilience.

November 7, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Energy, Environment, Environment, Environmental Compliance, eWaste, Natural Resources Management, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

“All that Glitters is Not Always Gold”, Says Van Aartsen!

Photo Credit: IISD

“Using ICT for a greener economy is important, but also complex. It’s a solution, but also a challenge, says former Dutch Minister of Agriculture and current Mayor of The Hague Jozias van Aartsen. Mr Van Aartsen said this during his final keynote speech at the just ended ICT for Greener Economy Mini-Conference in Developing Countries organized by IICD as part of its 15^th Anniversary celebration.

Pointing out the ‘two-edged sword nature’ of ICTs in the Green Economy, the Mayor of The Hague mentioned some contributions that ICTs could make to the greener economy as well as the challenges of the new technologies. With the focus of the conference on the developing nations, Mr Van Aartsen was very passionate about the prospects of encouraging farmers in developing countries to participate in the green economy through organic farming, which could improve their livelihoods within the green economy. These farmers would have to be certified thereby enabling them to use their organic status to add value to their crops since the goods would have to be traced and tracked through the whole value chain system.

Mr Van Aartsen continued that besides tracking and tracing, ICTs also bring people together, helping them to educate themselves and improve their businesses. He cited a group of organic coffee farmers from Ecuador who are using their online network to receive essential support on inputs, crop management and marketing. He also mentioned the potential use of ICTs in water harvesting, drip irrigation, and intelligent planting schemes – all of which can help the farmer to get greater volumes and higher quality yields from the land in a sustainable way.

Touching on the other side of the coin, Mr Van Aartsen stated that “ICT use does not only result in greater demand for energy. Greater efficiency also leads to greater consumption”. He cautioned that when applying ICTs to solutions for greener economy, actors should make sure that they have made a proper cost-benefit analysis. When considering energy efficient solutions, actors should make use of clean energy sources such as solar energy. The overall goal should be “how sustainability of local economies can be strengthened, especially how income and food can be secured for the less privileged”.

DRC elections: ICTs to inspire women to run for office

Female candidates are turning out in numbers to learn how information and communication technologies (ICTs) can enhance their candidacies in upcoming elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The country will be holding its presidential and parliamentary elections for the second time in its history on November 28. Women were significantly under-represented during the 2006 elections. According to the National Democratic Institute (NDI), less than 1,100 out of 9,000 candidates for parliament were women.

In the hope of building on previous elections’ outcomes, the International Knowledge Network of Women in Politics (iKNOW Politics) conducted a campaign workshop aimed at inspiring DRC women to run for office, training them in ICT skills.

Mariam Diallo, the sub-Saharan Africa coordinator for iKNOW Politics, gave participants tutorials on how to use the network’s website which allows users to share information, ask questions to international experts, and take part in e-discussion on various political topics.

According to NDI, participants were also taught how to use social media and the Internet for political campaigning, to manage and plan an election campaign; and conduct political communications.

A similar campaign was conducted in Afghanistan during the 2009 provincial council elections with positive results.

Salam Watandar, Internews’ radio programming service funded by USAID, carried out an outreach campaign encouraging women to run for office after it emerged that not a single female candidate had registered for provincial council elections in eight provinces. The message to women was clear: it is your duty to run for council, Internews press release reveals.

Afghan women responded to the call. The Independent Election Commission reported that a total of 342 women had registered for 124 seats on provincial councils around the country.

November 1, 2011/by actualize

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

Is mHealth Taking Off in the Middle East?

A recent report compiled at the United Arab Emirates’ Mobile Show illustrates that citizens overwhelmingly believe that the mobile industry in the Middle East can have a positive effect on the health sector, emphasizing the great potential for mHealth in the region.

Mhealth – or mobile health – is a consistently reported topic in the ICT4D field, with projects popping up in developing countries on a daily basis. While many of these projects are being undertaken in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, there is less news on mHealth initiatives in the Middle East.

Photo credit: mHealth Insight

Take Health Unbound (HUB), for example, the mHealth Alliance’s open source database of mHealth projects around the world. Of the 217 projects in the database, only about 8 are located in the Middle East, as opposed to 37 in Southeast Asia and a whopping 109 in sub-Saharan Africa.

But recent reports indicate that more attention is being given to mHealth in the Middle East. One article states that the Middle East has been a “hotbed for mHealth development,” reporting on various mHealth initiatives in the region. Qatar’s Supreme Council of Health announced that it will launch an app that locates clinicians, physicians and other health resources in the country, and two mobile companies in Qatar have partnered up to offer health and wellness education using mobile phones. In addition, the first mplushealth conference will take place at the Arab Health Exhibition and Congress in Dubai in January. The conference will bring together healthcare professionals, insurance providers, government regulators and telecommunications decision-makers to explore mHealth opportunities in the Middle East and hopefully pave the way for the sector to thrive.

The UAE Mobile Show report also revealed challenges that need to be overcome before mHealth can take off in the region. 73 percent of respondents indicated that patient-physician confidentiality was a major concern in implementing a mobile health system, as well as privacy, security, high costs, network infrastructure and technology.

Photo credit: AMEinfo.com

These obstacles may be part of the reason that mHealth initiatives in the region have remained primarily in the hands of independent mobile app developers, without much governmental support. But as attention on mobile health in the Middle East continues to grow, the region could be one to watch for future mHealth innovations.

November 1, 2011/by actualize

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