Originally posted on the GBI Portal – Page 46

More Technologies, Same Social Inequalities

Photo Credit: CharlesFred on flickr

Since the Arab Spring uprisings, human rights activists worldwide have championed the power of technology, mainly the Internet and mobile phones, as tools for democracy and change. Evidence shows that they are right, social media played a role in bringing down dictatorships in the Middle East and North Africa. But other evidence shows that technology actually often reinforces social inequalities in other instances, giving more voice to the powerful, further drowning out the meek cries of the politically weak.

Social media has been successful when all social classes unite to take down the big bad evil dictators. The Arab Spring is the contemporary poster boy for this movement. The proletariat united, rose up, and took down the bourgeois in Tunisia and Egypt, and is still fighting in Syria, Libya, and other nations. Twitter hashtags and facebook groups were large players in mobilizing protestors, who came from all backgrounds—rich, middle-class, and poor—and simply communicated with their mobile phones to organize mass movements.

It seems logical, then, to assume that social media and technology penetration will lead to more democracy and social justice. The more blackberries in a country, the less the economic disparity. The more rural telecenters, the less political corruption. Or at least so goes the thinking.

Studies show otherwise. To the extent that inequalities between social classes are affected at all by the increase in ICT usage, they often became stronger and disparity increases. In a DFID study in 2005 on telephone use in India (Gujarat), Mozambique, and Tanzania, researchers found the most wealthy and educated people used phones more and with greater frequency, in both urban and rural areas. Other studies show that not only do more educated and wealthier people have greater access to ICTs, they also value them more, and use their for more development related activities as opposed to entertainment than poorer populations. Furthermore, the rich and smart are far more likely to produce digital content, solidifying the stronghold of the elite in societal knowledge production.

The relationship between ICT penetration and social inequalities, then, is more complex than the Arab Spring would suggest. The difference with the Arab Spring is that the people united to take down one leader, whereas daily life features far more social classes and political opinions, halting social change, or at least considerably slowing it down. While technology helped bring social justice to entire nations, it did not eliminate social classes within the nations.

In order to decrease social inequalities in ICT usage, then, ICT designers and national policymakers should consider stipulations to favor usage of their technology by marginalized social classes. Whether it be reducing costs to allow poorer classes to buy the product or developing voice recognition technology to engage the illiterate, extra effort will be needed to reduce the social inequality of ICT usage. Preliminary efforts by USAID’s Women in Development initiative show promise; other agencies should mimic their efforts to increase ICT usage among digital minority populations. Without these extra efforts to assist marginalized populations, ICTs will only further embed developing nations with social and economic inequalities, leading to future instability and lower quality of life.

July 19, 2011/by actualize

Democracy & Governance, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

The Dissident Internet: Who Opens the Gateway?

Photograph: Ahmed Jadallah/Reuters

This year’s Arab Spring revitalized claims that information technologies can serve as a catalyst for fueling revolutions and liberate oppressed citizens. Amid the most recent Syrian and Libyan eruptions, though, opinions on the role of the U.S. government and Western companies are largely divided.

While some argue that the U.S. has created programs to help activists circumvent censorship technologies and amplify their voices; others argue that Western companies are the creators of censorship technologies and the Internet should be taken back from the corporations.

Last Wednesday, Future Tense sponsored an event in Washington exploring the promise and limitations of new technologies in spreading democracy.

Two panelists on different sides of the spectrum weighed in the West’s role in these initiatives.

Michel Posner, Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, discussed the U.S. government’s approaches to conflicts in the Middle East, citing $70 million in grants being spent toward these endeavors.

He noted approximately 12 circumvention programs currently being funded by the U.S. State Department including a cell phone panic button, Internet suitcases, a “slingshot” for censored content, and training to help activists operating in repressive areas.

Posner described the Internet as crucial to assisting these past revolutions, and for those in the future.

In the next 20 years five billion people worldwide who will come online, he projected—will an open Internet allow them to take part in the global conversation? Or will they have web-filtered content similar to the search engine Baidu in China, or have to go on a censored, religious network like Iran’s Halal?

Poser argues that the U.S. government’s role in Internet freedom is standing for universal human rights to help empower civil society, “It is up to the people of each country to build societies in which governments respect not some rights part of the time, but all of the rights of the governed, every day. The role of the international community is to offer support — technological and institutional.”

This “international community” also involves large technology companies like Microsoft and Google, in order to maintain an open Internet, he stated—pressing corporations to join the Global Network Initiative.

Some, though, believe that corporations need to change their course of involvement entirely.

Baidu error message

Rebecca MacKinnon Senior Schwartz Fellow at New America Foundation and co-founder of Global Voices, found current inclusion for a free Internet difficult, noting that Western technologies companies sell censorship software to the oppressive regimes.

Governments rarely act directly to restrict the Internet and instead, she maintains, policies are mediated through privately owned and operated services, as in the case with Baidu and Halal.

Post-revolution activists in Egypt uncovered a contract for surveillance software made by a Western company being used all over the Middle East and similar software still is, MacKinnon asserts.

With the, “West Censoring the East”, she remarks, how can the Internet evolve in a way to serve the citizen instead of serving other powerful entities? How can people in power use it without abusing it?

The only way the Internet can only be kept free is if Western “netizens” engage online, and insist on structural and policy changes that would expand throughout the globe.

These changes, MacKinnon observes, must start in the West because other governments will then duplicate its structure,

“Internet freedom starts at home not only on a political and government scale, but also in our companies,” she concludes.

July 18, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

CellBazaar: The market’s in your hand!

Think, an international nonprofit think-tank focused on circulating digital technologies for development, launched a glitzy mobile innovation, CellBazaar, aimed at improving agriculture in Bangladesh, with the tag-line “the market in your mobile phone”.

Credit: CellBazaar

Over a million people have signed-up and upwards of 250 million regularly use it.

CellBazaar is touted as a virtual marketplace, for GrameenPhone’s 20 million mobile subscribers, where demand and supply are brought together. This is important to the extent that market prices are commonly debased by poor transport infrastructure that increases costs.

To use CellBazaar, adopters will post the produce they wish to sell via a mobile phone, which will be fed into an online platform. The mobile element is important as internet penetration in Bangladesh is extremely low, roughly 0.03%. The mobile-enabled technology that powers this innovation also overcomes literacy challenges by utilizing voice messages to read out posts.

By expanding market opportunities for traders and farmers , CellBazaar will allow previously marginalized agricultural enterprises to flourish: earning larger profits and selling in bulk from a more advantageous position due to reduced costs.

While this technology tackles marketing, a major challenge to farmers around the globe, there are many other elements within the agricultural sector that ought to be improved to ensure sustained development and food security: harvesting, packaging, storing, and transporting. In a subsequent article, I will examine these issues as I take an in depth look at the food crisis currently crippling parts of the Horn of Africa.

CellBazaar is slated to expand to developing markets similar to Bangladesh, particularly East Africa and South Asia.

Learn more about CellBazaar here.

July 18, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Health, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Mapping for Informed Decision Making in Rwanda

Mapping and Geographic Information System (GIS) have long been used in Rwanda for sectors such as agriculture and economic growth. The need for these innovative tools and skills, however, are just now being recognized in other fields, including health. As a monitoring and evaluation expert, I have seen how useful geography and maps can be to monitor and improve programs, and I was interested to learn more about how they were being used and enhanced in the field.

For four days, I joined 18 public health professionals at a GIS training in Kigali, Rwanda, organized by MEASURE Evaluation and Monitoring and Evaluation Management Systems (MEMS) and supported by USAID in collaboration with National AIDS Control Commission (CNLS ). The participants represented many local Rwandan organizations such as MEMS, the Ministry of Health, the Center for Treatment and Research on AIDS, Malaria, Tuberculosis and Other Epidemics (TRAC Plus), and National University of Rwanda’s School of Public Health.

Andrew Inglis and training participants use qGIS and local data to produce maps that can be used for monitoring HIV programs.

GIS is a unique tool that allows people to interact with their data. Rather than comparing data in charts or graphs, mapping data through geography allows data users to identify essential trends and associations that may not be apparent in other formats. By building local capacity in GIS, we are expanding “evidence-based decision making” for high quality and strategic health programs.

There was a lot of enthusiasm during the training about GIS. The training provided an excellent forum for the participants to talk about innovative ways they are already using the GIS tool. Participants discussed plans to create new programs that would allow for better ownership and monitoring, to improve supply chain management, and to integrate services, all things that will support and enhance the projects that USAID and its partners are implementing.

MEASURE Evaluation trainers, Andrew Inglis and Clara Burgert, introduced the concept of GIS maps and their ability to link to a database that is capable of capturing, storing, querying, analyzing, displaying and outputting data. In addition to teaching concepts such as how to interpret maps and how to effectively use spatial data, the training provided participants an excellent opportunity to gain practical experience.

Prior to the training, data was collected from each of the representing organizations so they could to make a map during the training and present to the group. All the participants also left with qGIS, an excellent free mapping tool, giving them something to work with as they began to hone their new skills and build their organizational capacity.

Andrew Inglis is a firm believer building capacity through the use of geographic and spatial data for program planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and advocacy. He explained, “The goal of capacity building is to turn potential into reality. During the January 2011 stakeholders meeting the potential value of GIS towards evaluation of HIV prevention programs were recognized, however, the lack of capacity within the national institutions is a major barrier. The aim of the capacity building is to start to realize this potential and reduce the capacity barrier to the use of GIS within national institutions.”

After the training, MEASURE Evaluation wrapped up the week with an Open Forum, hosted by the CNLS, inviting participants and other stakeholders to discuss how best to put these newly acquired skills to use. The goal was to create linkages between the HIV/AIDS and health sectors (and other related sectors) and to promote the sharing and use of data linked to geography in Rwanda. It was energizing to be there, discussing with Rwandan colleagues how they can use GIS and mapping tools to connect better with each other, improve the way they plan, implement and monitor health services, and ultimately improve the health outcomes in their country.

As Solomon Kununka, Management Information Systems Specialist from MEMS, put it, “This has initiated me into the GIS community. Now I want even more training. But, I have the basics. I can make maps for my supervisor and me, to be used for decision making.”

July 18, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Family Planning, Health, Health, Maternal & Child Health, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Delivering babies in Ghana just got a little easier

Pregnant woman on phone. Photo Credit: MOTECH

A new mobile phone service was recently launched in Ghana that provides free access to health information in ensuring safe pregnancies. The service, aptly named Mobile Midwife, offers text or voice messaging on maternal health to pregnant women.

Mobile Midwife was developed as part of the U.S. based Grameen Foundation’s MOTECH Ghana initiative, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It is just one more result of rising donor attention to mHealth services. Its creation continues a trend of mHealth initiatives being churned out in Africa.

Educating women and making them aware of the maternal health risks associated with pregnancies are the cornerstone goals of the service. To make it convenient for the user, the service comes in several different languages, and is presented by text or voice via mobile phones. Additionally, the messages are time specific concurring with the woman’s stage of pregnancy.

When a pregnant woman registers for the service, they are asked to give the expected due date for delivery of the unborn child and their location. Then, periodically, the woman receives messages informing when appointments are due or overdue to remind them to visit the health clinic for check-ups.

The users also get reminders for specific treatments, information about milestones in fetal development, nutrition facts, tips on the benefits of breastfeeding and other pregnancy-related and prenatal health information. It also provides information that demystifies local pregnancy myths and helps users overcome the widespread fear of visiting doctors or health clinics.

MOTECH also rolled out a similar mobile health service earlier in the year that enables nurses in rural Ghanaian health facilities to automate much of their record keeping and reporting, which formerly took 4-6 days per month. The service is in the form of a java–based mobile phone application.

Both Mobile Midwife and the application mentioned above have made life easier for everyone involved in the process of delivering a baby.

One Ghanaian mother said to Grameen, “I would like to advise my pregnant friends to go to the hospital to enroll into MOTECH, to listen to the messages and also to practice what is said because it helps a lot…I used to be scared about pregnancy but now with the messages I am no longer scared and it has taken away my worries and that we feel ok and then the pregnancy is ok.”

This service is extremely pertinent since Africa exhibits some of the worst maternal health records in the world. Fourteen of the fifteen countries with the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world are in Africa. Furthermore, African countries are far behind in meeting Millennium Development Goals set for 2015; especially for those associated with maternal health. Perhaps services like this can lend a helping hand.

July 18, 2011/by actualize

Connectivity, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Morocco’s attractive broadband network

Morocco has a rather attractive broadband network

Morocco’s growing broadband network and an increase in competition for video has placed the region at the forefront for regional ICT investments.

“Whether it be VOIP providers, broadband Internet repackaging, or pay-TV installers, the smaller companies will be called to duty and therefore present a viable option for investors looking to capture a share of the projected $1.44-billion data segment by 2015, or other promising indicators,” says Majd Hosn, a telecoms analyst for Pyramid.

The North African country’s telecom sector revenue will see a 4.1% annual growth rate over the next five years. The telecommunications projections position the industry at $5.47-billion in 2015.

Moroccan communications ministry official Ibrahim Saeed told ITNewsAfrica that he is hopeful that these projections will maintain excellent prospects.

“We have worked hard to build a strong IT and telecom sector and hopefully Pyramid’s report will turn out true,” says Saeed.

“The leadership changes and popular uprisings that have spread in North Africa will take their toll on the stability and growth of Morocco,” adds Pyramid.

“However, (the country will) maintain a strong position compared to other Middle Eastern and North African communications markets.”

Jonathan Terry

July 18, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Connectivity, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Power to the (rural) People!

Photo: SANGONeT

In my recent interviews with telecoms, NGOs, and governments working in Africa I’ve noticed a common theme. In a very generalized sense, Internet infrastructure is in place (or under construction) in urban centers throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. Even in places where connectivity is still lacking, like in South Sudan and Somalia, initiatives are underway to light up those nations. I think it is appropriate to say that this stage of communication development, which I will call connectivity 1.0, has the necessary foundation for completion.

Connectivity 2.0, then, is focused on rural Africa. Specifically, it entails:

(1) how to bring connectivity to rural areas in financially sustainable ways

(2) how to make the Internet and mobiles useful and relevant tools for rural lifestyle

Others in the ICT4D space have recognized this need as well. Infodev’s Program Manager Valerie D’Costa recently spoke on the urgent need to use ICTs especially for rural development projects. One of the ITU’s new flagship initiatives is to bring ICTs to rural schools and villages. And USAID leaders repeatedly emphasize the power of mobile phones for agricultural development in rural areas.

SANGONeT, an umbrella NGO specializing in ICT expertise and agricultural development, is taking advantage of this momentum, and is planning an upcoming conference in South Africa on ICT4RD (ICT for rural development), slated for November 1-3, 2011. The South African Departments of Communication and Rural Development, the Gates Foundation, Cisco, Microsoft, and InfoDev are sponsoring the conference. They hope to attract national USFs in Sub-Saharan Africa, NGOs, and telecom companies.

The collaboration between these entities is vital to creating sustainable solutions, SANGONeT Program Manager Matthew de Gale explains. With commitments from government USFs in Zambia, Uganda, and South Africa to attend, de Gale hopes that additional USFs and international organizations like USAID and the World Bank will also send representatives, helping African governments to make the most informed policy decisions regarding rural development. Hopefully, then, policymakers will meet the challenges posed by connectivity 2.0.

July 15, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Extension Service, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

eRAILS2, FARA’s push to better inform farmers

The Ghana-based Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) will form a Knowledge Management Service (KMS) in the second phase of its eRAILS platform. The technology is an information system that mobilize farming communities and farmer advisory service providers to generate questions so that agricultural experts can provide actionable responses.

The second phase of the FARA initiative, eRAILS2, will focus on content management. The research institute says this should speed-up the flow of information from agricultural experts to farmers by eliminating intermediaries.

The KMS phase of the project is widely seen as an opportunity to improve the agricultural sector in a myriad of ways, particularly through better data collection. Improved data collection processes will give scientists and policymakers a better understanding of the farming communities’ needs. This should result in better policies and programs, including early warning systems and impact assessment processes across the agricultural sector. This also bodes well for efforts to promote more targeted decision making, as agricultural management is localized.

Learn more about FARA’s effort to launch the second phase of the eRAILS project here.

eRAILS is funded by the African Development Bank (AfDB).

July 15, 2011/by actualize

Basic Education, Education, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

3 Million Malawi Children

This post was co-written by Jeffrey Swindle

To improve education quality in Malawi, USAID Malawi implemented the Tikwere Interactive Radio Instruction (IRI) program. The IRI program has affected over three million children and 22,000 teachers since it began in May 2007. Furthermore, management and financing of the program is now moving to the hands of the government, letting USAID allocate its efforts to additional endeavors.

Despite promising increases in primary education enrollment (54% to 70% from 1999 to 2006) in Sub-Saharan Africa, the quality of education is quite low. High teacher and student absence rates, as well as low achievement scores, plague education systems. When researchers make unannounced visits to schools, teachers are absent on average 19% of the time, with higher rates in rural areas.

In Malawi, the situation is particularly grim. According to the Southern Africa Consortium on Monitoring Education Quality (SACMEQ), fewer than 25% of eligible Malawian children remain in school by grade 8. In addition, only 9% of primary school students were found to have reached a minimum level of mastery in reading in English, and a mere 2% of pupils possessed skills beyond basic numeracy.

Teacher at the chalkboard speaking with students. Radio on a chair nearby

Photo credit: USAID/Malawi

To address these challenges, USAID Malawi began the IRI program. In the program, schools are provided with radios, and they listen to a thirty-minute national broadcast each day. Teachers receive text messages on their phones telling them the weekly schedule for the in-service broadcasts prior to the beginning of the term, and through lesson plans produced by Tikwere teachers are informed about what materials they will need to prepare beforehand (posters, pencils, textbooks, etc.). The broadcast focuses on one of three topics: the local language Chichewa, English, and life skills. The broadcasts are prepared professionally and incorporate ideal teaching strategies, including group work, learner-focused discussions, and gender balanced teaching. By listening to the broadcast, teachers learn how they can be most effective. And the students benefit because they receive training from an optimal teacher via radio each day.

Amongst these learners there have been increases in test scores for standard 1 learners in literacy (17% points higher in English and 9% points higher in Chichewa compared to non-participating students) and mathematics (12% points higher than non-participating students).

Teacher pointing at chalkboard, while radio plays.

Photo credit: USAID/Malawi

Additionally, they are particularly engaged during the radio broadcasts; the students anxiously look forward to this special time each day and enrollment has been rising in Tikwere schools which cover over 95% of the 5,300 schools nationwide.

To implement the program, USAID purchased 13,000 freeplay radios which are solar powered at a total cost of $386,400 over a course of three years. Additionally, printed materials to accompany the activities and radio airtime required additional funding. Using conservative estimates, over 2,000,000 children listening to the broadcasts for the first three years. If the same rate of expansion of the project continued, the IRI program affects far more than 3,000,000 million children in Malawi. The total cost per student per year is $0.16, a bargain for improved educational achievement and teacher effectiveness. Currently, the USAID mission to Malawi is working with the government to incorporate the program into the national education plan and finances, making the program financial sustainable without further support from USAID.

Table: Project Total Estimates from Macro International

The final impacts of the IRI program, however, are yet to be measured. Macro International conducted a mid-term evaluation of the project in 2009. Though the IRI program was able to reach approximately 75% of schools in Malawi, at least 10% do not have the connectivity for the radios to work, and the costs were too high and complicated for USAID to provide alternative technologies for IRI. In an ingenious strategy, Tikwere uses this 5% as a control comparison for the learner assessments of the IRI program. Thus far, schools with the Tikwere IRI program show a 17% gain in scores over the control schools.

Photo credit: USAID/Malawi

Originally Zambia implemented the IRI methodology for the out of school program. Because of IRI’s potential for success, the government there adopted it in the conventional schools. Malawi’s experience is adopted from the Taonga Market in Zambia, and other USAID missions have implemented similar programs as well. Hopefully, more missions around the world will implement similar radio programs and see equal impacts.

July 15, 2011/by actualize

Anti-corruption, Civil Society, Democracy & Governance, Elections, Governances, Originally posted on the GBI Portal, Rule of Law

Gov 2.0: Open Data Shaping Kenya’s Future

The President of Kenya, Mwai Kibaki, watches a demonstration of the Huduma platform at the Kenya Open Government Data Portal launch, looking on is Dr. Bitange Ndemo, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information and Communication

The President of Kenya, Mwai Kibaki, watches a demonstration Photo Credit: Ushahidi

Last Friday, Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki inaugurated the Kenya Open Data Initiative (KODI), an online resource to catalog and display the government’s expenditures—launching the ICT pioneering country into a new epoch of transparency and accountability.

The new initiative is a crucial step for Kenyan citizens to monitor public spending amid previous corrupt practices, including the alleged manipulation of the 2007 elections.

Kenya ranked 154 out of 178 total countries in Transparency International’s 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index.

Screenshot of Kenyan open data initative

Screenshot of KODI

The KODI contains 160 datasets arranged by country-level and county, and is organized within various sectors, including: education, energy, health, population, poverty, along with water and sanitation. Information for the datasets were taken from national census, government ministries, and information from the World Bank.

Prior to creating this information platform, the Kenyan government seldom made statistics and information on these sectors publicly available, or would postpone their release.

Now, however, they are taking a participatory approach to following the new 2010 Kenyan Constitution requiring the government to make information on the country publicly accessible.

On its homepage, the KODI website asserts the new transformation taking place:

Our information is a national asset, and it’s time it was shared: this data is key to improving transparency; unlocking social and economic value; and building Government 2.0 in Kenya

The platform allows citizens to actively engage on the information they want, and need to know.

Users of the open data portal can create interactive charts and tables, and developers can download the raw data to build applications for web and mobile. Additionally, users can press a “suggest a dataset” icon, which aggregates the requests for new information and sorts them according to relevance.

According to the Guardian, Kenyans have already made mass requests for data on youth unemployment, libraries, crime, and the locations of primary and secondary schools.

The data portal is managed by the Kenya ICT Board in partnership with the World Bank, and is powered by Socrata.

In addition to managing the data, the Kenya ICT Board plans to award groups and individuals who configure the data advantageously, intending to give out up to thirty grants to those with the best ideas.

A series of valuable initiatives have already been taking place.

Huduma (Kiswahili for “service”), derived from Ushaidi, has already started to use statistics collected on health, infrastructure, and education to compare the provision of aid across different districts of Kenya. Business Daily, a Nairobi-based news service, had announced plans to publish a series of articles on the newly released applications and services. Virtual Kenya built an application mapping counties where Members of Parliament declined to pay taxes.

Screenshot of Ushahidi's Huduma

Kenyan entrepreneurs are now in charge of publicizing this information and making it user-friendly.

Though the Kenyan government has been lambasted for a lack of transparency and accountability in the past, this open source data program allows Kenyan citizens to recognize development challenges and foster their own solutions—leading themselves and their county into a new era of progressive growth.

July 15, 2011/by actualize

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