Comments by roxyboxy

I’ve been reflecting why despite the well documented socio-economic benefits of mobile telephony and high penetration rates there are not equally compelling mobile applications for agriculture and for rural development in general?

I keep asking myself, why has not m-development picked up like wild fire? Why is not the development world using mobile phone and turning it into a service delivery platform since it has the potential of facilitating the delivery of agricultural, financial, health and education services and also has the potential of overcoming isolation, poverty and creating more freedom?

Over the last decade or so, governments, donor agencies, NGOs, private sector have designed and piloted ICT for development (ICT4D) projects. We can no longer effort just to pilot. It is high time to roll up our sleeves and start to design and implement sustainable ICT4D project and programmes.

According to the recent literature, the reason why pilot mobile applications fail to graduate to full-fledged comprehensive and sustainable service delivery applications is due to:
- lack of adequate infrastructure (towers, electricity)
- interventions not being scaled
- mobile applications poorly marketed
- low literacy rate among the target audience of these applications – mainly farmers, fishers, pastoralists, indigenous peoples living in rural areas
- lack of project sustainability and funding
- lack of coordination and collaboration among stakeholders across the different sectors
- general lack of investment in ICT applications by governments and donors
- lack of charismatic and evangelist leaders who push the agenda forward and attract investors after the pilot is over

There is evidence that subsistence and smallholder farmers are increasingly using text, voice messaging and unstructured supplementary service data to access information, such as weather forecast and market prices.

At the same time, studies show that poor rural people are willing to spend more or less 50% of their disposable incomes on mobile communications.

We’ve seen how users have pushed the phone to its limit which has resulted in innovative uses such as integrating M-PESA application with mobile insurance schemes , or Lifelink which allows users to buy water credit with their M-PESA account, or a taxi driver in Zambia using his phone’s internet browser to diagnose diseases.

We’ve also seen how money transfer applications such as M-PESA have created a new banking paradigm and how the “unbankables” today can save, ask for credit and have suddenly become “bankable”.

The writing is on the wall, developing countries SEE and WANT mobile phones as their preferred information delivery systems. They see the mobile phone with a laptop lens which allows them to use it for transactions and at the same time provides access to data and information.

There are no ’ifs’ and ‘buts’ vis-à-vis the need to put m-development on the agenda of decision and policy makers. To do so, as development practitioners we should promote the idea of doing development using digital platforms.

This means we need to engage with, work with and invest in local talents – people who know what their peers want and need. At the same time we need to work on blending old and new ICTs so that we can reach out to the entire “user base”. If we get serious and do this we’ll end up converging what smallholder farmers, fishers, pastoralists and indigenous peoples NEED with what they WANT.

To create a virtuous circle and help poor rural people to come out poverty, while understanding the constraints of rural information economy, development projects need to ensure that smallholder producers are integrated and participating in local, regional and global markets and have access to:
- price information in such a way that they can make planting decision and not just focus on post-harvest
- good cultivation practice – pre and post harvest
- inputs, seeds, fertilizer and pesticides
- information on improved crop varieties, pest and disease management
- financial and insurance services
- weather information

The challenge is to see how we can develop and rollout m-applications and services that meet the smallholder producers needs and cover the entire value chain, knowing very well that there will not be a “one size fits all” application.

Oh, please give me a break.
Secretary Clinton is an icon of professionalism, diplomacy and one of the best Secretary's of State US has had since a very long time.
Yes, she has to dance, because that is part of her JOB. She represents the United States of America abroad. She is after all the Minister of Foreign Affairs..... If the dinner gala requires her to give a speech, she has to do so and by the same token if it requires her to dance, she needs to do that too.
So please get a life and leave her alone.

The challenge with Iran is the fact that no one - not even those living in the country, let alone foreign governments and western powers - have a clear and sound understanding of what is happening in the country. No one really has the full picture of the various alliances, allegiances and the moving parts. No one really knows how bad is the economic situation and no one really has a clear picture of the depth and breadth of the country's nuclear programme.
More sanctions will not make a dent in the government. They will further damage the precarious living conditions of the Iranian people. If the west thinks that by doing so, there will be an Iranian awakening, they may be very disappointed.
What ever happened to the Green movement? It is history. Will there be another Green movement? Not sure.
There has to be a concerted effort to understand Iranian politics, understand what is REALLY going on in the country. This cannot be done by talking with the diaspora, but with real people living in the country.
The challenge is to break through the tightly vacuum packed package called Iran to finally see and taste its contents!

The challenge with Iran is the fact that no one - not even those living in the country, let alone foreign governments and western powers - have a clear and sound understanding of what is happening in the country. No one really has the full picture of the various alliances, allegiances and the moving parts. No one really knows how bad is the economic situation and no one really has a clear picture of the depth and breadth of the country's nuclear programme.
More sanctions will not make a dent in the government. They will further damage the precarious living conditions of the Iranian people. If the west thinks that by doing so, there will be an Iranian awakening, they may be very disappointed.
What ever happened to the Green movement? It is history. Will there be another Green movement? Not sure.
There has to be a concerted effort to understand Iranian politics, understand what is REALLY going on in the country. This cannot be done by talking with the diaspora, but with real people living in the country.
The challenge is to break through the tightly vacuum packed package called Iran to finally see and taste its contents!

A sad and a very accurate picture of contemporary Iran.

Paying taxes in Italy requires a Herculean change in culture. Molecular scientists need to modify Italian DNA so that they understand WHY and HOW they should pay taxes.
The austerity package recently introduced is a REVOLUTION for this beautiful country. Only by reaping the fruits of this revolution and ensuring that the money collected does not go astray but is used properly may convince Italians of the importance and value of paying taxes.
The $1,000,000 question is whether this will happen. As they say in Italian "Chi vivra', vedra'"
Considering that capital of Italy is Rome and there is a close link with higher powers... we cannot but hope that this miracle will indeed happen.
Viva Italia!

Social media channels are being used to exchange a wide variety of information. As far as non-profits are concerned, these are mainly information about the work of the organization, their challenges, achievements, and taking the pulse of the public at large.
They are also being used to engage in a conversation with different audiences and a new segment of audience - which traditionally non-profit organizations were not able to reach through conventional communication channels.
Fund raising is a whole new beast in itself and needs a solid strategy. One may also use social media channels to advance the fund raising cause, but definitely should not put all eggs in the social media basket when it comes to fund raising. At least for the time being these channels are used to complement full-fledged fund-raising campaigns and definitely ARE NOT the fund raising campaign.

I think we all agree that data, information, knowledge and wisdom are different from one another and are not interchangeable terms, as they mean different things and serve different purposes.
While there may be some truth in the last paragraph of this article, yes, there is a lot of noise in social media... but I think the bigger question to ask ourselves is whether it is better to hear just one voice or few voices or whether it is better to hear to many voices so that we can benefit from a variety and diverse opinions, ideas, knowledge and wisdom.
Let's not forget that social media personifies the WISDOM of the CROWD and as such, it cannot be a whisper, but it is LOUD and CLEAR!!!
Happy New Year to all the social media junkies! :)

I wonder how much of the Euro zone crisis is really a crisis and how much of it is staged by United States to maintain US$ hegemony

What is amazing in all of this, is the fact that the Italians did not manage to force their prime minister to resign, at the end of the day, it was Europe!!!

Lord that is pretty scary!

I am not sure it is correct to say that Twitter took the thunder out of event. I see this as an excellent example of "back-channel syndrome". This is why it is so important to use Twitter wall sparsely, precisely to avoid participants concentrating exclusively on the tweets rather than what is happening in the room.

And thank you Arianna and Huffington for saying that there are no differences between bloggers and journalists. How can we help the old school journalists and media people understand that the world has changed and the present and the future will no longer be exclusively be on print media but more and more on social media!!!

I must admit that the comments on this article are more compelling and revealing than the article itself. They are an accurate mirror of the current thinking in the country. It will take at least 2 generations before this country can demolish Berlusconismo. And if it will probably take 3 generations before the left finds a charismatic leader who can counter Berlusconismo.
So - where does this leave us? We is needed is a MIRACLE.

Very good inventory of currently available and emerging mobile applications in developing countries. The article poses a fundamental question - which is one on the minds of most development workers - namely when and if will these services graduate from being "pilots" and become mainstream. http://rsamii.blogspot.com/2010/09/enough-with-pilots-lets-get-serious-a...
This is exactly what Jan Schwier is saying when she says "we do not need more new services,but a better focus on commercialisation". I however, disagree with her statement that "African smallholder needs prices for his crops on his mobile does not mean he will pay for them".
Smallholder farmers are business people. They need to make money and make profit. Thus, like any other business person, they are willing to invest, if and only if, they know and are assured that the service they are investing in will give them an edge and thus helping them make money.
How long it will take for these services to be developed and mainstreamed is the 1 million dollar question. I also disagree with the article's conclusion that "development 2.0 seams premature". This statement shows a lack of vision and unwillingness to challenge the status quo. In the 21st century, how can we conceive of bringing about progress and improving the livelihoods of poor people, if we shy away from embracing development 2.0. This is a fatal mistake and one that I sincerely hope development and donor agencies should not make. There is an urgent need to put back ICT4D on the development agenda. http://rsamii.blogspot.com/2010_11_01_archive.html The future is in DEVELOPMENT2.0. So, let's join hands and make it a reality.

Lots of "lovely" words which mean different things to different people and unfortunately do not mean anything to those who have to actually have to do something :(

Umm... makes you wonder how nothing has changed and nothing will change. Power in the hands of a few, the old boys network, who decide for and on-behalf of others. And then we preach democracy. Who knows maybe real democracy - which transcends ideology - exists only on Mars and Venus.
Who knows, maybe we should ask NASA!

Just came across this headline "Iran's export of $44m farming gear to Sudan" [http://farmlandgrab.org/post/view/18019]. Considering the astronomical pikes in price of wheat (as a consequence bread which is staple food in rice), it makes one wonder why the government is not using these resources to boost its own agriculture sector so that it can ensure food security for all and not only that to produce enough to also export.
Is there a method in this madness?

As highlighted in this article, there is enough evidence that mobile phone is the most rapidly adopted technology in history and the only sector that has not suffered from the recent economic downturn. Furthermore, there is ample evidence that the advent of mobile telephony has brought about social and economic inclusion for previously excluded segments of population, while at the same time has provided banking facilities to previously unbankable people.

Yet, applications and innovations such as txteagle - which could benefit huge segments of population - and many others seem to be confined (for example txteagle seems to be confined to Kenya).

I've been asking myself why such applications and others have not picked up like wild fire and become viral and mainstream like Facebook or Twitter? I would be interested to hear how we can take these innovations to their next step and mainstream them!!! http://bit.ly/cOxB77

Kudos to Digicel for taking risks and investing in godforsaken places and congratulations to the Economist for writing a story about Digicel's achievements. As a topic close to my heart - and something that I recently wrote about (http://rsamii.blogspot.com/2010/09/enough-with-pilots-lets-get-serious-a...), I was thrilled to see that these guys have understood the potential of m-development and it also seems like as pioneers in this new territory, they will be leading the way. The world of m-development and m-applications needs more VC and visionaries like Digicel!

Colleagues, congratulations on your work with the MPI.
We are taking this opportunity to inform you that at the end of last year the International Fund for Agricultural Development(IFAD) and partners completed the development of the Multidimensional Poverty Assessment Tool (MPAT), which we launched in March 2010. (see http://www.ifad.org/mpat/).
MPAT is designed to provide a thorough, local-level (household/village) assessment of rural poverty. We cordially invite you to consult our publications (as well as M. Saisana's (EC) analysis and assessment report).
Over the next year or two, IFAD and other UN agencies, NGOs and others will be using MPAT to support rural poverty reduction projects in Asia and other regions. The MPAT User's Guide is presently a "working paper" since we expect we will be able to further improve MPAT with feedback received over the coming year/s.
Given the similarities between the MPI and MPAT, and their differences with respect to the scales of application/analysis, it seems there is an opportunity for collaboration and exchange of experience, so that the tools might more directly complement each other, and may be found in the same "toolbox". We would welcome such a cooperation and look forward to an intensive exchange for the benefit of our target group the poor.
Sincerely yours
MPAT team