Originally posted on the GBI Portal – Page 5

Safaricom to double broadband capacity

Kenya’s mobile service provider Safaricom will double its broadband capacity next week, opening a new battlefront in the data market just after Airtel rolled out its 3G network in February.

Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore (image: file)

“The network will run at 42 Mega bits per second (mbps) from the current 21mbs and it will be the fastest network in the whole of East and Central Africa,” Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore said.

“We are already receiving the modems to support the new network,” Collymore said. However, the rollout will begin from Nairobi and its environs before going national. Collymore was speaking at the connected Kenya Summit 2012 in Mombasa that began on Tuesday.

The summit is in its fourth year and is the brainchild of the Kenya ICT Board in collaboration with industry players and government.

The four day conference will see players discuss how to build the knowledge economy, how to take advantage of the open data, linking innovation and trade.

Players will also discuss how to involve citizens in the growth of the sector, and the opportunities in e-commerce and retail trade.
Information and communication permanent secretary Bitange Ndemo is expected to present the National ICT Masterplan 2017, which outlines the government’s blue print for ICT on Thursday.

April 4, 2012/by actualize

Introduction of Microinsurance into Mobile Banking’s Product Suite

Banner for Telenor's mobile banking product

Photo Credit: CGAP

As written in this blog before, there has been continued innovation in the mobile banking sector in developing countries this year. But, as surmised by CGAP, there is a greater need to find a balance of products that meet the specific needs of those who traditionally have not had access to formal financial services. While mobile payments, transfers, credit and savings have all expanded using the branchless banking model, there has been a lack of products that provide insurance via mobile phones. That is not to say that microinsurance has not been available in the past. But its availability came from the social sector side, instead of the private side. But there has been a shift as the business case becomes more valuable to both insurers and mobile network providers alike.

Just over a year ago, Swiss Re, re-insurance company, stated that the market size for microinsurance for those making under $4 a day in developing countries totals $40 billion. For businesses, that is a tough opportunity to miss. But simply because the market is there does not make it a profitable opportunity. Many of the targeted customers live in rural regions and have never purchased insurance. With a lack of access and knowledge, the case for profitability would need to include a large upfront investment. But technology and innovation can help to fill in those access and knowledge gaps. According to a recent report by Accenture entitled “Succeeding at microinsurance through differentiation, innovation and partnership,” technology offers real-time connectivity, flexibility and scalability which will help insurance companies to reach new customers in emerging markets. With an estimation of 2.3 billion people who are low-income and need to protect their income and assets, Accenture argues that insurance companies need to view these potential customers as “tomorrow’s premium prospects.” A clear example of this is the millions of individuals who have rose out of poverty through the economic prosperity in China and India over the last decade. By providing products that fit the needs of low-income customers, companies can build brand loyalty and reputation in these regions and reap the benefits as their customers improve their economic state.

As stated in the report, the need to leverage technology in order to reach the customers will be key to creating the short and long term business cases. By permitting customers to purchase and/or manage their accounts via mobile phone, this allows for the business structure to be profitable in the short-term. At least that would have to be the rational thinking as MNO (mobile network operators) are partnering with banks and insurance providers to offer a suite of financial service products (including microinsurance) to their customers.

Two Recent Examples

As a part of a larger suite of products, Airtel Ghana has partnered with uniBank Ghana Limited and Star Microinsurance to provide insurance free-of-charge to Airtel’s subscribers using their mobile money product. As long as the customer maintains an average minimum balance of GHC 5 (roughly $2.84) at the end of every month, they, along with their direct family, will be covered by insurance. Airtel Ghana sees the partnership and new products leading to an improved return on assets, an increase in the customer base and the creation of a one-stop shop for uniBank clients. But one of the challenges will customers registration as an individual must have a valid photo ID and complete an application along with having an Airtel SIM card.

In Pakistan, the MNO Telenor also will be releasing a free microinsurance product through Easypaisa, a branchless banking services company. Easypaisa was created in 2009 by Telenor Pakistan and their Tameer Micro Finance Bank. The free life insurance will be provided through Easypaisa and in partnership with Adamjee Life Insurance Company Limited (also located in Pakistan).

As you can see, mobile technology and the focus of creating value-added service by MNOs has increased the access to microinsurance in developing nations. Even in Kenya, insurance associations are pushing their members to utilize mobile phones in order to reach clients in new and untapped markets. In the push to increase access to financial services, the business cases for microinsurance are being shaped around mobile technology. And amazingly enough the insurance is being provided for free.

April 3, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Health, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

More Randomized Controlled Trials in mHealth Please!

mHealth is by no means the magic bullet (I believe there is no magic in international development; every situation is so different and complex for one solution). But it could help to improve the public health workforce or women’s health in developing countries. In order to determine this, there needs to be further field research. And it needs to focus around the true impact of the intervention. While the social sciences are imperfect and it is very difficult to know an intervention’s true impact (meaning if the mobile device is removed, how different would the outcome be), there is a best practice to assess the true impact – Randomized Controlled Trails.

There are multiple examples of projects providing “evidence,” but they tend to only show who has been reached (reproductive health information was received by 20,000 mothers). We need further evidence to show that mobile phones and/or their content are creating the sought behavior change. mHealth could be like microfinance where there has been a lack of evidence showing the impact of it on families. But, knowing this, microfinance is still essential for the bottom of the pyramid to access necessary formal financial services (savings/insurance/credit). In the same light, mhealth tools help fill in gaps (ie sending information via text message instead of walking it in paper form). But does it really make a community health worker (CHW) more effective and efficient at their jobs? It will give women and families reproductive health information. But does it improve ART intake or change a women’s behavior? These are the questions that must be answered in order to know the true impact of mhealth applications.

To the benefit of the sector, RCTs have and are being conducted. At the ICTD 2012 Conference in Atlanta a few weeks ago, Brian DeRenzi, who completed his Ph D at University of Washington in the department of Computer Science and Engineering, presented his paper entitled “Improving Community Health Worker Performance Through Automated SMS.” As the title indicates, the focus of his research was testing the impact of reminders via SMS to CHW’s follow up visits to their patients. The study was conducted in Tanzania and in collaboration with D-Tree International, Pathfinder International, and Dimagi. It included one pilot project and two larger studies. In the end, the reminders reduced the average number of days between follow up visits to patients by CHWs. This is a clear benefit to helping improve the care provided to patients. But the study also provided further knowledge into issues with patient reminders to CHWs. This included the benefit of having the supervisor of the CHWs receive a SMS reminder if their employee did not conduct a follow up visit. When the supervisor was taken out of the equation, the performance of CHWs decreased considerably. This is an important design aspect to the program that could have been missed without a RCT. By testing the removal of the supervisor, it showed that the mobile phones helped but combining it with the supervisor’s real time knowledge of their work provided greater incentive to the CHWs to follow up with greater regularity with their patients.

Another example of an RCT currently in progress is in Ethiopia. In a very similar study, Kate Otto, from the World Bank, is working in collaboration with Addis Ababa University to test the impact of mhealth interventions on the care provided by Health Extension Workers (HEWs) in rural areas to women and child (In Ethiopia, the HEWs are equivalent to CHWs in Tanzania). The research question is “does the use of a mobile phone-based tool enabling patient registration, appointment reminders, and inventory management – in the hands of Health Extension Workers – result in improved maternal and child health outcomes in a rural Ethiopian setting?” The goal is to find evidence supporting the use of mhealth interventions with HEWs.

Since these RCTs seem very similar, it would be easy to say that the World Bank and Addis Ababa University should have simply copied the intervention and implementation of the best practices learned in Tanzania. But this is the power of RCTs. Since each region is different with varying degrees of complexity, solutions that work in one area will not produce the same outcomes in another. Just because a program and intervention worked one place does not mean the same model or theory will work in another setting (see m-Pesa). The benefit of RCTs is that it will assist in finding interventions that will provide a solution for the region/country. This is especially necessary in the mhealth sector as the complexity of each situation dictates the need for specific program requires. But we are not sure what those are. The benefit of RCTs is that it can remove these variables and focus directly on the how and why interventions work or not, especially in behavior change. And as shown in Tanzania, it helps us understand what is and provides insight into areas of improvements.

Funding is always going to be an issue with RCTs. But the knowledge gained makes up for the investment by further understanding the true impact (if any) of the device. In the end, we need to find answers to what changes behavior, especially the role of mhealth in the change. There has been a greater increase in RCTs in mHealth projects to test how mobile phones and their applications are improving health. But there needs to be more done.

For those interested in learning more about M+E in global health programs, there will be a panel through GHDonline.org at the beginning of April. Please find further information about the panel here.

April 3, 2012/by actualize

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

WISDOM: transferring watershed knowledge

Integration of environmental data is critical for water. WISDOM, a Vietnamese-German project, is an inspirational model of how watershed management leads to sustainable use and preservation of water resources. WISDOM combines information from hydrology, sociology, information technology, and earth observation for its implementation of an Information System for the Mekong Delta.

The Mekong Delta struggles against population increase, changing climatic conditions, and regulatory measures. Because of these challenges, extreme flood events occur more frequently, drinking water availability is increasingly limited, soils show signs of salinization or acidification and species and complete habitats are diminishing.

WISDOM’s integrated information system contains available and newly generated data from multiple disciplines, open to users through an accessible query. The IS allows a feed of input from remote sensing, GIS, digital maps, in-situ, interpolated point measurements, and other sources. Available data includes flood and drought risk, water quality, sediment load, discharge, and land use changes.

Lessons learned from this initiative include that the cooperation of national institutes and regional or local authorities needs to be strengthened. Successes include the knowledge transfer provided between German institutions and Vietnamese doctorate candidates and the user-friendliness of the IS that can answer specific and complex questions that support regional planning activities.

April 3, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Environment, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Africa Monitoring System (AMS) for Sustainable Food Security

Photo Credit: TV Pro Gear

An initiative being co-led by Conservation International (CI), the Council for Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR), South Africa and the Earth Institute (EI), Columbia University, has been launched with a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The Africa Monitoring System (AMS) tool will track, monitor and diagnose agricultural productivity, ecosystem health, and human well-being in African landscapes with near real-time data to better understand the opportunities and trade-offs of increased agricultural production. The system will provide tools to ensure that agricultural development does not degrade natural systems and the services they provide, especially for smallholder farmers.

The three-year $10 million dollar grant was announced by the co-chair of the foundation, Bill Gates in Rome at the 35^th Session of the Governing Council of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) held in February. The grant lays the foundation for a new integrated monitoring system in five regions of Sub-Saharan Africa, including Tanzania, Ghana, Ethiopia, and two other countries to be determined, where agricultural intensification is targeted to meet the needs of Africa’s growing population.

Dr. Sandy Andelman, a vice president of Conservation International who will serve as Africa Monitoring System executive director said, “We face this enormous challenge that boils down to this key question: How are we going to feed nine billion people on the planet without destroying nature, especially in the face of climate change which in itself brings vast uncertainty. The answer is that we can no longer afford to make decisions without really seeing the full picture of what is happening to the planet.”

The Africa Monitoring System (AMS)

The success of the system will depend on the accuracy and timeliness of the data collection process which will happen at multiple scales to create the most accurate possible picture. This will include

A household scale, using surveys on health, nutritional status, household income and assets;
A plot scale to assess agricultural production and determine what seeds go into the land, where they come from, what kind of fertilizer is used, what yield of crops they deliver, what happens after the harvest;
A landscape scale (100 km2) measuring water availability for household and agricultural use, ecosystem biodiversity, soil health, carbon stocks, etc.; and
A regional scale (~200,000 km2) that will tie everything together into a big picture, to see the scales at which agricultural development decisions are made.

The raw data will be fully accessible and synthesized into six simple holistic indicators that communicate diagnostic information about complex agro-ecosystems, such as: availability of clean water, the resilience of crop production to climate variability or the resilience of ecosystem services and livelihoods to changes in the agricultural system. The near real-time and multi-scale data will be pooled into an open-access online dashboard that policy makers will be able to freely use and customize to inform smart decision making.

“Rather than having a set of data over here for one issue, and other sets of data over there for other issues, what this system will essentially do is assemble the different puzzle pieces into one clear image that will allow decision makers to transparently see the parts and their sum in one centralized location”, Andelman explained.

CI Chairman and CEO Peter Seligmann praised the grant as a landmark moment in conservation which would inspire others. “We are honored to be entrusted by the foundation to shepherd their largest investment to date in examining the relationship between agriculture and the environment, and I could not be more encouraged or appreciative for their leadership, concluded Seligmann.”

CI, CSIR and Earth Institute will collaborate with governments, other non-governmental organizations, the academic community, the private sector and key international partners over the next three years to design and implement the Africa Monitoring System. This period will represent Phase 1 (three years) of a three-phase process (10-15 years) to create an Integrated Global Monitoring System for Agriculture, Ecosystem Services and Human Well-Being, and developers expect to mobilize additional resources to leverage the Foundation’s investment.

April 3, 2012/by actualize

Connectivity, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

NigComSat targets 40% broadband access

The Nigerian Communications Satellite Limited has targeted 40 percent broadband penetration in the country by the year 2015.

The Nigerian Communications Satellite Limited has targeted 40 percent broadband penetration (image: Optus)

Timasaniyu Ahmed-Rufai, the Managing Director and Chief Executive, made this statement in a paper presentation at the Convergence forum in Lagos, on Friday.

He lamented the low percentage of broadband access in the country revealing that only 28 percent of the population was connected to the Internet.

Ahmed-Rufai recalled that the International Telecommunications Union had set a target of 50 billion broadband connections by 2020 while proposing that 40 percent of households should be connected to broadband globally by 2015.

NigComSat shared the vision and would be in the forefront of ensuring that Nigeria met the target. This company will have huge impacts on the country’s ICT sector in terms of cheaper Internet access as well as improved e-Commerce, telemedicine and e-Learning, he said.

Ahmed-Rufai added, “Our strategic plan is centered on using our assets, the staff, the satellite and complementary ground infrastructure as an extraordinary vehicle to drive the National ICT revolution in pursuit of self-reliance and required skills for engineering and technology domestication of secured satellite bandwidth and telecommunication services for defense, security outfits and other strategic telecommunications and broadcast needs of the nation.”

The NigComSat boss said the government-owned satellite communication provider had partnered with Main One Cable Company. This is line with their objective to expand the coverage of the Main One Internet Protocol services via satellite and to achieve their goal.

Joseph Mayton

April 3, 2012/by actualize

Agriculture, Education, Education, Education Partnerships, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Where is the NEPAD e-School Initiative Now?

Image from ypia.org.za

Many in the aid and ICT4E community know NEPAD — the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) — and probably remember the launch of the e-School Initative, first announced during the Africa Summit of the World Economic Forum in June 2003. As part of the overarching objective of the NEPAD program to enhance Africa’s growth, development and participation in the global economy, the e-School component involves a complex implementation strategy involving a multi-country, multi-stakeholder, and multi-stage approach to introduce ICT use and support to 600,000 schools across Africa. But now, close to ten years after the initiative was first introduced, what progress has it made?

That’s what participants and leaders of the NEPAD e-School Initiative discussed when they gathered in Accra, Ghana earlier this week for the two-day NEPAD e-School Regional ECOWAS Conference. Reverend Emmanuel Dadebo, Head of the Teacher Education Division of Ghana Education Service, led the discussion and press event, emphasizing the project’s need for a business plan that promotes private sector investment by introducing a new Private Public Partnership (PPP) model.

The conference comes after five years of discussion and debate concerning the key findings made during the initial phase of the e-School Initiative — the “NEPAD e-Schools Demo”. The purpose of the Demo was to accrue a body of knowledge, based on real-life experiences of implementing ICT in schools across the African continent, in order to inform the rollout of the NEPAD e-Schools Initiative. The program was implemented in six schools in each of 16 countries across Africa through partnerships that involved private sector consortia, the country government and the NEPAD e-Africa Commission (eAC), which is responsible for the development and implementation of the NEPAD ICT program.

Photo Credit: computersforcharities.co.uk

Though various stakeholders and members of the aid community consider the Demo successful in some ways, like introducing ICT hubs into rural communities, most agree that it remains unsustainable in its current form. A report released by infoDev and the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) back in 2007 entitiled “The NEPAD e-Schools Demonstration Project: A Work in Progress”, highlights the realization of this challenge within the early stages of the Demo and stressed the need for dialogue between all stakeholders:

“The expectations that implementation of the Demo would occur within a few months of it being announced in the participating countries, and, that a Business Plan would be developed to address sustainability and future rollout, were not met, and explanations for the delays were not effectively communicated. The disappointment and cynicism that resulted in some of the participating countries underlines the oft-learned rule of project management: Communicate! Communicate! Communicate!”

Like many development projects of this kind, and on such a large scale, lessons like these take time to learn and often come from trial and error. Shafika Isaacs, the founding executive director of SchoolNet Africa and a member of the monitoring and evaluation team for the report concluded saying this:

“Never before has there really been a program that mobilised national government participation and leadership at the official continental level in the way the NEPAD e-Schools vision has. Further, it has brought the private sector into partnerships that, while experiencing growing pains, has mobilised resources in a way that few other projects have been able to do. And there is much yet to learn about doing this in an optimal way.”

Exactly how much has been learned between 2007 and now, has yet to be seen. Several news articles have claimed that the program has already benefited several schools in Ghana and according to a statement given in Accra at the e-Schools conference, Ghana will launch the next phase of NEPAD e-Schools later this year. The program’s methods of monitoring and evaluating these benefits and ensuring effectiveness and transparency are unclear. However, with more buy-in from the private sector and the introduction of a new business model, it’s clear that some progress is being made and a more sustainable future for the e-Schools Initiative could be within reach.

March 30, 2012/by actualize

Connectivity, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

New East Africa cable to go live in April

Following the recent broadband cable cut that affected much of East Africa’s connectivity, the new Lower Indian Ocean Network (LION2) is set to go live and active on 14 April, 2012.

A map showing the location of the LION2 cable (image: subseaworldnews.com)

The landing station in Mombassa has been completed, and will enable the lead investor in the project, Orange Kenya, to begin leasing broadband Internet services to potential service providers, the company said.

The cable was built by France Telecom at a cost of KES 6.2 billion. Orange Kenya CEO Mickael Ghossein told Business Daily on Wednesday, adding that the LION2 cable “will provide a redundancy route to operators using the other three cables, the East African Marine System (TEAMS), Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy) and Seacom.”

He added that the cable will be going live mid-next month, “and Orange is targeting operators currently connected to the other cables but looking for affordable redundancy routes to the Middle East.”

The cable covers some 3,000 kilometers to Nyali, Mombasa via the island of Mayotte located in the northern Mozambique channel from Mauritius.

Joseph Mayton

March 30, 2012/by actualize

Mobile Money, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

The Future of Mobile Phone Banking in the Philippines: Global Trends for Rural Bankers to Consider (Part 3 of 3)

RBAP-MABS Chief of Party John V. Owens shares the future of mobile money in the Philippines during the Roundtable Conference on November 9, 2011.

During my presentation, I shared with the audience some of the latest relevant updates and trends that we are seeing from around the world in terms of the uses of mobile money and mobile banking services.

One interesting theme is the use of viral marketing to support the expanded use of mobile money and mobile banking services by focusing on key influencers in particular markets. The second major agent of change is referred to as the “Stickiness Factor” or the specific content of a message that makes it memorable and the third major agent of change is referred to as the “Power of Context.” This last factor points to the fact that human behavior is sensitive to and strongly influenced by the environment and the surrounding circumstances at a particular time and place.

Banks, MFI, and even agents are beginning to see the benefits of offering mobile money-enabled banking services in order to better address real client needs and use it as hooks to attract more banking clients as well as to cross sell additional banking services to their clients interested in a mobile wallet.

Read the complete article.

March 30, 2012/by actualize

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

Newly Updated WaterWiki

WaterWiki.net, a UNDP, UN-Water initiative recently relaunched and added more features such as a LinkedIn discussion forum. WaterWiki is a useful resource and popular forum for practitioners and agencies. It features over 800 articles, case studies and reports.

Some of the best features: