Re: [GKD] RFI: Impact of ICT on Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises
In response to Sam Lanfranco's contribution about ICT for poverty reduction, I would like to confirm his observation that too little funds are available for thorough research into evidence building around ICT for poverty reduction. One exception at least I know of is British DFID that does allocate money for research in this field. With their support, over the past year I have been able to do some case study research (not success stories) and one of the major obstacles I came across is that very few of the implementing organisations or recipients structurally gather data themselves on their own activities. Awareness and skills regarding data gathering are generally quite low which makes it hard to do good research. The data I am thinking of are: relevance of information and services offered, user satisfaction, webstats, information needs of the target group, listeners data of community radio stations, etc. I must say that in Central America I came across some positive exceptions which really lifted the quality of the research tremendously. So I think it would be a good thing if donors would not only invest more in (external) research and evaluation activities, but also in capacity building and awareness raising around the importance of day to day data gathering or self-evaluation at the local level. Those data need to form the basis of all other research in this field. -- Maartje Op de Coul New media evaluation manager OneWorld International 2nd floor, River House 143-145 Farringdon Road London EC1R 3AB UK Tel: +44 (0) 20 7239 1400 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7833 3347 ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, a Non-Profit Organization*** To post a message, send it to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: http://www.edc.org/GLG/gkd/
[GKD] Building Digital Opportunities: ICT Case Studies
Building Digital Opportunities: ICT Case Studies As part of the Building Digital Opportunities (BDO) programme, OneWorld has conducted case studies to help give decisionmakers a clear understanding of how civil society is actually using information and communications technologies, and what the impact is. They were not selected for being success stories; rather they are likely to help identify the positive and negative impact ICTs can have. Around 20 organisations in South Asia, Southern Africa and Central America are profiled. Their activities vary from offering wireless communication equipment to tribal nomads and teaching slum children how to use a computer, to training NGOs how to build a website and online broadcasting of radio programmes. A synthesis report of all case studies is available as well which tries to structurally draw conclusions on the impact (defined in terms of opportunity, empowerment and security) and sustainability of ICT for development activities and also gives a brief comparison between the different regions studied. Interested? Subscribe to http://www.dgroups.org/groups/OneWorldImpactICT to view or download the full reports in pdf. Kind regards, Maartje Op de Coul New media evaluation manager Oneworld International ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, a Non-Profit Organization*** To post a message, send it to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: http://www.edc.org/GLG/gkd/
Re: [GKD] RFI: Computer Donations To The Third World
Does anyone know if there are computer donation programmes that go beyond one-off donations? What if after a while people using donated computers need upgrading and/or replacement? Who takes responsibility for meeting with the created (long term) expectations of using computers? Maartje Op de Coul ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, a Non-Profit Organization*** To post a message, send it to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: http://www.edc.org/GLG/gkd/
Re: [GKD] ICT for Season-workers, Landless Peasants
Estimado Cornelio, Thanks for the noise you are making, I think it is really useful to try and find clear results of ICT projects. I am an evaluation officer for OneWorld International and therefore I try to pursue the same thing. I have just come back from a trip to India and Sri Lanka to implement some case studies to the use and impact of ICTs by civil society. In Sri Lanka I met Kothmale Community Radio Internet Project that has a lot of tea pickers among its listeners. One of the things KCRIP does is broadcasting marketprices collected from the Internet or sent to them by email. I spoke to one or two farmers who said that now they are informed on the marketprices they are able to negotiate a lot better with the middleman, they can't be fooled anymore. I am very much aware of the fact that this is no empirical evidence at all, but I am also sure that it wouldn't be too much of a challenge to get it from them. There are two persons who spend a lot more time on research with KCRIP than I did who might be able to give you more details. One is Tanya Notley who spent 2 years with them as a volunteer to help implement the project. She is about to visit them again. The other is Jo Tacchi who, together with Don Slater, spent some months last year to do an in-depth research on the project. You could ask her for a draft version of the report that can be very interesting for you as they more or less abandon the traditional impact approach and instead use an etnographic approach. That approach is explained extensively in the draft report. I copied both these contacts in this mail. The other case studies I did were: - wireless communication for nomadic communities in Northern India - computer lessons for slum children in Delhi - use of the internet to enhance ICT capacity building - use of video for self employed women - use of an online platform for TV to spread TV programmes from Sri Lanka If any of these is also of interest to you I can send you the reports or give an explanation. For the coming months I will conduct case studies in Southern Africa and Central America as well. Hope this helps and keep on making noise! Saludos, Maartje Op de Coul Evaluation manager OneWorld International Cornelio Hopmann [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Estimadas estimados, A little bit ago I posted a request for references to ICT4POOR projects which -based on empirical evidence- had improved the economic situation of the poor or the miserable. I did receive some references though not much and most either talking about potentials or about sustained ICT-projects -admirable as such- or projects with indirect benefits for the poor -like good governance, environment-protection, health-services, education-services and alike- yet nothing that would show dot-com (in the blow phase) profits for the poor, less the miserable. This time -along the same maybe Socratic line of exercise- I would like to invite anyone to respond who has references to ICT-projects, that brought direct and specific benefits to (a) season-workers (like cotton-cropping, coffee-cropping, tea-picking and similar) (b) landless peasants -e.g. smallest agro-producers, who work on ever changing small pieces of land (c) the already hundreds of millions of workers -mostly women- that work around the globe in sweat-shops, as example putting together fine clothes, shoes and appliances for top-shops in 1. world metropolis. ..snip... My apologies if I'm producing only noise. ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, a Non-Profit Organization*** To post a message, send it to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: http://www.edc.org/GLG/gkd/
