Re: [GKD] RFI: Impact of ICT on Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises
Don Richardson asked that we add examples to those he enumerated, regarding ICT initiatives that fail to attract attention because no donor is involved. Here is one: - the effect of moble phones in unconnected rural remote areas. These are actually fall outs from major market centres like big towns and cities. These form the only ICT use in these communitites and sometimes they are used under very trying conditions where there is no electricity to recharge phone batteries, sources of recharge cards are very far from the users, technical support services are not available. But people still use these for both personal and small businesses especially in linking with suppliers and customers in the cities. I can cite an example of a farmer in central Tanzania who rides his bicycle with his mobile to a near hill. Climbs the hill to be able to get a signal, and asks his contact in Dar es Salam about the prices of highly perishable tomatoes and arranging for delivery of the same to his agent in the city. What studies have been made on the impact of these? ***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: 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/
Re: [GKD] RFI: Impact of ICT on Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises
In response to Sam Lanfranco's response to Cornelio Hopmann: Wow! Everything you say feels true It explains my feelings and experience on behalf of OOCD 2000+ (Oke-Ogun Community Development 2000Plus) since I responded to the community request that I would be their bridge across the digital divide (almost exactly 3 years ago, at Peter Adetunji Oyawale's funeral in Ago-Are). At first when I read things on the Internet about bridging the digital divide and ICT4D it seemed so encouraging and potentially inclusive. There is lots about the need for top down initiatives to link to bottom up projects etc. There is apparently so much that is positive - all kinds of policy documents and research findings and things. I thought if I read those things they would lead me to positive pathways for OOCD - but gradually I stopped reading them, because they weren't actually helping me to do any of the things I needed to do - although there were objectives in common. I didn't feel that they directed me to a real pathway I could follow. I felt more that I was being pointed to the end of the rainbow. I was getting the same kind of feeling that I get when I walk past really expensive shops and restaurants, or pick up a glossy fashion magazine in a waiting room. I look at things and see something that is a reality for some people - they are even doing things that I recognise - but their life is 'on the other side of the window' - not quite life as I know it. Meanwhile, back on the ground, we really did need to get information back and forth, between the UK/Internet and Oke-Ogun (Nigeria), ICT infrastructure or no ICT infrastructure, so we made the most of what we had and pushed it to the limits. Three years later Oke-Ogun is still way off the information highway, but we have a well worn information footpath to Ago-Are, and there is another one just becoming visible that goes on to Okeho as well. We meet up with John Dada, director of Fantsuam Foundation, further north, and he knows the information pathways there. Between us we are beginning to get a virtual community. The Oke-Ogun greeting of Ekaabo (Welcome) followed by How was your journey? How is your family begins to have a virtual meaning as well as a real one. Taking up Sam Lanfranco's points on motivation: CAWD/OOCD is driven by the vision of the son of illiterate peasants (Peter's words - used in love and concern, for his parents and his old friends from primary school). We are completely results driven. We have made sacrifices to get this far. We have invested our free time and dug deep in our pockets. (And taking up Sam Lanfranco's point about risk taking and someone putting his job on the line - yes, I do know someone who did that when making a decision that helped us, but I have no intention of naming him or giving the details.) We don't want any subsidies to help us *run* the Ago-Are InfoCentre, the local community is sorting that out. They have provided the building, they use its services, it is almost paying its way already, and its only been open 8 months, so its future looks positive, for serving local needs. We can see how the Ago-Are InfoCentre, and through it the Ago-Are community, could contribute first hand information about rural realities. That is a new stage in the project, which is not serving immediate local need. It is on a longer term, wider vision, ICT4D agenda, and needs external funding. The Ago-Are community would give information freely, but we need to cover communication costs and the admin/research staff costs (small amounts by developed world standards - but beyond our internal resources). I still hope that there is genuine overlap of purpose on both sides of the plate glass. Maybe we aren't on opposite sides of a window - maybe its just a matter of working out which section of glass is a wall and which bit is a doorway. Pamela McLean CAWD volunteer -supporting Community Action for Welfare and Development (CAWD volunteers use home Internet connectivity on behalf of rural development projects - new volunteers welcome) For OOCD 2000+ updates subscribe to the newsletter http://lists.kabissa.org/mailman/listinfo/oocd2000plus ***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: Impact of ICT on Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises
Thanks to Sam Lanfranco for a refreshing perspective. I agree with much of what Sam says regarding the reasons for the ICT poverty reduction research/evidence vacuum. I would like to add an additional point, and draw on the insights of Tom Wolfe on the social context of self promotion. In looking at the art world of New York in the 70's, in his book The Painted Word, Wolfe realized that the *writing* about art had overtaken art... without a theory to go with it, I can't see the painting. At the risk of biting the hand that feeds... How about, without a donor commissioning a written piece on its ICT initiative, I can't see the ICT initiative. Wolfe helped us understand that people can make something interesting happen, but if no one writes about that interesting happening, it will not attract attention, and it will certainly not attract additional support or money. The written word is the key to the flow of money, social status, recognition, etc... There is so much in the world of ICT poverty reduction that is hardly written about. If a donor does not fund an initiative, it is very unlikely to receive written attention - or research attention. The lack of research attention means that we know so little about which development interventions might yield the most significant poverty reduction results. What gets little written or research attention? Many ICT initiatives from national NGOs that barely reach the donor radar screen. Many of the ICT initiatives that are in the realm of the private sector, yet yield positive impacts on poverty reduction, receive so little attention - especially research attention - because no donor is involved. Some examples of what we do not read very much about, and for which impact assessment research is sorely lacking: - the impact of voice telephony on rural livelihoods and poverty reduction The telephone is such a boring ICT compared to computer and Internet-based tools. - the poverty reduction impact of basic email access through services such Hotmail, Yahoo!, etc. Likely more impact here than all donor ICT projects combined. - the poverty reduction impact of knowledge management services provided freely through Yahoo! Groups and related commercial services. For example, there are well over 1,000 agriculture/farm oriented discussion groups on Yahoo - a large number of which have been initiated by people in Asia, Latin America, the Pacific, using local languages and fonts. Anyone can start a discussion group in a few minutes, for free (try that with Dgroups). Just two examples - the Centre for Information on Coconut Lethal Yellowing (CICLY) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CICLY/ - a clearing house for information about lethal yellowing and similar diseases of coconuts and other palms - generates messages from across the globe; litkaji http://groups.yahoo.com/group/litkaji/ a group from Indonesia with 142 members (generating 134 messages so far this month) focused on communication about agricultural research - all in Bahasa. - thousands of indigenous web information services and portals developed independent of donor funding, but which have poverty reduction impacts. Pakissan.com a private sector web portal for the agricultural sector of Pakistan is but one example - and, like so many others, Pakissan goes unnoticed by the Development Gateway. - hundreds of indigenous ISPs operated by local entrepreneurs in developing countries. - thousands of individual websites enabled by services like GeoCities, indigenous ISPs - thousands of small scale entrepreneurs who re-sell phone services, - thousands of small scale entrepreneurs who start up telecentres (and who often have to compete with the donor versions), - dozens of private sector telecom operators who develop very creative business approaches to serving rural and remote areas to generate additional profit - the people who slog away on telecom policy and regulatory reform in their countries and whose written words can make such dramatic improvements in telecom investments, rural remote telecom coverage, etc. - bootstrap telecom equipment manufacturers in developing countries who design and adapt equipment to meet the price sensitive, geographic, regulatory, and consumer characteristics unique to their contexts - add your example here... A question - what can/should donors do to leverage the ICT and poverty reduction impacts of initiatives through which they cannot take full or direct credit such as the ones described above? Positive examples are donors and multi-lateral financial institutions (e.g. World Bank, CIDA, ITU, DFID) that sponsor important work on telecom policy and regulatory reform - the results of which help provide the fertile ground for many of the above initiatives. The results of their efforts do not provide for immediately sexy stories or photo opportunities, but the impacts can be huge. Another question - how can we stimulate more research into the above examples, regardless of whether
Re: [GKD] RFI: Impact of ICT on Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises
In response to Cornelio Hopmann's query about hard evidence on a measurable and scaleable impact of ICT on Poverty Reduction, sustained by hard evidence I would like to add a slightly different perspective to that offered by by Michael Gurstein in his February 12th posting. I will use the phrase ICT for poverty reduction to cover the wide range of ICT for development applications. Michael Gurstein's response was to cite the industrial country episode in the 19990's where the benefits of ICT investment in industry did not show up in the data until a substantial time lag. Even now, a jobless economic recovery in the United States is being attributed to the impact of earlier ICT investment on current production capabilities. The situation involving the implementation of ICT in poverty reduction is quite different from that involving ICTs in the industrial and service sectors in advanced economies, and the differences in situation are important. The first key difference is that ICTs for poverty reduction (under the hundreds of labels attached to those programs by donor's, NGOs, and recipient groups) is that the ICTs are mainly imposed from without, and not adopted from within. Even when the ICTs are requested from within it is almost always in reponse to an offer from without, or a request for proposals that has originated from a donor agency. The buy-in on the part of those actually applying the ICTs to this or that project and objective does not involve either putting their own jobs on the line as a result of success or failure, or placing the financial future of their enterprise on the line. In fact, in most cases, the act of securing the funding and the technology is treated as a successful outcome for individual career and organization evaluation. The actual performance of ICT is a secondary consideration. A second problem with ICTs for poverty reduction is that neither the donors nor those who implement the ICT have sufficient interest in actually researching the results. While they may say they do, the evidence is that they do not. The evidence is in two parts. Nowhere is there evidence that they are willing to devote resources to researching outcomes in any depth. The funding is simply not there. It is not built into the projects, nor is it available elsewhere. Contrast this with the research funding (including more applied RD funding) that goes into software, medical drugs, etc.). The difference of course is that those funding the software and medical drug research have a vested interest in the outcomes. Understanding why the donors and the recipients of ICT assistance don't have the same level of vested interested interest tells us something about what motivates, and what rewards, the behaviour of donors and recipients. If any research does take place, it is usually poorly funded academic research on the part of an individual graduate student doing a thesis, or an individual under funded academic with a keen interest in this or that aspect of ICT for poverty reduction. The second piece of evidence around a failure to research ICT for poverty reduction is the way in which donor's, and NGOs with a stake in the process, collect their stories of success and failure. There are numerous competitions and opportunities for ICT projects to pitch themselves as success stories. They are usually clustered around best practice or lessons learned exercises. On the surface this sounds good, but on deeper examination the results tends to be an ICT beauty contest. On occasion the success story is based on a project proposal, and not even a minimally audited ICT outcome, much less a sustainable ICT outcome. The minimum conditions for a transferable best practice or lesson learned include either a generalizable ICT solution that applies across a number of specific situations, or a specific ICT solution that applies across a broad set of common situations. The special solution in a special situation may be worthy of note, but is of little transferable value. However, I believe we have a deeper problem here. There have been transferable lessons learned in, for example, the telecentre area. The interesting question is why has there been a persistant (willful) failure to learn here? Why do donors, facilitating NGOs and recipients persist in repeating the same mistakes? I think the answer lies in part in the fact that donors, NGOS and to some extent recipients, get rewarded by seeming to be doing something, even if that something is non-productive. The recent World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva was a good example of this. So much preconference action, so much posturing, and so little in the way of outcomes. But each player has to be there to be seen to be there, so they can be funded to be there next time (in Tunis and beyond). In conclusion, there is little evidence with regard to what works in the application of ICT for poverty reduction not because there is no scope for research and
Re: [GKD] RFI: Impact of ICT on Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises
I write in response to Cornelio Hopmann, quoted below. If anyone does know of a good example of the kind of software he suggests, please let me know about it too. It could be the kind of thing that would help us to work effectively, regarding the proposed Biodesign/Sunshine Solutions/CAWD/OOCD/Fantsuam Foundation mini-solar project I wrote about previously. Pam McLean CAWD - supporting Community Action for Welfare and Development (CAWD volunteers use home Internet connectivity on behalf of rural development projects - new volunteers welcome) Cornelio Hopmann [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Very, very few tackle the management as such of supply, production and distribution. As an example, I searched in vain for software packages to support cooperatives, i.e. that would ease bundled purchases of supplies and tools, manage the internal distribution of those supplies and tools, and improve recollection of produced goods for bundled sales or exports; where this would be precisely the counterpart to supply-, distribution- and production-management in developed countries. 99% of the offered solutions are for the individual usage by the individual micro- or small entrepeneur. ***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: Impact of ICT on Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises
Vickram, my organisation is in the process of helping the people of the Upper East Region Ghana, in the conflict prone district of Bawku East to use radio to break barriers to access to information. The people from a preliminiary baseline survey overwhelmly choose the path of radio as a means of accessing and providing information. But looking at the area to be covered the equipment and skills needed to set up such a station is discouraging us from going down that path. From your submission it looks as if we get around the cost element through a modular sort of radiophony and adding on until we reach the expected coverage area. We have already started with trying to build the skills in ICT through a local teacher training college which is going to be linked to the internet through a VSAT link. We propose to link the community radio to this source which will not only provide the outlet to the wider world but also bring the wider world to these communities through the radio. Maybe some exchange of ideas on this will help us in our project. Mahmud Vickram Crishna [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ..snip... Radio has some advantages, as an introduction to pre-ICT. Micro-radio (my own area of interest) is exceedingly cheap - so much so that damaged transmission equipment (it is electronics, after all) can be very easily replaced outright (see www.radiophony.com for a circuit diagram that can be constructed for less than two dollars in India). Micro-radio (a few hundred meters in radius) is so very local in nature, it almost naturally generates simple methods for changing the communication paradigm to many-to-many (from the one-to-many of traditional broadcasting). Micro-radio can be powered by very cheap solar photovoltaics, and combined with rechargeable batteries, brings the unit cost of electricity to extremely affordable levels, while making it universally available (see the BioDesign website). ..snip... ***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: Impact of ICT on Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises
Dear Michael, I am well aware of the claimed global impact of ICT on overall capital-productivity, i.e. that improved supply- and distribution chain-management reduced the amount of capital bound to goods in store, that improved decision making reduced time-to-market, that standardizing procedures in all types of financial services improved the ratio of employees per client etc. In general that ICT reduced, sometimes dramatically, turn-around-time of invested capital with likewise dramatic increases in profits. But I'm also aware of hundreds if not thousands of dot-com business-models that simply burned billions of dollars, and that looking backwards had no sound economic base right from the very beginning. In Development Policies ICT MISME (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises) combine two trendy models: the MISME as driving engine for economic development and ICT as enabling if not empowering technology. MISME as development-engine parted from the statistically correct observation that in many, many developing countries 40% and more of employment is provided by micro- and small-businesses with between 3 and 15 employees. More over, that MISME acted as an absorbing buffer when due to the impact of structural adjustment policies hundreds of thousands of persons lost their jobs in public administration, formerly public owned utilities or closed industrial plants. Not to talk about MISME as a segment fed by rural-to-city migration. Balancing money invested against jobs created, agencies found out that 1000 US$ channeled to micro- and small enterprises created -at least apparently- more jobs than the same 1000 US$ channeled to industrial or big infrastructure projects. With falling prices for equipment -not to talk about re-cycled equipment from developed countries- and improved communication-infrastructure, ICT starts to appear as a possible short-cut to leverage even more the very large informal sector in developing countries. Again there appear to be sub-trends: the first focuses on the role of the middle-man and claims that by improving information-flows small producers in remote areas may obtain fairer prices and small consumers in remote areas may pay fairer prices. It should be noted however that already as a model this trend does not tackle productivity but rather distribution-problems (who earns the greater share). The second trend claims that ICT improves dramatically access-to-market opportunities. Despite that arts crafts manufacturing represents only a tiny fraction of the whole informal sector, there are literally hundreds of projects that claim that they either already improved market-access dramatically or that they will improve it. So my question still is: is there any hard evidence that in a replicatable and scaleable way ICT for arts crafts has improved the economic situation and impact of this segment or, more generally, is there any hard evidence that ICT for arts crafts is the most efficient and effective way of using funds for global poverty-reduction. I like to note, that about 80% of projects I've seen concentrate on market-access, more precisely on improved marketing. Very, very few tackle the management as such of supply, production and distribution. As an example, I searched in vain for software packages to support cooperatives, i.e. that would ease bundled purchases of supplies and tools, manage the internal distribution of those supplies and tools, and improve recollection of produced goods for bundled sales or exports; where this would be precisely the counterpart to supply-, distribution- and production-management in developed countries. 99% of the offered solutions are for the individual usage by the individual micro- or small entrepeneur. In my humble opinion many will-be-a-big-success stories read as if they were dot-com-era business-models. If as economy you have excess-money to spend, burning some billions might not hurt much nor many unless those who saw their retirement-funds vanishing, if however your whole economy is on the brink -as in many developing countries- burning money easily may drive you over the edge. Yours Cornelio ***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/
