In Nov Fair Program

Innovation Fair Moving beyond Conflict | I

INNOVATION FAIRMOVING BEYOND CONFLICT


The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed herein are those of the author(s), and do not necessarily reflect the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank and its affili-ated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of The World Bank or the governments they represent.

The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work. The boundaries, colors, denomi-nations, and other information shown on any map in this work do not imply any judgment on the part of The World Bank concerning the legal status of any territory or the endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries.


Table of Contents:List of selected projects –Window 1 3

List of selected projects- Window 2 45

2 | Innovation Fair Moving beyond Conflict

Innovation Fair Moving beyond Conflict | 3

LisT of seLeCTed projeCTs

Window 1: Improve Service Delivery and Governance through the Use of Communications Tools

Project Title Page No.

Community Development Task Force” for Empowering the Rural C ommunity with ICT

4

Innovative approach for providing artificial limbs for the disabled- Jagadhari Limbs 6

Interactive learning for all - a quantum leap in access to information and education through combined technologies

9

Map Kibera 11

Open Source Tool for e-Governance and Conflict Resolution 14

Promoting educational learning and innovation through technology in conflict-affected countries

16

Radio for Peacebuilding, Accountability Now! 20

Reducing Maternal Mortality with a PDA and GPS 23

Social Mapping for Multi-Scalar Development 26

SOPO – An Engaging Communication for a Life Long Practice of Handwashing 29

Subterranean Arsenic Removal- Experiment to Delivery 31

The African Elections Project: Social Networking Tools for Election/Governance Monitoring for Sustainable Development

34

The Use of ICT for Effective Delivery of Legal Service in the Ethiopian Federal Supreme Court

38

The Village Development Program: Facilitating collective community visioning and project implementation

40

Using ICT for LPG delivery, tracking and grievance redressal 43


projeCT TiTLe:

“Community Development Task Force” for Empowering the Rural Community with ICT

AuThor: Seuwandi Yapa, Practitioner, (seuwandi)

CounTry of impLemenTATion: Sri Lanka

probLem definiTion: Information Communication Technology (ICT) is an enabler and a tool that can empower people in the 21st century in whatever fields of employment they are involved in. IT literacy in a third world, post-war country like Sri Lanka is still remains in a poor status where majority of its citizen do not enjoy the benefits of ICT. Addressing this problem of digital divide, over 600 telecenters (A telecentre is a public place where people can access computers, the Internet, and other digital technologies that help them gather information and communicate with others at the same time as they develop digital skills) were implemented by the government of Sri Lanka, especially in the rural areas. Yet, the successful service delivery through the telecentres were failed due to several reasons such as lack of sustainability, lack of IT trained and skillful workforce, lack of knowledge and awareness among the community, etc. Under such circumstances, it was obvious that preserving and maintaining the sustainability of the telecentre was a major challenge that should be addressed in or-der to deliver the dividends of ICT to every village and every citizen in Sri Lanka, specially to the com-munity of North and eastern parts of Sri Lanka which are recently recovered from the 30 years war.

projeCT desCripTion And objeCTives:

Responsibilities of the CDTF members

1) Awareness building of the community in their respective areas regarding the services of Nenasala

2) Successful coordinating among tecentres in the respective areas3) Sharing their knowledge and experience with associate Nenasala managers, operators and

community through seminars and workshops4) Preparing a work plan for the telecentres that are malfunctioned and implementing the plan5) Producing an evaluation and progress report of the telecentres operation in their area and

for the future endeavor

CDTF is set up with a structure which consisted with several spheres, each allocated to cater differ-ent needs and demands of the community in using ICT as follows:

• Communication- It is expected to make available all modes of communication facilities: telephone, fax, email & intermet at the telecentres.

• Help desk- It is planned to setup a help desk that can assist the community members with the technical support that they require such as to repair a computer, install a software, etc.

• Village Development- It is intended implement strategies which can support village develop-ment through ICT


• Marketing and Promotion- It is expected to promote and market telecentre services through campaigns, posters, leaflets, announcements, seminars, workshops, meetings and all sorts of effective communication methods and building awareness among the community

• Monitoring and Evaluation- It is expected to assess the progress of the each allotment of the concept and evaluate what are the things to be moderated further in order to achieve high efficiency and effectiveness of the telecentre and how the telecentres can generate an income by delivering the best ICT services to the community.

• Capacity Building- It is to assist the respective community members to improve their knowl-edge and skills in ICT through special training and guiding. It includes both IT soft skills and IT hardware training programs.

Main objectives of the project is to ensure and enhance the sustainability of the telecentres through the community involvement. Meantime it will contribute to successful operations of the telecentres and empowering the quality of people’s lives through ICT. Also it is further expected that the project will ultimately result in:

• strengthening the democratic processes in the country• the advancement of the peace process• improving the quality of life of the people• enhancing the social and economic development and poverty reduction

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To guarantee that telecentres are fully functioning and contributing to it’s utmost to deliver the optimal benefits of ICT to the rural community, the “Community Development Task Force’ (CDTF) was employed. The innovative aspect engraved with this project is that it is a self- help and co-operative initiative. Basically there are two major aspects of CDTF. First, the it is expected, through this project it can provide assistance to the malfunctioning telecentres by the rest of the telecen-tres in that particular area which are successfully in operation. Second, the CDTF will assist the community to make use of ICT and upgrade their socio-economic standards. Therefore the CDTF will consist with a group of telecentre managers/ operators who are well experienced in telecen-tre management and ICT. The CDTFs were implemented district wise which will enable the CDTF members to easily deal with the community and their needswhich they are also familiar with.

Sustainability of the telecentres is a major challenge which is common for the telecentres in most parts of the world. CDTF is an innovative solution that we can replicate in order to overcome this challenges. In fact the basic idea behind the CDTF is to transform challenges into opportunities. Strategy used by the CDTF is knowledge sharing among the community members and co-operate towards achieving targets and goals. Further, this system encourages making use of available IT resources and human resources and promotes all the possible ways that can gain self sustainabil-ity. It is also significant to note that CDTF is multy functional as it will be effective to empower the rural community with ICT and it will automatically result in sustainability of the telecentres.


projeCT TiTLe:

Innovative approach for providing artificial limbs for the disabled- Jagadhari Limbs

AuThor: Nitin Yadav, Researcher, (nitinyadav76)

CounTry of impLemenTATion: India

probLem definiTion: National Sample Survey Organization of India, a highly reputed scientific and statistical organization of Government of India prepared a Report {No. 485 - NSS 58th round} on the disabled persons in India in December 2003. According to this report 1.008% of India’s population (one billion), suffer from loco-motor disabilities (paralysis; deformity of limbs; loss of limbs; dysfunction of joints of limbs and other deformities). This means that over ten mil-lion people suffer from loco-motor disability in India. In short the problem of loco-motor disability in terms of sheer numbers is massive hence the need for an innovative technology in this area.

projeCT desCripTion And objeCTives: The main objective of the “Jagadhari Limbs” is the physical, economic and social rehabilitation of physically challenged, particularly the resource-less, enabling them to regain their mobility, self-respect and human dignity so that they become self-reliant, normal and productive members of the community.

projeCT desCripTion And objeCTives: The main objective of the “Jagadhari Limbs” is the physical, economic and social rehabilitation of physically challenged, particularly the resource-less, enabling them to regain their mobility, self-respect and human dignity so that they become self-reliant, normal and productive members of the community.

Pursuant to the above, the Jagadhar Limbs engages in -

• Providing Cost Effective, Durable and user friendly Artificial limbs and other rehabilitation aids and appliances to amputees.

• Providing Calipers, modified footwear and other rehabilitation aids and appliances to polio af-flicted and other disabled persons. Care is taken to suit their living and working environment.

• Hearing aids to persons who are hearing impaired.• Special shoes and other aids to persons suffering from leprosy. Also attachments catering to

their specific needs are provided for.• Providing counseling, financial and other support of self-employment and social rehabilita-

tion of the physically challenged.• Ensuring continuous scientific and technical research in developing and improving aids and

appliances for the physically challenged.• Dissemination of knowledge and expertise relating to the manufacture of aids and appliances,

care of the disabled by providing training to technicians, doctors etc., by organizing training courses, technical workshop, seminars and publication of technical and social books / reports etc.

• Collaboration with various organizations dealing with the handicapped to ensure synergy and optimal utilization of resources.


1. Organizing on-the-spot-limb / caliper-manufacturing-fitment-camps in Haryana and other parts of India.

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The limbs made with this technology are closest to a normal human limb. The Jagadhari Limb has virtually got the same range of movements which a normal human foot has In other words, it is an all-functional, all-terrain limb. Besides being cosmetically closest to the human limbs.

• Its unique design improves the gait of the amputees at all surface level walking.• Jagadhari Limbs are made of ISO, POLYCOL and strong wood. It is water proof. These mate-

rials make it light weight.• It is easily acceptable by the lower limb amputees.• Comparatively the weight of the Jagadhri foot is lowest that is around 500gm.• It is reliable due to its durability and ease of use.• The foot is cost effective inspite of the material used for its manufacturing is of international

standard. • The normal life of Jagadhari Limbs is around 2 years which is replaced regularly.

demonsTrATed deveLopmenT impACT

The project has been implemented in various parts of the district and has now been offered as stan-dard equipment under various schemes for the disabled in the state of Haryana in India. The product was ISO 9001 certified for quality. Over a span of 5 years when the project started from its infancy in 2005, it has benefited over 200 disabled beneficiaries whose life style has changed for better with this intervention. The model has been widely accepted, developing it further through a regular feedback mechanism from the beneficiaries. Presently the workshop is geared to make these aids in a short span of 3 days, after which a regular medical checkups and physiotherapy is provided to the beneficiaries.

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The project has wide applicability and acceptability especially in conflict areas and places where the polio affected population is high. Since the project has inherent economic and social compo-nent built in whereby the disabled are able to go for economically viable activity, this innovation has high potential in high poverty areas. The innovations can further strengthened with sharing of knowledge and partnership of institution involved in material sciences both govt and corporations. The scalability of the project can also be improved with better identification, checkup and after services to the disabled through community mobilization and dedicated volunteers.

more informATion AbouT The projeCT:

A short paragraph introducing the author: I am Nitin Kumar Yadav from the Indian Administrative Services. Presently posted as Deputy Commissioner, Jhajjar. I have worked in the administrative capacity in various districts of Haryana State, India. I am a Computer Science and Engineering Graduate from IIT Delhi, and MBA from Vidyasagar University. I have been interested in the developmental issues relating to health, education and infrastructure. I have been associated with the project for Jagadhari Foot in the capacity of President of Red Cross, Yamunanagar.

A short paragraph about the organization The Indian Red Cross ( district branch yamuna nagar ) is a voluntary humanitarian organization.


Providing relief in times of disasters/emergencies and promotes health & care of the vulnerable people and communities. It is a leading member of the largest independent humanitarian organi-zation in the world, the International Red Cross & Red Crescent Movement.

The Mission of the Indian Red Cross ( district branch yamuna nagar ) is to inspire, encourage and initiate at all times all forms of humanitarian activities so that human suffering can be mini-mized and even prevented and thus contribute to creating more congenial climate for peace.The website of the organisation is http://yamunanagar.nic.in/redcross/main.htm

A brief summary of the project National Sample Survey Organization of India, a highly reputed scientific and statistical organi-zation of Government of India prepared a Report {No. 485 - NSS 58th round} on the disabled persons in India in December 2003. According to this report 1.008% of India’s population (one billion), suffer from loco-motor disabilities (paralysis; deformity of limbs; loss of limbs; dysfunction of joints of limbs and other deformities). This means that over ten million people suffer from loco-motor disability in India. In short the problem of loco-motor disability in terms of sheer numbers is massive. hence the need for an innovative technology in this area.

The main objective of the “Jagadhari Limbs” is the physical, economic and social rehabilitation of phys-ically challenged, particularly the resource-less, enabling them to regain their mobility, self-respect and human dignity so that they become self-reliant, normal and productive members of the community.

Field Evidence of the project The task of providing these artificial limbs is being carried out extensively with regular health camps that are undertaken in the remote areas. At first stage the likely beneficiaries are scanned, secondly they are picked up free of cost to the nearest health centre for a more thorogh exami-nation and finally on the recommendation of the orthopaedic doctor, the limbs are provided to them, followed up with regular physiotherpic exercise. The stress in on to make the physically challenged self reliant and to gel in the mainstream of the society.

This has been recognized by various institutions independently reviewing like FDDI.

Please let us know in a short paragraph what you would like to achieve at the fair given what you knowThe project has wide applicability and acceptability especially in conflict areas and places where the polio affected population is high. Since the project has inherent economic and social compo-nent built in whereby the disabled are able to go for economically viable activity, this innovation has high potential in high poverty areas. The innovations can further strengthened with sharing of knowledge and partnership of institution involved in material sciences both govt and corporations. The scalability of the project can also be improved with better identification, checkup and after services to the disabled through community mobilization and dedicated volunteers.

Given that you were presented with the right funding and resources to make thrice the im-pact in 2 years what would your ask be? Please be as specific with your ask as possible?The project’s reach and effectiveness can be vastly increased by ensuring a competent partner in the research and technology wing. It should have an experience in material sciences which can ensure development of the artificial limbs which are light in weight, easy to work on, economical and sturdy. Another requirement would be of ensuring that better physiotherapy and health care centre is provided for ensuring effective outreach services and follow up courses. The most diffi-cult cases involve those who are also mentally challenged, hence and effective partnership should be evolved to cater to their special needs.


projeCT TiTLe:

Interactive learning for all - a quantum leap in access to in-formation and education through combined technologies

AuThor: Kristine Pearson, Practitioner, ((kpearson)

CounTry of impLemenTATion: The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Niger, Sudan, Zimbabwe

probLem definiTion: In fragile states - in emergency or development stages - urgent needs compete for scarce resources. Following 11 years working in radio for development, Freeplay Foundation (FF) has identified numerous limitations to accessing cost effective radio-based information and educational programs - lack of electricity, the ost of disposable batteries, and crippling poverty. This coupled with under-resourced governments that struggle to capacity-build heath workers, government staff and teachers - or adequately provide basic education to young learners, let alone adult or business education. Lack of access is more acute for women and children inhibiting self-esteem, economic development and even hope.

projeCT desCripTion And objeCTives: The right tool could democratize access to education lessons, programs in peace building, environment, health, women’s rights, legal con-cerns, financial literacy - anything of importance to populations in fragile states. In response huge demand and armed with years of feedback from vulnerable African communities, FF has created the revolutionary Lifeplayer, a quantum leap in learning.

Developed in South Africa, the Lifeplayer’s broad feature set includes; AM/FM/SW radio with MP3 capacity, pre-loaded with 32Gb of educational or informational content in any subject or language. Programming can be factory or locally loaded as needed on memory sticks. It can serve as a talking book or play audio Internet or cellular content. It records live radio for later listening or live voice for capturing individual or group stories, encouraging interaction. With Lifeplayer’s outstanding speaker quality, 60 listeners can hear it clearly. It’s power-independent with a wireless solar panel and back-up hand crank for when the sun isn’t shining. Groups can listen and learn 24/7 anytime, anywhere to support disaster situations, relief efforts, entertainment programmes and on-going development initiatives for hours on-end.

FF’s objective is to include Lifeplayer in a variety of educational and informational initiatives in fragile states where it’s already working or in new countries where it has alliances. FF’s team includes content developers who build capacity using local talent, particularly women and the disabled. We’re in final discussions with partners for innovative pilot projects in Haiti, DRC, Sudan, Zimbabwe and Niger. Field trials for teacher training will commence in July 2010 in DRC.


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Nothing like the Lifeplayer exists in the humanitarian space which offers a broad-based ICT solu-tion for information and education delivery, bridging radio, cellular and Internet technologies. Robustly engineered by Africans, the Lifeplayer boasts embedded data-logging, accurately and objectively recording how it’s used in situ - a critical feature for monitoring and evaluation. To address the paucity of powering options, the solar panel also charges cell phones. The Lifeplayer accommodates for differing learning speeds and capacities by being able to rewind, pause and replay. An intuitive user-friendly interface and digital display enhances ease of use. True democrati-zation of information can take place.


Augmenting radio with media players for development has been investigated, but constrained by the lack of appropriate hardware and reliable and affordable power sources. In the developing world, the vast educational resource of the Internet reaches a fraction of the population, especially in fragile states. Cellphones are pervasive, but charging is problematic. FF has years of demonstrated, positive impact created from its award-winning solar-powered wind-up radio, the Lifeline. Since 2003 more than 215,000 Lifeline radios have been distributed reaching over 8 million listeners. For example learners in Tanzania attending radio school using the Lifeline have achieved higher grades than government school. By merging radio, Internet and cellular technologies, the Lifeplayer holds the promise of cost-effectively reaching millions in information-starved populations.

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One Lifeplayer can reach hundreds of listeners;. thousands of Lifeplayers can reach hundreds of thousands of listeners. Recording messages further increases reach allowing repeated playback on demand to other community members. Although face-to-face training is strongly recommended with distribution, it’s been developed specifically for ease of use. Once deployed, content can be remotely updated as situational changes dictate. FF has a strong network of long-term partners, well positioned to assist with content creation, Lifeplayer training and distribution. FF has a proven track record of complex logistics and project implementation in scale in fragile states reaching hundreds of thousands.


projeCT TiTLe:

Map Kibera

AuThor: Erica Hagen, Practitioner, , (ericahagen)

CounTry of impLemenTATion: Kenya

probLem definiTion: Until recently, Kibera, a massive slum in Nairobi, Kenya, was a blank spot on any publicly available map, despite an estimated one million people living in this informal area. Mass media in Kenya generally ignores it, and corruption and vigilante justice are standard. It is one of the most researched slums in the world, but external agencies often do not share results or solicit local input. Huge amounts of government and international funds are slated to serve the community, but without accountability, ghost projects and duplication are common. Information is not community-owned and therefore in-actionable by locals.

projeCT desCripTion And objeCTives: Map Kibera (mapkibera.org) trained 13 youth, one from each village of Kibera, in the tools and techniques of OpenStreetMap. Over three weeks, assisted by local GIS professionals, the youth collected data with GPS units and edited their map in a computer lab using open source software. The result is one of the densest maps ever created in the commons, highlighting the locations of schools, water points, health centers and more. It is free and open for use by all.

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This project uses open-source technology to empower people to create their own local map, using GPS devices, and then to make use of that map for many purposes including anti-corruption. It is made available online as part of OpenStreetMap, an editable map of the world made by volun-teers and available for use by third parties. It connects residents with the map via a variety of digital tools so that they can hold government accountable and begin to envision and create the community they want. It removes barriers to information collection, ownership, and dissemination by local citizens. The project connects citizens to information circuits via SMS reporting.


The resources created in this project help Kibera residents gather and share information them-selves. The resultant map of Kibera is the first publicly available online map of this often-contested area. Making the invisible visible is the first step towards addressing corruption and creating transparency in the slum, where ghost projects and service duplication are rampant. Three local organizations are now trained in the use of digital media, so they can gain wider audience for sto-ries about corruption and need not depend on mainstream news companies. Kibera is no longer invisible, and residents themselves have new tools to hold government accountable.


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This project is already geared to scale up in Kenya and beyond. Trained mappers and journalists will help train others in other slums in Nairobi. A rural constituency will then participate in train-ing on mapping and digital communication tools, and ultimately the project will be handed over entirely to local partners. Then, mapping and training in other countries are planned. Curriculum development is underway jointly with others who are also knowledgeable about community technology and mapping. This is a particularly viable approach for fragile or conflict environments (like slums), because it hands technology to the residents for their own data creation and storytell-ing and does not depend on continued government or external support, and it allows them to own the information and thereby build trust. It also makes uses of non-proprietary, open-source technology so that ownership can be entirely local.


A short paragraph introducing yourselfI helped start on Map Kibera in October of 2009 with my partner Mikel Maron. I am from Chicago and worked in nonprofit fundraising there before receiving a Master’s of International Affairs from Columbia University in New York, where I focused on journalism and international development. I’ve worked with photography, video, and radio, and writing as well as online multimedia. I’ve also made a documentary about water in India, helped set up M&E for an HIV program in Uganda, taught English to immigrants in America, been a volunteer journalist for a Tibetan freedom march in California.

A short paragraph describing your organization and the work they doGroundTruth Initiative was recently founded after the success of the Map Kibera pilot in order to expand the work to other areas and create a model for similar work. GroundTruth specializes in participatory digital mapping and media production, with the aim of promoting the community development of information. Map Kibera produced the first public, online, digital map of the Kibera slum, and continues to produce community-owned information via technology and new media.

A brief paragraph restating your idea or research in a simple and coherent mannerThere are three components to the project model: 1) Training a local group in mapping techniques based on the OpenStreetMap platform, and producing a detailed local map which can be changed as conditions shift. This group can also survey for additional data to add to the map (such as clinic services offered, ages of children at schools). 2) Working with local media and community news outlets, providing training in new media storytelling and citizen journalism using tools like Flip camcorders, blogging software, and digital cameras, and developing online tools intended to communicate stories around the community and to the outside world. 3) Building platforms for collecting information and reporting back via SMS, and presenting this information to policymak-ers and the community itself to help them advocate for better service delivery and transparency.

The key is to create a digital Community around shared community information, and allow many different groups and individuals to make use of and contribute to the new resources. The end result should be a group of engaged citizens and community journalists who are able to represent their own community in multiple ways, as well as platforms and mediums to share the information locally and globally.


Please let us know in a short paragraph what you would like to achieve at the fair given what you knowI am excited to meet others who are actively working with communities on practical grassroots technology projects to share lessons learned, seek new ideas, and find ways to collaborate and support each other.

5. Given that you were presented with the right funding and resources to make thrice the impact in 2 years what would your ask be? Please be as specific with your ask as possibleI would want to work closely and carefully with selected young leaders who come from marginalized communities that would like to learn our techniques, to train and support them to start up similar projects in their home regions. I would also want sufficient funding so that they could dedicate the necessary time and energy to launch these projects and sustain them. I would like to ultimately support the creation along with these new leaders of a media hub in each of their neighborhoods to promote production of hyper-local news, maps, and information. Finally I would like to link together the new information and local hubs to learn from each other.


projeCT TiTLe:

Open Source Tool for e-Governance and Conflict Resolution

AuThor: Gopala Krishnan Devanathan, Practitioner, (KrisDev)


probLem definiTion: The world is besieged with problems of governance resulting in conflicts. What is lacking is stakeholder empowerment to actively participate and collaborate in decision making. Every nation in the world is entrenched in its own system of bureaucracy and red-tape, preventing free flow of information and autocratic decision making by those holding high positions in government.

Despite vast development in Information and Communication technology, there is no single com-munication and work-flow tool available in any country for citizens to actively participate in mat-ters concerning their welfare from the local to the national / global level.

There is no single tool to integrate the entire activities of the society / community, encompassing governments, communities and citizens, to bridge the divides to ensure transparency and account-ability, to create all round peace and prosperity.

projeCT desCripTion And objeCTives: ‘e-Administration’ - an e-Platform for e-Governance and Conflict Resolution, is a web based, platform neutral, paper less communication and work flow solution developed using open source tools (java, jboss, postgresql all running on Linux), for governments, communities and citizens to ensure transparency and accountability in decision making in all matters concerning the community.

The tool has the provision for self customization by any community of users or organization and can help to create the entire geographic divisions from the village to the global level, entire func-tional activities, create departments, positions and citizens / officials for G2C / G2G / G2B / B2B / B2C / C2C communications.

The objective of the Project is to integrate the entire vertical and horizontal hierarchy of any community of users using a hub and spokes model of connectivity for seamlessly communication and introduce transparency and accountability using a single e-Governance tool. Empower every citizen bottom-up to track by themselves their actions.

It helps to create an informed citizenry with the highest level of stakeholder satisfaction - the true hallmark of any decentralized and successful democratic community / society for conflict resolution.

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‘e-Administration’ is envisaged to be THE SINGLE TOOL to empower every citizen of the world to take charge on all matters concerning them, their community, nation and the world, bottom-up for e-Governance and Conflict resolution.


It is an electronic automated governance platform to introduce transparency and accountability in governance of every community, nation and the world from bottom most to top most. The platform aims to integrate communities and nations.

‘The Innovations Award 2009 - Ideas in Practice’ states: “Built on robust technological founda-tions with front end in multiple languages, the tool is a single point contact for interaction with all authorities and is real life implementation of Right to Know / Information Act” - http://www.innovations-pune.com/2009.

“What is certainly good about your effort is the attempt to combine IT knowledge with practical programmes. I am sure your initiative will bring transparency in the overall implementation …“ said the Moderator of UNDP - Solutions Exchange - Decentralization Community.


“IT Cuts Red Tape” - To many, e-Governance and a paperless office are Utopian ideas. Not for the Tamil Nadu government’s IT Department, which uses e-Administration software to create a transparent transaction process – “The biggest advantage of e-Administration is that it enables us to view, at any stage, the status of pending cases... This way work flow is simplified” - General Manager, e-Governance, Tamil Nadu - case study presented in Digit Magazine November 2004.

“The average process time has been cut down by almost 50%. Tremendous increase in work force productivity has been noticed” said Member Secretary, SDATN, Tamil Nadu.

The Industrial Guidance Bureau of the Government of Pondicherry has implemented for the first time in India an integrated e-Platform, a quickly customized solution of e-Administration to auto-mate the activities ... connecting 21 departments including local communities. This saves a lot of time, effort and cost to industrialists, citizens and officials.http://geotourism.changemakers.com/files/digit_nov04_digital%20business_%20case%20study.pdf

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The e-Administration Tool is easily customizable and scalable both horizontally and vertically as it is built on Model-View-Controller (MVC II) Architectural pattern that isolates “domain logic” (the application logic for the user) from input and presentation (GUI), permitting independent develop-ment, testing and maintenance of each.

The advantage is that the tool is self-customizable by any community of users. Any number of communities of users can be integrated seamlessly into one application. The rules and roles can be defined by each user community. The tool is easy-to-use even by lay men / women with local language text, voice and text-to-voice integration features.

The scalability is ensured by the same database structure available at all locations from the local community to the national / global. The data held at the local server can be updated to the higher order servers on real time basis or at regular intervals, thereby ensuring reliability of data held at all levels, using the hub and spokes model of connectivity. It can be used to improve transparency and accountability and ensure good governance in fragile and conflict affected states.


projeCT TiTLe:

Promoting educational learning and innovation through technology in conflict-affected countries

AuThor: Geoff Calder

CounTry of impLemenTATion: Afghanistan, Sudan

probLem definiTion: Children and children’s education are the first to suffer in complex emergencies such as Afghanistan and Sudan. Over a third of the world’s children out of school live in countries affected by conflict or fragility, and these countries are furthest away from achieving the MDGs, and will remain so unless innovative approaches are taken to overcome challenges and build resilience (ref: 2010 EFA Global Monitoring Report). Conflict situations undermine govern-ment capacity to deliver educational services for children. However technological interventions have the potential to offer governments and educational authorities the opportunity to short circuit costly and time-consuming traditional approaches.

projeCT desCripTion And objeCTives: There is an opportunity for ICT to contrib-ute to sustainable solutions for educational planning and improved learning for the most excluded children in conflict affected and fragile situations. Due to major improvements in mobile technolo-gies (costs, energy consumption, connectivity, infrastructure), IIEP-UNESCO and partners propose to adopt technological approaches to improve educational planning and enhance student learning opportunities. This includes capacity development for educational planners to learn how technolo-gy-enabled spaces can increase learning outcomes by enabling children to become critical thinkers and active participants in their own learning.

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There are few if any systematic peer-reviewed evaluations of projects using ICT for educational plan-ning, teaching and learning in emergencies. This applied research project would provide stakehold-ers with an effective resource kit related to the use of technology in emergencies. It will also examine the ways in which children access, manage and exchange knowledge in such situations. By establish-ing mobile wireless learning centres, educational planners will collect and analyse a range of educa-tional data, to inform more effective planning. This will enable them to adapt teaching and learning practices based on children’s use of flexible and dynamic learning opportunities.


This project will contribute towards the longer term achievement of the education MDGs in fragile contexts. Children in these situations are frequently unable to access schools and quality learning opportunities. ICTs help innovative educational planners overcome barriers to learning for children affected by conflict and emergencies. Such innovation has already been demonstrated in conflict areas (e.g. EDC and IT partner Souktel’s successful mobile technology integration into donor-fund-ed projects in transitional/post-conflict countries). This includes the Southern Sudan Interactive


Radio Instruction (SSIRI) project, which is designed to help reconstruct the education sector badly affected by the civil war. SSIRI supports the ministry of education to expand non-formal and for-mal education for Southern Sudan through radio-based learning and other technologies.

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The pilots, if successful, will provide cost-effective and cost-beneficial models to allow the minis-tries of education to scale up and integrate these approaches into their planning and budgeting processes. This will require the active engagement of development partners and international community actors throughout the research and piloting phases. By publishing a guidance kit based on the research findings, there is great potential for other countries affected by conflict to replicate and scale up their own use of technology using similar processes. more informATion AbouT The projeCT:

A short paragraph about the author:Geoff Calder, Caldertowers.comGeoff Calder has recently completed his post graduate research degree at Newcastle University, England, focusing on sustainable solutions to ICT in rural developing countries. He returned to the UK from Tanzania in 2008 where he worked with the Government as a lead technical con-sultant to implement ICT in all 32 government teacher education colleges. From 2002 to 2004 he established an Internet learning centre in Mtabila, a refugee camp for displaced Burundian’s in Western Tanzania. Geoff has also worked in schools and colleges ‘off’ the national electricity grid and therefore has considerable experience of using renewable energy to power ICT systems. Before moving to Tanzania Geoff worked for 23 years in the UK in the adult education. His current interests include low maintenance, low energy ICT solutions and the impact of ICT on education in developing countries.

A short paragraph about the organizationsCalderTowers.com (http://www.wideopenaccess.net/files/2007/day1/session21/Bagamoyo.pdf) is an independent consultancy firm specializing in low energy ICT solutions for remote and rural locations. Its founder Geoff Calder, has worked in this field with a particular focus on Africa, for the past fifteen years. Working with the Swedish International Development Corporation Sida as part of a broad progamme to introduce ICT into basic education, Caldertowers introduced internet connectivity and ICT training into all the teacher training colleges in Tanzania. In addition in collaboration with Global Catalyst Foundation Geoff Calder was lead consultant for an innova-tive rural development project integrating information and communications technology through Community Internet Centers (CICs) including one in a refugee camp for Burundian refugees in North West Tanzania.

education development Centre (edC) (http://www.edc.org/) is a global nonprofit organiza-tion that designs, delivers and evaluates innovative programs to address some of the world’s most urgent challenges in education, health, and economic opportunity. Working with public-sector and private partners, they harness the power of people and systems to improve education, health promotion and care, workforce preparation, communications technologies, and civic engagement. EDC conducts 350 projects in 35 countries around the world, and also utilises the power of mo-bile technology, including cellphones and radio, to improve education in Africa. For example the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program has been designed to increase opportunities for students and teachers to learn about and use information technolo-gies within the contexts of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.


international institute for educational planning (iiep-) – UNESCO (http://www.iiep.unesco.org/) is a UNESCO Institute which focuses on capacity development of educational planners and manag-ers, and supports planners and managers to analyze and plan, manage and implement, monitor and evaluate education programmes. It also supports technical institutions and improves administrative routines, organizational and leadership skills. While training is one of IIEP’s core capacity develop-ment activities, covering a range of needs, (through full-year courses, shorter intensive training and distance education), IIEP’s research approach provides methodological and technical support to policy-makers allowing identification of priorities, best practices and innovation. As part of the over-all capacity development approach used by IIEP, the Technical Partnership Programme aims to meet countries’ specific needs in diverse countries such as Angola, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Cote d’Ivoire among others. This programme has a particular emphasis in supporting planners as they plan for and manage education systems in emergency or crisis situations.

Laval university, Quebec, Canada (http://www2.ulaval.ca/en/home.html) . This project comes under Laval University’ s existing research group (Master and Doctoral level) and field work in education. Laval University is an important research university, with more than 230 research teams and centres, including programmes on educational administration, management and evaluation. It also has post-graduate programmes in information technology.

souktel (http://www.souktel.org/) is a non-profit group operating in the West Bank and in Somaliland that uses mobile phone text messaging to help youth find work, as well as to send secu-rity alerts as part of an early warning system to alert students of upcoming school closures or danger. Souktel enables young people looking for work to register by answering a series of simple questions through text messages which are used to create a mini-CV. They then receive regular information about relevant jobs on offer. This simple technology which has also been used in collaboration with other NGOs such as Education Development Centre in both West Bank and Somalia, and also en-ables educational planners to enhance education delivery, planning and management.

ryeson university, Toronto, Canada http://www.ryerson.ca/home.html ). Ryeson University as a project partner will contribute towards the design of the research methodology and approach in relation to the utilization of technology to improve children’s learning outcomes. The University is considered a leader in innovative, career-focused education. It is a distinctly urban university with a mission to serve societal need, and a long-standing commitment to engaging its community.

A brief summary of the project Due to major improvements (costs, energy consumption, connectivity, infrastructure) in mobile technologies, IIEP-UNESCO and partners propose to undertake a research project to review how educational planners can utilize technology-enabled spaces to enhance learning outcomes. The pilot research (in Afghanistan, Sudan or Somalia) would use a model of learning to inspire creativ-ity and critical thinking skills in children and educational managers. It would aim to produce a pilot project that offers a sustainable solution to the use of technology to support educational planning processes and improved learning for the most excluded children in fragile contexts.

There are three main aims of this pilot research project:

1. To document the success and challenges of existing education and technology projects, particularly in remote or fragile locations;

2. To undertake a pilot project to explore the potential of technology to support educational planners and managers in fragile contexts to plan for and create flexible learning facilities; and


3. To publish findings to support replication in other ‘fragile’ contexts. This would include the development of a toolkit to be used by researchers and planners from Ministries of Education on the application of ICT for education in emergencies.

Through these three aims, it is hoped to demonstrate that so-called ‘fragile’ contexts are in fact creative, intelligent nations who can adapt and survive under terrible strains.

Given that you were presented with the right funding and resources to make thrice the im-pact in 2 years what would your ask be? Please be as specific with your ask as possible?If sufficient funds and resources were available to undertake a comprehensive pilot research proj-ect on the role of technology in education planning, delivery and improved learning outcomes for children, we would request that the donor agency undertake the following assurances:

a) To engage fully with the project partners in terms of design of the pilot research, selection of countries and where appropriate support in terms of implementation strategies;

b) To work in collaboration with the partners to engage government and community stake-holders (as well as other relevant actors) in the pilot research countries;

c) To promote the research findings and guidance kit designed to support ministries of educa-tion replication in other ‘fragile’ contexts; and

d) If the pilot produces positive findings, to support (or seek additional funding for) govern-ment in the pilot country to replicate the project on a broader scale.

Currently this project has not been funded, therefore after the pilot phase, the costs for scale up in the same country would be significantly lower. Should the evaluation demonstrate its more gen-eral replicability, then the costs per country would have to be calculated.


projeCT TiTLe:

Radio for Peacebuilding, Accountability Now!

AuThor: Michael Shipler, Practitioner, (mshipler)

CounTry of impLemenTATion: Nepal

probLem definiTion: Nepal’s transition to democracy has been fraught with major chal-lenges. While there has been slow progress at the national level, local conflicts abound, some serious enough to threaten the entire peace process. Nepal’s vibrant radio movement has the potential to serve as a key platform for fostering local level dialogue on key peace and conflict issues. People at the local level lack opportunities to discuss issues relevant to them, particularly with government officials. This results in a lack of mechanisms for citizens to advocate for their own needs with authorities and to hold government to account on their commitments.

projeCT desCripTion And objeCTives: Radio for Peacebuilding Nepal aims to foster local-level ownership of the peace and democratization process by providing training for local radio producers and mobilizing FM stations to produce talk-shows on building peace. While this initiative has already reached over 60 stations throughout Nepal, it aims to affect the entire industry, infusing values of peace-building into the media.

The initiative includes two components: the first is a comprehensive training for professionals to learn how to use radio as a peace-building tool. Participants come from stations throughout Nepal, including from conflict-affected rural areas. They go through a multi-phase training pro-gram which enables them to understand the divisions in their own communities, map the interests of various stakeholders, and create constructive, solution-oriented dialogue that draws on the commonalities of all involved. All producers go through workshops and receive individual coaching from other radio professionals who have been doing this sort of work.

The second component is the production of a franchised radio talkshow, “Farakilo Dharti,” (Wider Earth). The show, which is produced by 17 radio stations and regional production houses, creates linkages between local government leaders and the citizenry. For example, most programs create platforms for people who typically have no voice (such as landless people, members of marginal-ized communities, etc ) to discuss key issues of concern in a solution oriented manner. In particu-lar, it will link the local conflict issues to a national political scenario.

Each program goes on the air once a week and includes several editions in minority languages.


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There are two particularly innovative components of this initiative: the first is that over 17 radio stations and production houses are collaborating to implement local editions of a national program, each looking at the local manifestations of the national political peace and democracy process. This is a use of the old technology of radio in a new, dynamic way. The second innovation of the program is that it brings people who have been adversaries together into solution-oriented dialogue. Because it is rooted in communities, those involved follow up on the dialogues that hap-pen on the air and make solutions happen.


This initiative has shown three major results to date all demonstrated by an evaluation conducted in 2009. The results include:

• Almost all radio producers who were trained through this initiative have reported incorporat-ing peacebuilding methods into their programs. Many have reported this resulting in local conflicts being resolved;

• Farakilo Dharti, which has a substantial audience in rural areas, is recognized as creating a platform for people from marginalized communities to engage in dialogue with powerbro-kers, particularly local government officials; and

• Farakilo Dharti is known to have resolved many local conflicts on issues such as distribution of natural resources and inter-ethnic strife.

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While this initiative is currently working at a significant level, with a solid reach into the media mar-ket, it has the potential of reaching a much wider audience and addressing the needs of even more communities in the country. There are three ways in which this initiative could scale up: the first is to add editions of Farakilo Dharti in more minority languages. The second is to increase the numbers of producers and talkshow hosts trained by the project. The third is to expand the community-based activities which follow up on the opportunities for resolving conflict created by the show. more informATion AbouT The projeCT:

A short paragraph about the authorI am Rebecca Besant, the Africa Programme Manager with Search for Common Ground. I have been working with SFCG for about nine years, spending four years based in the Washington, DC headquarters and five years based in West Africa, primarily Monrovia, Liberia. In my role, I work with SFCG’s ten different country programmes, helping to develop strategies for social change that address the root and proximate causes of conflict and then different projects that can move forward the strategy. The best of my job is being able to work with diverse teams in very different parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, and better understanding the successes that they are achieving as well as the challenges that they are facing.

A short paragraph describing the organization Founded in 1982, Search for Common Ground (SFCG) works to transform the way the world deals with conflict - away from adversarial approaches and towards collaborative problem solving. SFCG works with local partners to find culturally appropriate means to strengthen societies’ capacity to deal with conflicts constructively: to understand the differences and act on the commonalities. This


approach entails empowering the excluded, increas-ing recognition of common humanity, and promot-ing interpersonal and intercultural understanding. Using innovative tools and working at different levels of society, SFCG engages in a pragmatic long-term process of conflict transformation. The organization’s toolbox includes media production – radio, TV, film and print - mediation and facilita-tion, training, community organizing, sports, drama and music. The media production division, Common Ground Productions (CGP), creates innovative programming that uses popular culture to communicate themes of conflict resolution and mutual respect. All of these tools can be applied to a range of issues, including transition processes like dis-armament and refugee repatriation, elections, and post-elections reform processes, including poverty reduction strategies and other development initiatives. SFCG promotes both individual and institu-tional change and is committed to measuring the results of its work. More information is available at www.sfcg.org.

A brief summary of the project:sfCG’s radio for peacebuilding Nepal is a radio development project that provides resources, training, and support to local journalists to improve their constructive engagement in conflict resolution and peacebuilding. Radio for Peacebuilding Nepal has produced two guidebooks, which are then implemented through a six month training cycle that combines workshops with follow-up coaching and then practical experience in production. The project has resulted in local stations tackling difficult issues in their communities like the elections, ethnic solidarity, and community-based conflicts.

Please let us know in a short paragraph what you would like to achieve at the fair I would like to learn about different innovative projects that are being implemented in various con-texts, and gain ideas and inspiration about how some of those ideas might be applied in the coun-tries where we work. I would also like to have SFCG’s projects reviewed and questioned by confer-ence participants as I think these questions provoke reflective thinking that can help us improve our models as well as how we measure their results. Finally, I look forward to meeting other people who are engaged in exciting work and exchanging with them about motivation, strategy, and learning.

Given that you were presented with the right funding and resources to make thrice the im-pact in 2 years what would your ask be? Please be as specific with your ask as possibleFor Radio for Peacebuilding Nepal, $750,000 would support an extensive new phase, with new guidebooks developed and a host of radio stations not previously engaged now targeted and sup-ported under the project.

For Common Ground News Service, with $150,000 we could undertake a substantial outreach campaign to extend our viewership and reprints, which would greatly grow the audience that we reach around the world.


projeCT TiTLe:

Reducing Maternal Mortality with a PDA and GPS

AuThor: Omolola, Researcher, (taiwo)

CounTry of impLemenTATion: Guinea-Bissau

probLem definiTion: Guinea Bissau has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world. The Guinea-Bissau government has pledged to work on the 5th Millennium Development Goal (MDG5), and cut maternal mortality rate from a staggering 1180 deaths per 100,000 live births to 825 by 2015. However, with only one functioning maternity ward in the entire country and few ambulances, such dearth, makes it easy to comprehend why maternal mortality is so high. The bar-riers to maternal health care does not end with infrastructural and financial strains; having predomi-nately male physicians in the country couples those barriers with cultural practices that frown upon women being treated. Even if giving birth with a qualified birth attendants present was encouraged, the human resources obstacles, makes it extremely difficult. For every 1,000 people there are ap-proximately 1 physician and 6 nurses. Regarding midwives the situation is much more dire, there are only 35 midwives in the entire country to service approximately 445,639 women between the ages of 15-64. To emphasize the issue, the average women has a total fertility rate of 7. Furthermore, with the medical personnel underpaid, given a miniscule amount of resources, and barely monitored, there are few motivations to enter this type of work and be productive.

projeCT desCripTion And objeCTives: The project objective is two-fold. The first objective is to train community health workers on basic life-saving interventions for both mother and newborns, including, but not exhaustively, CPR for adults and newborns, dealing with low-birth weight, and management of serious bacterial infections. Second, is to provide and train the all hu-man resources in Guinea-Bissau to utilize the PDA with GPS in efforts to support the MDG 5 goal.

As technology continues to bridge the gap between the resourced-poor and resourced-rich coun-tries, the quest is to find a way to optimally use this technology. With this pda, all health workers will have the opportunity to communicate and utilize the technological tools they need to better perform their jobs. With innovative training for community health workers (CHW) to implement life-saving interventions in rural community settings the project can improve maternal health, en-able a better way to monitor personnel, and improve health information systems. With the PDA linked to GPS/GIS, community workers in remote areas of the country can communicate with a midwife, nurse, or physician during and after the birthing process. Once the community health worker capture the location of the patient with GPS/GIS, the midwife can then geographically locate the patient on the map and provide follow-up treatment or arrange for the patient to be admitted to a health center. This is a low-cost and efficient solution to a dire problem.

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With resources being as limited as they are, it is vital that we find ways to utilize the few resources we have in the most efficient way. By taking the PDA and linking it to GPS, the project turns everyday technology that the western world takes for granted into a life-saving tool. With about


73% of all human resource for health in Guinea-Bissau classified as community health workers, it is imperative that we provide them with the resources needed to make these most likely first-re-sponders, effective as possible. WHO recommends a more efficient use of existing health workers. Well, by training these community health workers on how to provide basic maternal and neonatal care, and then equip them with a communication tool, this project does just that.


Projects similar to this have taken place in various parts of the developing world. In South Africa an assessment on the feasibility of using a PDA linked to GPS was conducted in two neighbor-ing villages outside of Johannesburg to support TB control programs. They designed a project to measure the time it takes for a volunteer community health worker with no prior training to locate ten households in each community using the device; compared to a research assistant hired to locate the same 10 homes in each community using given addresses. This pilot project concluded that not only could the volunteer community worker use this equipment with only 30 minutes of training, but it was faster than having a research assistant locate the homes and more accurate. It has been proven that there is a high degree of usability and spatial information is needed at the local level. Furthermore, training for community health workers to help fill the gap and inadequa-cies in maternal health care have also been proven to work. These various programs and research projects have helped community health planning and care to more effective and efficient.

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Using PDAs, GPS, and GIS in the developing world for the purpose of epidemiology, health management and health planning have been implemented and scaled up in several developing countries including the rural communities of South Africa and Kenya. Guinea-Bissau, being a country with only 6,150 human resources for health, scalability is a manageable challenge. There is a three-year plan to scale this project up and reach and train all 6,150-health workers, so we can have an impact on the entire country.


A short paragraph about the authorOmolola Taiwo a graduate from Temple University with her Bachelor of Science degree in Public Health and Pre-Medicine has worked tirelessly to improve the low-income community members in New Jersey. As a Prevention Case Manager/Team lead at Hyacinth AIDS Foundation for two years, she provided HIV/AIDS education and risk behavior modification to both negative and positive HIV clients. She then attended New York University and received her Master of Public Administration degree with a specialization in International Health Policy and Management. While in graduate school, she co-founded the Wagner Student Alliance for Africa (WSAFA) a student group organi-zation that worked to empower future leaders in public service to effectively utilize their academic, professional, and personal skills to impact Africa. As full-time student, she completed two intern-ships, one at the Women’s Network for a Sustainable Future and the other at the World Health Organization, in addition to working on various consulting projects with the Nigerian Healthcare Foundation. Now working as a Consultant for various organizations including the Nigerian Healthcare Foundation, she is working diligently to improve global health and bring attention to maternal mortality.


A brief summary of the project:As maternal mortality continues to plague the developing world, especially Sub-Saharan Africa, efforts must be taken to mitigate and eventually put an end to such preventable deaths. This particular project has two objectives. First, to teach and train community health workers basic life-saving interventions for both mother and newborns, including, but not exhaustively, CPR for adults and newborns, how to deal with low-birth weight, and management of serious bacterial infections. Second, is to provide and train the all human resources (i.e. physicians, nurses, midwives and com-munity health workers) in Guinea-Bissau on how to utilize the PDA with GPS in efforts to support the MDG 5 goal. With this tool all health personnel can tract the location of patients, communicate with each and most importantly community health workers, which are the most prevalent will have the technical support and assistance of more trained personnel whom are located elsewhere.

Please let us know in a short paragraph what you would like to achieve at the fair At this Fair, I hope to meet and network with other practitioners, researchers, and those in the IT field and experts in the field. I hope to meet people with whom I can work with to bring my propos-al to life. In addition I would like to meet possible donors that would be willing to fund this project.

Given that you were presented with the right funding and resources to make thrice the impact in 2 years what would your ask be? Please be as specific with your ask as possible

Expenses Name Quantity Cost per unit Est. Cost

Equipment and Software PDA w/GPS Software Misc.

5,746 $110 $632,060

Personnel Founder Partner Volunteer/interns

1 1 10

$45,000 $42,000 $2,000

$45,000 $42,000 $20,000

Curriculum and Training materials 7000 $10,000

Facility

Travel Expenses $7,500

Total Expenses per yr $762,560

Physicians-188Nurses and Midwives- 1072Community Health worker 4,486

Total recipients: 5,746


projeCT TiTLe:

Social Mapping for Multi-Scalar Development

AuThor: Adam White, Researcher, (Adam.E.White)

CounTry of impLemenTATion: Haiti

probLem definiTion: This initiative aims to identifying the methodology to technically map social capital and networks in developing communities. Understanding the social networks and connections that are existing in communities must be a fundamental process in any develop-ment process, especially those which are focused on delivering the fundamental services. Many development projects of different scales are currently struggling to identify best practices in community partnerships or project localization. Despite true expertise in many of the technologies or procedures necessary for water, transportation, medical and even some educational services, projects often struggle from poor understanding of a local culture and social background.

projeCT desCripTion And objeCTives: This project’s key objective is to identify ways that technology may be used more creatively to allow local communities to explain often opaque social networks to each other, neighboring communities, and external organizations. Making these networks more visible and engaged will help to change emphasis on overly local or overly general projects to deliver important services. This network mapping will enable delivery of customized, scalable, accessible and sensitive development.

Beginning in one region, the project will simultaneously research to understand (1) the local social networks and capabilities, and also (2) technical tools and existing processes that are most acces-sible. Following the earthquake in Haiti, Ushahidi, a crisis mapping platform, enabled individuals with cell phone’s to self-identify and broadcast their needs. This technological and humanitarian leap forward allowed individuals to connect into services. Applying more involved methods, the same technologies which currently function on a very individual level can allow people to self identify with their social connections, and then the tools can be reworked to interact with the network more organically, rather than always straight from the top to the bottom.

Our objective is to interact between the ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’ levels by understanding the networks that span these ranges and link citizens to their state. Social Capital and Social Networks are the larger collections and organizations of people between the individual and national scale, and a more thorough understanding of these networks, both from within and by outsiders will be a fundamental enabler to development.

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Current technological infrastructures in development are centered on the individual scale. The internet and SMS are both technologies that are for individuals. As social networking in the devel-oped world through website enables new social structures similar mechanisms and conversations can be employed to map existing social networks.


By developing social mapping techniques to integrate with SMS and internet capabilities we can ‘de-atomize’ the role of technology in delivery and response, and similarly build upon these individualis-tic technologies to construct the more realistic social structures that are essential for development.


Current discussions are trying to identify the necessary interventions to rebuild Haiti after years of poverty and the recent disaster. Amongst the first relief initiatives was Ushahidi, which successfully mapped thousands of sms reports submitted to their free local phone number. This reports were followed up on by international responders on the ground and saved countless lives, helped pin-point areas of need, and better understand the layout of problems and relief. Our team is closely integrated with the Ushahidi Haiti project.

A very different initiative which predated the earthquake is the student led RESPE project at Tufts University and based in Balan, Northern Haiti. This initiative has experimented with different meth-ods to integrate locally through more conventional research focus groups and more innovative multi-directional exchanges, which brought community members to Boston. Both groups illustrate strong but differing impacts, and the intersection between the two has paved the way for this innovation.

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Through previous research, vague social concepts are interpreted very differently by locals, aca-demics, and international NGOs. Integrating technology into the shape and mapping of these networks will allow individuals too become a part of actual networks.

This project is thus inherently scalable both locally and abroad. First the objective is to interact with multi-scalar networks in Haiti, to be able to scale up individuals. Second, the reuse of the methods and the technologies will allow the network mapping to be applied in other contexts and allow it to become a vital step in many development processes.


A short paragraph introducing the authorsRepresentatives: Adam White, Joshua Kauffman, Gwendolyn Floyd

Adam White, Joshua Kauffman and Gwendolyn Floyd are principal investigators and project leads of “Social Mapping for Multi-Scalar Development” in Digital Democracy’s Haiti Program. White, Kauffman and Floyd bring to the project a diverse background of expertise, including economics, systems design, technology consulting, behavioral psychology, urban planning, engineering, and development. This project builds on the experience of two recent projects in Haiti, and related experience in Cuba, China and Egypt. A short paragraph about the organization Digital Democracy (Dd) is a New York-based nonprofit that works globally to empower civic engagement using new technologies. Dd develops information and communication tools to address the needs of marginalized communities. Dd works to strengthen social bonds within communities, fostering networking and civic participation. Since the founding of the organiza-tion in fall 2008, Digital Democracy has conducted research in Southeast Asia, Southern Africa,


Eastern Europe and the Caribbean. Before the Jan. 12 earthquake in Haiti, Digital Democracy launched its Haiti program with youth media training, and has leveraged these initial findings into a broader program focusing on the role that Haitians can play in promoting transparency and directing the future of their country.

A brief summary of the projectOur project aims to research and develop innovative mechanisms for mapping local social net-works to aid both external and autonomous development initiatives. Advances in humanitarian technology have rapidly expanded SMS-based response and feedback, but these initiatives solicit and distribute information exclusively to individual SMS users rather than being rooted within the existing social groups. By researching and testing representative cases within the spectrum of conflict and fragility, we aim to reveal and activate the often overlooked local social systems, in real-time, without increasing vulnerability. By activating the meso-level of organic social relations, and bridging the top down and bottom up perspectives/scales, we aim to overcome some of the challenges of ‘localization’ faced by many contemporary development projects.

Please let us know in a short paragraph what you would like to achieve at the fair given what you knowThe innovation fair is an unparalleled opportunity to learn how our research could contribute to the ongoing efforts at the World Bank and amongst the leading development practitioners who will be present. Our goal is offer other groups a novel framework for thinking about development that will strengthen the overall quality of the projects at the fair. By leading a breakout or barcamp session, as well as thoroughly engaging our colleagues, we aim to refine our research proposal to reflect the suggestions of the unique and experienced community at the conference, and to learn how we can design our research and direct our findings to support and enhance existing tools and projects. We look forward to establishing productive conversations with potential partners in col-laboration, and to emerge with fruitful relationships with supporters of our work.

Given that you were presented with the right funding and resources to make thrice the im-pact in 2 years what would your ask be? Please be as specific with your ask as possible?To triple the impact in 2 years, we ask for the monetary support to immediately begin the field-work and research in Haiti and at least 2 other fragile or near-fragile areas in order to gather suf-ficient data that would lead to scalable solutions across multiple contexts. Costs would include the sustained time and expenses of researchers and developers.

This monetary support would also facilitate close collaboration with the developers of related conflict mitigation or development tools so that findings from the research could be incorporated as design elements within enhanced version of their products.

Finally, we also ask for non-monetary support and connections that would grant us access to domain experts, advisors, and expanded regional expertise to help test our methods.


projeCT TiTLe:

SOPO – An Engaging Communication for a Life Long Practice of Handwashing

AuThor: Suleman Malik, Practitioner, (smalik)


probLem definiTion: In Kenya, many people wash their hands, but rarely at critical mo-ments and mostly without soap. This is despite the fact that soap can be found in nearly all homes. A recent survey indicates over 97% of Kenyans have access to some form of soap. Nonetheless, only 14% of primary care givers wash hands at any critical moment, but only 5% consistently use soap at all the critical junctures. Overall, only 1% of school children wash hands with soap and water.

projeCT desCripTion And objeCTives: Handwashing with soap is a lifelong behaviour. Communication efforts to improve handwashing behaviour have been inadequate, ran-dom and nonholistic. Thus, one of the key approaches of the strategic communication plan was to identify and develop a Handwashing brand “ambassador”. SOPO is a friendly cartoon “soap” character who differentiates handwashing from other hygiene and sanitation behaviour, encour-aging parents to buy soap for their children to protect them from deadly diseases.

Overall, the main objective of the SOPO Communication Initiative is to engage children as SOPO Champions to act as persuaders for hand washing in their families, neighborhoods and among their peers. It provides an opportunity to children to lead a social change process.

The SOPO rollout plan includes four stages, each with a clear and specific objective. The first stage introduces the concept to the audience; this is achieved by use of a sustained mass media campaign. The second stage focuses on combining real images of children with SOPO around four program areas such as Wash & Learn, Wash & Eat, Wash & Grow and Wash & Play .

The third stage involves rewarding of (“the converted”) SOPO champions. The fourth phase reinforces the messages in a memorable way, using nationally known celebrities to endorse the behavior and remind the audiences to sustain the newly acquired behavior.


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The roll out was to make SOPO a household name.

The first challenge was to create excitement. Phase 1 consisted of a teaser campaign in print, electronic media and through town storming on simple and direct messages. The launch was placed in Kenya’s three main daily papers, introducing SOPO with his image and the words, “Hi I am SOPO!” SOPO will continue to be introduced through more town storming and the designa-tion of SOPO Champions, media briefings, road shows, and live radio coverage. This was followed by School activities including wall signage. The idea of this phase was to bring SOPO and children together, with children in the lead by connecting their daily activities with SOPO.


It is bit early to make an accurate analysis of the SOPO Communication Initiative, but a few lessons have been recorded from activities so far. Conceptualisation of the initiative took longer than antici-pated. The consultative process was equally long but has yielded important and hopefully sustain-able partnerships. Sustaining the interest and resources to achieve results is a major challenge.

The above challenges notwithstanding, feedback in the initial stages has been encouraging. The concept is clear and has been well received by children. Many people are able to relate the SOPO name with Handwashing and interest has been generated by the private sector, while the present partnerships have been excellent. A more accurate picture of the impact of the campaign will emerge from several monitoring indicators that have been established.

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Keeping in view the local culture and appreciation of social mores and perspectives in Africa, special SOPO scenario, story, song and dance steps were created for the first SOPO film - SOPO in Bubble Trouble and TVCs. SOPO piloting in Malawi and later on roll out in Kenya, Zambia and Tanzania received an overwhelming response. This initial success has generated substantial inter-est for the possibility of a joint SOPO planning and execution in several Eastern African countries.


projeCT TiTLe:

Subterranean Arsenic Removal- Experiment to Delivery

AuThor: Bhaskar Sengupta, Researcher (h1bhaska)


probLem definiTion: Arsenic is a naturally occurring and highly poisonous contaminant found in subterranean water bodies in many parts of the world. Wikipedia has reported that 137 million people are affected in 70 countries [arsenic in drinking water section] by drinking arsenic contaminated water. In most affected countries, contaminated groundwater is the main source of water for the rural population. These communities urgently require a simple and affordable technology to remove arsenic from groundwater for both drinking and irrigation pur-poses. Therefore a chemical and waste free arsenic removal method could provide a long term water security to the affected people.

projeCT desCripTion And objeCTives: The conventional technologies used in South Asia and elsewhere for arsenic removal are based on ‘pump and treat’ method involving either adsorption or membrane processes. Such plants are expensive to run and have problems associated with waste disposal and maintenance. In contrast, Subterranean Arsenic Removal (SAR) or ‘In-situ treatment’ plants neither use any chemicals, nor produce any waste. Their installation is similar to a tube-well; all parts are easily available and can be installed by village technicians. Queen’s University Belfast is credited with setting up world’s first low cost and chemical free water treatment plant in the arsenic belt of India. Six such plants are now in operation in rural locations in West Bengal, close to Bangladesh border, with the financial assistance of the World Bank. These plants are being managed by local water users’ association and are being used to supply water to the local population (www.insituarsenic.org). Each plant can produce up to 6000 litres of safe drinking water depending on the demand (arsenic concentration <10 ppb) with a typical produc-tion cost of 1 US$ for every 10000 litres. Subterranean groundwater treatment is based on the principle of oxidation and filtration processes of conventional surface treatment plants for removal of iron and manganese from water but has the added benefit of (i) enzymatic oxidation of As (III) to insoluble As (V), and (ii) huge adsorption space in the aquifer zone that removes arsenic along with iron and manganese, in a manner that does not clog the aquifer.

innovATion

High concentration of arsenic in groundwater in South Asia is due to the presence of bacteria that use arsenic bearing minerals as a source of energy among one of the available sources, turning insoluble As(V) to soluble As(III).


In the SAR process:

1. The underground aquifer is turned into a natural biochemical reactor that removes water-borne arsenic along with iron and manganese.

2. The oxidation processes are accelerated by the autocatalytic effect of the oxidation products and by the chemo-autotrophic micro organisms. No chemicals are used and no sludge is produced in the process, maintaining normal permeability of the aquifer.


Many of the villagers who started using water for cooking and drinking purposes from the community plants in early 2008 are showing signs of recovery from arsenicosis. With six operational plants, six rural communities with a total population of more than 7000 have been getting their water supply from ‘SAR’ plants (www.insituarsenic.org) and many more are now being installed in the Bengal delta.

Large scale implementation of the technology is in the offing; numerous websites including Wikipedia (both ‘arsenic’ and ‘groundwater in arsenic’ sections) have published the information on this technology, which generated interest about this technology in many communities.

sCALAbiLiTy

This technology could transform the way arsenic is removed from groundwater in Ganges, Brahmaputra and Mekong delta where the arsenic is of arsenopyrite origin, saving millions of lives. This includes affected areas of India, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Nepal, Vietnam and Thailand. The technology will soon be implemented in Cambodia and Burkina Faso with the help of Royal University of Phnom Penh and ‘Friends in Action International’ respectively. The technology is scalable from a production capacity of 10000 litres/day (US$ 4000) to US$ 100000 litres/day (US $ 20000) for each plant, catering to the drinking water needs of 2000 to 20000 people.


A short paragraph introducing the authorBhaskar Sen Gupta is a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Engineering in Queen’s University Belfast. Prior to joining Queen’s, he served University of Malaya from 1993 to 2000, as Lecturer in Biochemical Engineering and Associate Professor of Environmental Management. Bhaskar started his career in industry in 1982 and worked for ALCAN and British American Tobacco. He also served as an academic staff of the Department of Chemical Engineering in Jadavpur University, Calcutta. Bhaskar has been given a personal title of Honorary Professor by the Board of Governors of the University College TATI in Terengganu. Bhaskar’s primary research is in water and wastewa-ter engineering. He has published over 100 papers in journals and conference proceedings and written 15 book chapters. He is credited with leading a team of scientists and engineers that set up world’s first chemical free arsenic treatment plant in India. This life changing technology can be used in many parts of the world where the groundwater is contaminated with dissolved arsenic. Bhaskar has conducted water and wastewater training courses in India, UK, Thailand, Slovenia and Malaysia. He has recently been awarded the Ambani prize of the Institution of Chemical Engineers (UK) for outstanding chemical engineering innovation for the resource poor people and Asian Water Industry Management Excellence Award for individual contribution to Asian water industry.


Evidence of Field TestingArsenic is a naturally occurring and highly poisonous contaminant found in subterranean water bodies in many parts of the world. Wikipedia has reported that 137 million people are affected in 70 countries [arsenic in drinking water section] by drinking arsenic contaminated water. In most affected countries, contaminated groundwater is the main source of water for the rural popula-tion. These communities urgently require a simple and affordable technology to remove arsenic from groundwater for both drinking and irrigation purposes. Therefore a chemical and waste free arsenic removal method could provide a long term water security to the affected people.

The conventional technologies used in South Asia and elsewhere for arsenic removal are based on ‘pump and treat’ method involving either adsorption or membrane processes. Such plants are expensive to run and have problems associated with waste disposal and maintenance. In contrast, Subterranean Arsenic Removal (SAR) or ‘In-situ treatment’ plants neither use any chemicals, nor produce any waste. Their installation is similar to a tube-well; all parts are easily available and can be installed by village technicians. Queen’s University Belfast is credited with setting up world’s first low cost and chemical free water treatment plant in the arsenic belt of India. Six such plants are now in operation in rural locations in West Bengal, close to Bangladesh border, with the financial assistance of the World Bank. These plants are being managed by local water users’ association and are being used to supply water to the local population (www.insituarsenic.org). Each plant can produce up to 6000 litres of safe drinking water depending on the demand (arsenic concentration <10 ppb) with a typical production cost of 1 US$ for every 10000 litres. Subterranean groundwater treatment is based on the principle of oxidation and filtration processes of conventional surface treatment plants for removal of iron and manganese from water but has the added benefit of (i) enzymatic oxidation of As (III) to insoluble As (V), and (ii) huge adsorption space in the aquifer zone that removes arsenic along with iron and manganese, in a manner that does not clog the aquifer.

SAR processHigh concentration of arsenic in groundwater in South Asia is due to the presence of bacteria that use arsenic bearing minerals as a source of energy among one of the available sources, turning insoluble As(V) to soluble As(III). In the SAR process, the following processes take place.

1. The underground aquifer is turned into a natural biochemical reactor that removes water-borne arsenic along with iron and manganese.

2. The oxidation processes are accelerated by the autocatalytic effect of the oxidation products and by the chemo-autotrophic micro organisms. No chemicals are used and no sludge is produced in the process, maintaining normal permeability of the aquifer.

Please let us know in a short paragraph what you would like to achieve at the fair given what you knowIn the ‘Innovation Fair’ , I will present this simple technology to the audience and explain how it can transform the lives of millions of people in the developing world.

Given that you were presented with the right funding and resources to make thrice the im-pact in 2 years what would your ask be? Please be as specific with your ask as possible? I will ask for 600,000 US$ to demonstrate this technology in four countries Nepal, Burkina Faso, Cambodia and Bangladesh. In each country, about 5 plants will be set up in various locations. Each plant will be used for both technology demonstration and water supply to rural communi-ties. Twenty plants will be used to supply safe (arsenic free) water to 20,000 people.


projeCT TiTLe:

The African Elections Project: Social Networking Tools for Election/Governance Monitoring for Sustainable Development

AuThor: Ben Akoh, Practitioner, (bakoh)

CounTry of impLemenTATion: Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Djibouti, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe

probLem definiTion: African elections have in recent times been plagued by all sorts of malpractices. The most recent Kenyan and Nigerian elections were characterized by violence with stilted governments as a result. Cameroon, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea, Togo, Chad may be going into presidential elections. Specific steps are needed to avert impending crisis. Access to balanced and unbiased election information is key to fruitful elections. However, the media and citizens lack the requisite skills to navigate the sometimes difficult terrain of elections; to follow information and knowledge resources; and to report elections in a balanced and unbiased manner.

projeCT desCripTion And objeCTives: An informed electorate is an indispens-able component of ensuring free and fair elections. Countries with consolidated elections are not precluded from the dangers faced by new democracies. Elections are important building blocks for deepening democracy and strengthening good governance. This project uses social media to develop capacity and to monitor the governance process prior to, during and after the election process. This monitoring will involve citizens in the use of social media to inform the electorate on the implementation and impact of campaign promises, manifestoes through the different tiers of government - local, state/regional and federal. Social media has a potential for social and political inclusion. It will leverage the free, fair and unbiased media and the crucial role they play in elec-tions such as providing impartial information that do not inflame the passions of the electorate.

This project has been piloted in several countries already. Ghana, during the 2008 presidential elections and in Malawi, Namibia, and Mauritania

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Using social media tools such as Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Blogs, Flickr, the web, in a converged media form, the project will disseminate governance information to and from citizens using SMS on mobile phones which already proliferates nearly 47% (ITU, 2009) of the African market. Using online subscription and short codes, citizens will be fed moderated governance monitoring infor-mation that they themselves produce, in a two-way format using mobile phone images, SMS, and videos. This information is stored, moderated on web portal and links sent to subscribers on their mobiles. IISD will evaluate the quality of information and impact on governance.



The project will be delivered in partnership between a wide variety of stakeholders. Political analy-sis and academia would comment (key governance milestones) periodically on blogs on the online web portal. This information will also be disseminated to subscribers. The media will participate in a monitored implementation of the project where researchers (IISD) will keep data of the impact of such implementation. The mobile companies will provide SMS/short code support at little to no cost to the citizens as part of their corporate social responsibility. The project demonstrates multistakeholder partnership for sustainable development in governance; citizen engagement in monitoring governance; and creation of baseline data and information for future research.

sCALAbiLiTy

www.africanelections.org has been implemented in 10 countries with substantial results and it continues to produce data but analytic information leading to a quality baseline of elections and governance data is lacking for most sub-Saharan African countries. Scaling the project to nine other countries after its resounding success during the Ghana 2008 elections has been largely suc-cessful. Funding for deployment is limiting but commitments, partnerships, rationale, importance to democracy, infrastructure, software codes and web portal are present. In-country partnership and international development partners such as IISD are willing to monitor for sustainable devel-opment. The project is scalable. more informATion AbouT The projeCT:

A brief paragraph introducing the authorBen Akoh is a Project Manager with the International Institute for Sustainable Development’s Global Connectivity program. His duties include research, policy analysis, recommendations and capacity building on the development and deployment of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) and the Internet pertaining to their role in supporting sustainable development nationally and internationally. His areas of expertise include collaborative web tools, communications technology policy, infrastructure management, Internet governance, knowledge management, media policy, policy development, and web based resource planning. His recent positions have included Program Manager, ICT/Media, Open Society Initiative for West Africa (Soros Foundation) in Dakar, Senegal and Director, Business Innovation Services / Managing Director for ictAfrica in Addis Ababa. Ben has also served as a Business/Systems Analyst for organizations including UNECA (United Nations Economic Commission for Africa) and Ahmadu Bello University in Nigeria.

A brief paragraph about the organizationThe International Institute for Sustainable Development contributes to sustainable development by advancing policy recommendations on international trade and investment, economic policy, climate change, measurement and assessment, and natural resources management. Through the Internet, we report on international negotiations and share knowledge gained through collabora-tive projects with global partners, resulting in more rigorous research, capacity building in develop-ing countries and better dialogue between North and South.

The Global Connectivity program focuses on research and learning on Internet policy and gover-nance, and the role of ICTs in sustainable development; the program also serves as IISD’s centre of excellence on the management and assessment of networks, partnerships and alliances, and leadership development.


IISD’s vision is better living for all— sustainably; its mission is to champion innovation, enabling societies to live sustainably. IISD is registered as a charitable organization in Canada and has 501(c)(3) status in the United States. IISD receives core operating support from the Government of Canada, provided through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and Environment Canada; and from the Province of Manitoba. The institute receives project funding from numerous governments inside and outside Canada, United Nations agencies, foundations and the private sector.

A brief summary of the projectAfrican elections have in recent times been plagued by all sorts of malpractices. The most recent Kenyan and Nigerian elections were characterized by violence with stilted governments as a result. Cameroon, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea, Chad are some African countries going into presidential elections in the coming 2-3 years. Specific steps are needed to avert impending crisis. Access to balanced and unbiased election information is key to fruitful, peaceful and fair elections. However, the media and citizens lack the requisite skills to navigate the sometimes dif-ficult terrain of elections; to follow information and knowledge resources; and to report elections in a balanced and unbiased manner.

This project uses social media to develop capacity and to monitor the governance process prior to, during and after the election process. This monitoring will involve citizens in the use of social media to inform the electorate on the implementation and impact of campaign promises, mani-festos through the different tiers of government - local, state/regional and federal. Social media has a potential for social and political inclusion. The project leverages the free, fair and unbiased media and the crucial role they play in elections such as providing impartial information that do not inflame the passions of the electorate. This project will:

1. Develop a research to evaluate and document the current implementations of the African Elections Project for sustainable development using social media tools and mobile phone technologies

2. Implement and conduct an action research in subsequent election countries covering:– Pre and during phases (capacity building of media on election coverage using social me-

dia; partnership with election monitoring bodies and civil society organisations; citizen engagement through media publicity)

– Post phase (media and governance monitoring using social media)

Evidence of Field testing This project has been active for over one year, with an initial trial in the Spring of 2009, where we worked with over 100 young people in Lebanon to create a youth-run alternative media outlet called Sawt Ashabab (YouthVoice). It was co-published with two mainstream newspapers on opposite sides of the political divide (the first time for such an effort in Lebanon), and on the day we published was the highest circulation publication in Lebanon. We worked on developing the project into an ongoing media outlet in the summer of 2009, and launched as a monthly news-paper in November 2009. We now operate online, in print, and in person. Our members and our group have also participated and contributed to several other innovative media efforts, included Sharek961 (an implementation of the Ushahidi and FrontlineSMS platforms, to enable citizen monitoring and reporting of the June 2009 elections), and the official SMS reporting tool used by the official media monitoring organizations.


Please let us know in a short paragraph what you would like to achieve at the fair

• Develop and enter into partnership-for-development relationship with potential technical, knowledge, financial partners

• Highlight the project innovation; advance innovation through partner contribution and input including better marketing techniques for social media projects that can lead to a truly user-generated-content and citizen-based and owned initiative

• Seek funding to cover additional countries and advance project research theme in 2010-12.

Given that you were presented with the right funding and resources to make thrice the im-pact in 2 years what would your ask be? Please be as specific with your ask as possibleThe project is costed at $50,000 per country. The last 10 countries has amounted to an implemen-tation of approximately $500,000.00 in total over a 2 year period, following generous contribu-tions from our local and international partners.

The same amount ($500,000.00 US) will enable the project achieve another set of 10 countries over a two year period. A lump sum figure will result in an institutionalization of the project as op-posed to its current sporadic, ad hoc approach.


projeCT TiTLe:

The Use of ICT for Effective Delivery of Legal Service in the Ethiopian Federal Supreme Court

AuThor: Fikrie Sintayehu, Researcher, (fikries)

CounTry of impLemenTATion: Ethiopia

probLem definiTion: Ethiopia’s system of justice has suffered from long delays that undermined public confidence in the rule of law and imperiled rights granted under the Constitution. Lack of institu-tional capacity in both law enforcement and the judiciary were at the root of the problem. There was an acute shortage of trained professionals and existing personnel were inadequately qualified. Essential pro-cedural components such as court case management, filing, and recording and transcribing systems were antiquated or inadequate. Law schools were unable to produce enough competent lawyers. Adequate courtrooms were in short supply, and outdated administrative methods and technology led to congested dockets and extended stretches between arrest and verdict. Law enforcement was inefficient, creating doubt that the evidentiary basis would be established to assure that justice would be served.

projeCT desCripTion And objeCTives: The judicial reform subproject supports work to ensure the rule of law by creating an effective, fair and modern court system. It addresses both federal and regional government courts to improve performance at each level as well as system-wide. Activities included: improving filing systems to facilitate accurate and timely tracking of cases at each stage of disposition; introducing an automated audio taping system to transcribe proceedings in federal and regional courts; expediting delivery of court orders and decisions; up-grading the information and communication technology skills of judges and staff.

innovATion

Modern information and communication technology and new management systems are revolu-tionizing how courts function, reducing backlogs by speeding up case resolutions and improving citizen access to trial proceedings and disposition. More than 25,000 judges and senior staff have been trained in skills to enhance job performance and expedite the delivery of justice.



• Video conferencing facilities are available at the Federal Supreme Court and in six regional supreme courts, with more than 500 subnational cases heard annually.

• Access to justice has been widened and its cost reduced by introduction of an interactive system using touch screens and voice response telephony to provide instant information on pending cases to clients anywhere. Usage has increased tenfold during the first year of operation in the federal Supreme Court, from an average of 30 calls a day to over 300.

• The Federal Supreme Court has introduced an electronic filing system for its cases and 9 of 11 regional supreme courts have access to both the Internet and e-mail.

sCALAbiLiTy

It can be scaled up to be used all over the continent. It is a an achievement that managed to get the TIGA award for effective delivery of service.


projeCT TiTLe:

The Village Development Program: Facilitating collective community visioning and project implementation

AuThor: Carroll Themba Khombe, Practitioner, (Themba)

CounTry of impLemenTATion: Zimbabwe

probLem definiTion: The political unrest in Zimbabwe has culminated in the collapse of the national economy and decline of social services resulting in a humanitarian crisis that is evidenced by the numerous relief initiatives by local and international humanitarian and famine relief organiza-tions. Families and communities have been destroyed as the able bodied (especially men) migrate to ‘greener pastures’ in neighboring states and urban centers in search for elusive jobs. There is an urgent need to rebuild the economies and social services in rural areas to enhance the sustainability of rural communities. This requires rural communities to be responsible for their development.

projeCT desCripTion And objeCTives: The Village Development Program is a com-munity development initiative that was crafted by the Institute for Rural Technologies through funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. This approach develops the capacity of rural communities to resus-citate their inherent ability for self determination. The program builds capabilities in the communities to analyze their specific situation and unleash a self-drive mindset consciousness resulting in their growth.

The overall objective of this process is to help build local capacity for self drive, by supporting rural communities to learn to self-start; self-correct and sustain their socio-economic transformation. The communities develop village plans through a facilitated process of collective visioning and planning. Based on the economic and social drivers defined in the village plans, a large number of community based development cadres (or para-professionals) are identified and trained in the respective skills. The development of skills within the community, creating local paraprofessionals, is the key to successful project implementation. It makes the community not to over rely on external expertise that frequently dis-empowers them, sidelining them from participating in the implementation of their own projects. The existence of a community based (and owned) organization facilitates the merging of governance institu-tions, normally comprising the traditional leadership, and the implementing units comprising community paraprofessionals, civil servants and other operatives. The community institution also has the responsibil-ity of mobilizing financial resources and creating a conducive operating environment for other actors.

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The Village Development Program empowers rural communities to collectively vision and produce their village plans. Rural communities develop the capacity to implement their programmed activi-ties, self assess and self correct, using minimal technical backstopping support from service provid-ers and technocrats (from public institutions). The process empowers rural communities for self determination, reducing their dependence on Government handouts and humanitarian support from the donor community



• Community of Masendu Ward has developed its own village plans that now form the frame-work for engagement with public institutions, NGOs and the donor community. The com-munity now determines the agenda of their development processes and are directly involved in the implementation of the activities

• Visible developments of infrastructure like schools, the ward clinic, electrification of the village centers, harnessing of underground water, introduction of computers for knowledge and communication management.

• Visible development of human capital through the en-masse training of development cadres (paraprofessionals); good governance structures; involvement traditional leadership in devel-opment processes; and the peace and tranquility that prevails within the ward.

sCALAbiLiTy

Model is currently being up scaled in the other 21 wards of Bulilima District. The Institute for Rural Technologies is marketing the model to other rural district councils of Zimbabwe. Most countries in Southern Africa still apply a centralized planning system (‘top -down’) and use technocrats and consultants to implement projects on behalf of the communities. The Village Development Program can easily be adapted in these countries to enhance community ownership and conse-quently the sustainability of development processes. The entry point to the community is local authorities, a structure that is prevalent in all local government systems in Sothern Africa.


A brief paragraph introducing the authorProf. Carroll Themba KHOMBE is the Regional Director of the Institute for Rural Technologies in Bulawayo Zimbabwe. He is also a Commissioner in the Human Rights Commission of Zimbabwe. Teaches a post graduate course in Community Development at the National University of Science and Technology and a graduate course in Animal and Plant Breeding at Lupane State University. He holds an Executive MBA (NUST, Zimbabwe, 2007); a PhD in Animal Breeding (McGill, Canada, 1994); an MSc in Animal Breeding (Edinburgh University, Scotland, 1987); and BSc (Hons) in Agriculture (University of Zimbabwe, 1983).

A brief paragraph about the organization

backgroundThe Institute for Rural Technologies (IRT) was established in 2007 to provide a platform for academics and development practitioners at the National University of Science and Technology to engage in community outreach through the provision of innovative solutions to challenges facing rural communities. The institute has ever since covered all universities in the Matabeleland region namely, Solusi University and Lupane State University. It subsequently registered as a Community Trust and expanded its mandate to eradicate poverty and improve the economic and social stand-ing of rural communities in the two provinces of Matabeleland region (namely, Matabeleland South and Matabeleland North). The work of the institute is supported through partnerships with private organizations, the private sector and public institutions.

mission statementThe Institute for Rural Technologies is committed to use knowledge and innovations to eradicate poverty and improve the economic and social wellbeing of communities in the two provinces of Matabeleland.


objectives• To identify challenges faced by rural communities and mobilize resources for their redress.• To strengthen local leaders and institutions to spearhead sustainable local level development.• To identify (or establish) and strengthen networks of professionals in key sectors including:

technology generation and adaptation, leadership development, management systems, communication systems, sustainable commercialization of natural resources, social develop-ment, and enterprise development.

• To provide training on key elements of Rural and Community Development to practitioners in the Matabeleland regions, nationally and the Southern African region.

• To establish credible systems of knowledge and information management to address rural poverty.

A brief summary of the projectThe Village Development Program is a community development initiative that was crafted by the Institute for Rural Technologies through funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (Innovations in Rural Development: Experiences from the Bulilima and Districts of Zimbabwe, (2008) Moyo M.T, C.T. Khombe and L. R. Ndlovu. ISBN 987-0-7974-3720-3). This approach develops the capacity of rural communities to resuscitate their inherent ability for self determination. The program builds capabilities in the communities to analyze their specific situation and unleash a self-drive mindset consciousness resulting in their growth in the following competencies:

• Capacity for collective investigation of the truth• Group decision making• Intensive consultation• Continuous reflection and self correction, and• Fostering the unity of purpose and action.

Please let us know in a short paragraph what you would like to achieve at the fair

• Expect to socially market the Village Development Program as an innovation that can em-power rural communities in post-conflict areas in Southern Africa. Expect to receive feed-back from visitors to the Fair that will improve the effectiveness of the program

• Meet Development Partners that have an interest in upscaling the Village Development Program to other communities in Zimbabwe and other countries.

• Expect to mobilise financial resources to upscale the Village Development Program to other

Given that you were presented with the right funding and resources to make thrice the im-pact in 2 years what would your ask be? Please be as specific with your ask as possibleEn-mass training of more than 50 community development cadres (paraprofessionals) per village (cover 200 villages) in the following sectors (skills); Financial Management (Treasurers); Administration; Resource Mobilisation; Agriculture; Sustainable utilisation of natural resources; disaster management; conflict management; Business Development; social development; HIV/AIDS mitigation; household hygiene.

• Building the capacity of local level service providers to improve level of service provision and also strengthen community development cadres in the requisite skills

• Mobilize rural communities to form local level institutions to spearhead and coordinate their development programmes and initiatives.


projeCT TiTLe:

Using ICT for LPG delivery, tracking and grievance redressal

AuThor: Amrish Methi, Practitioner, (Amrishmethi)


probLem definiTion: Indian government considering the essentiality of the commodity pro-vides for more than 60% subsidy on LPG cylinders for cooking purpose. But, unfortunately every city has its own black marketers and users diverting the LPG for commercial purposes, leaving the actual poorer consumers deprived. Lot of LPG is consumed at sweet shops, coffee shops and as car fuel. As LPG is distributed by various private and Public sector Undertakings (PSUs) with different supervising mechanisms it becomes difficult to track the LPG cylinders being diverted. Moreover, the controlling officers not positioned in every town the black marketers take the system for ride.

projeCT desCripTion And objeCTives: It was decided to have a stakeholders meeting involving all agencies involved in LPG marketing, citizen forums, monitoring authorities and District administration. A freelancing computer professional was requested district administra-tion to provide software support. His team visited all the agencies and studied the documenting and accounting formats. It was decided to create a website which can track every LPG cylinder and help the citizens to register the cylinders online.

As some of the agencies were not showing enough enthusiasm it was decided to start the initia-tive with non-dynamic website. The website contained almost every possible application which can become pertinent in next 3 years. The headquarters of all PSUs involved in LPG marketing were requested. Citizen forums were made aware regarding the initiative so that redressal system may be approached in case of grievance.

Objectives:

• To stop Black marketing of LPG cylinders, particularly in winter.• To help registrations on line.• Tracking of Cylinders online.• To provide a transparent system of LPG marketing by nabbing fake cardholders.• To break the nexus between marketers, food supply authorities and unauthorized users.

innovATion

Use of Information and Computer Technology tools provide a transparent documenting and tracking system helped the district administration to provide satisfactory service to actually needy and targeted people. The stakeholders meeting helped to understand the problems and respond accordingly. You may see the website created at www.dfscrewarilpg.com



There were hardly any complaints during 2009-10 winters. Otherwise complaints used to flood the district administrations office. After taking cue of this success, the districts of Faridkot and Abohar-Fazilka in Punjab are implementing the same software. This has helped the credibility of District administration sore and there is a good public support is coming up for ICT measures. The same ICT measure which was designed in Jind by the same officer and professional is being imple-mented after visualizing the success.

sCALAbiLiTy

There is an immense scope for scalability across India. Sometimes availability of LPG cylinders has become an election issue. As there are too many controlling authorities and diffused information lying with various authorities such a co-ordination is very much necessary for almost all districts of the country. This will help millions of LPG cylinders in India who are exploited because of lack of transparency, once the results are widely disseminated I am sure the different district administra-tions will adopt the methodology.

LisT of seLeCTed projeCTs

Window 2: Innovative Research and Practical Approaches to Conflict and Violence Prevention

Project Title Page No.

A Project of Preparing a Study about Youth and Violence 46

Armed Conflict Location and Event Data and Crisis Mapping 51

Burundian Youth Making Money Work for Themselves 55

Common Ground News 59

Empowering censored journalists worldwide 62

Environmental Justice as a Tool for Peacebuilding amongst Youths in Zimbabwe 66

Generation Grands Lacs 67

Hibr.me youth/citizen alternative mass media outlet (online, in print, in person) 69

Jericho 74

Rural Internet Kiosks Providing Ownership and Employment to Youth 76

Sisi ni Amani - Mapping Peace in Kenya 78

Sport as a tool for social transformation and peace building 82

Strengthening traditional/social networks to bridge youth groups and prevent violence in West Africa

85

The Hub - Inspiring and Supporting Social Innovation 87

The Peace Portal: local voices - global action 89

Tosalel’ango 94

Trust Units: Dealing with Fear and Anger in a Violent Environment 96

Voices Beyond Walls: Digital Storytelling & Media Programs with Palestinian Youth 98

Yes, Youth Can 100

Youth-led Peacebuilding through Photography and Grassroots Media 104


projeCT TiTLe:

A Project of Preparing a Study about Youth and Violence

AuThor: Abdullah Sallam, Researcher, (Youthcenter-ye)

CounTry of impLemenTATion: Yemen

probLem definiTion: Reasons

1. The high ratio of youth in the Yemeni Society which reaches 60% of the population.2. Searching of reasons for the Yemeni Youth’s violence.3. The little information concerning youth and violence.


Aims:

1- To offer information about youth and violence.2- To define and study the phenomenon.3- To give solutions for the phenomenon.4- To discuss the devices that concern the study, given by the aspects that care.

Category that the study Concerns:People aged between 18-30 year. Duration: 6-8 Month.Places that the Study concerns: Taiz, Sana’a, Al-Hudaida, Hajja, Ibb.

Nature of the Crimes that are focused on:

1- Terrorism and revenge2- Sexual crimes3- Assasination4- Heroins5- Theft

Subjects that the study concerns:

• The lows age of youth.• Reasons and motives of the violence (social, cultural, religious, political and economical )• The development of the violence in Yemen after the unity.• Effect and consequences of the violence( out of a study of some cases)• The role of customs and traditions in the violence.• Suggestions of solutions and devices.


Obstacles: Having no cooperation from the responsible aspects, such as prisons and police stations in getting information.

Solutions:

• The participation of the responsible aspects in the study.• Getting direction from the ministries of Interior and Justice in getting information.

Budget

Total Sub Description Item Nr.

3000 3000 1/2/3 Research Writing and Composing + Review 1.

2400 400x6 1 Project Manger 2.

1800 300x6 1 Project Coordinator 3.

3600 600x6 6 Assistants 4.

250 250 1 Printing 5.

300 300 1 Translation 6.

250 250 Stationary 7.

900 900 6 Transportation ( team Work ) 8.

900 900 6 month Tel/Fax And INTERNET

3500 3500 1000 Book Printing 9.

200 200 Media 10.

17100 Total

innovATion

This study is the first kind in our country in this subject and in details as well as it will be in differ-ent places and virtual geographic near sea ,rural, next to mountain so it will help a lot of organi-zations and officers as well as government to limit this problem in Yemen in addition to this study aims different of youth.


Results expected:

• Getting information about the phenomenon (its reasons, effects and the size of youth’s participation in violence.)

• Finding a base of information for investigators.• Putting the devices that concern the study before the responsible, the international organi-

zations and the civil society to discuss it and make it included among their plans.


sCALAbiLiTy

The youth problem is one of society problems which threat several societies , because youth is im-portant and efficiency age ,whereas the problem is deferent according to social ,economical and political circumstances for every society , so the noticeable problems in contemporary societies are poverty ,unemployment ,extremism that’s reason make it include in priority planes, develop-ment and nation strategies at a lot of these societies.

Recently the eye-catching reduce accidents of conflict and fragility from youth, so any one follow accident daily ether local or international ,he notice that most of them are form youth in age (14-30) as well as it express aggressive manner and turn to practice the violence opposite themselves or opposite the others , where as it represent threat for society security and peace in their society , a lot of researchers and persons interested by youth issues said all these problems form several factors in family ,society ,economically educated and intellectual and also friends , education and social environment.

Moreover a lot of youth has trend to use violence they are being filled their mind with extremism ideas by persons or authorities have personal benefit or wrong ideas conflicted with society roles laws ,and customs .therefore it’s necessary to diagnosis youth problems in Yemen society specially that treat society security and peace such as extremism, violence and terrorism ,to present scien-tific and substantive vision about solutions that share in limit of these problems in our society, as well as put the recent and future steps which be surety to protect from them .

In addition to shed light upon reasons and solves for extremism, violence and terrorism problems ,manners and extremis ideas that practiced by some youth whereas it considered threat to indi-vidual and society peace in our country

All of that for facing and controlling it as well as to keep out our youth form follow it .this study is one of little studies which write about this society problem ,whereas most of studies write about youth problem from economic said ,work issues, unemployment and spar time ,it wasn’t write with analyses and criticism the negative and perverted manners from youth. more informATion AbouT The projeCT:

A short paragraph introducing the author Abdullah AbdulElah Sallam is founder and executive director of National Cultural Center for Youth ( Youth Center ) He founded youth groups in society issues and interested with human rights ,worked for establish youth organizations union in Yemen and create success stories for a lot of persons who be effective in their local society ,then he educated in democracy and human rights for youth as well as he founded youth groups interested with democracy process in univer-sities and also he worked in election monitoring administrative and He has youth rule from youth who observe in election .

establish youth court program produced 12 youth groups repair society issues such as the educa-tion and illiteracy (education rights) , high education, the qat , the health ,the tourism, youth and sport ,the art education , the environment , electricity create new program at the region is Youth bank includes information on various phases of starting up a business, such as where to get the start-up money, credit applications, and where to learn new skills that will help them succeed in the business. The second part of this initiative is the actual training on project management. Students learn how to create a feasibility study, evaluating success and refine a business plan


More over the center gain the best evaluation and the best organization that observe election with NDI.

He worked program manager in Partners Yemen (INGO) for civil society organizations building in four governorates with 400 participants from local council and NGOs members. In addition, he is the editor-in-chief of the WE Magazine

A short paragraph about the organization The Youth Center, created in 1997, is a non-governmental organization, working on a voluntary basis. It has for objectives to increase the political awareness and Human Rights issues and to help young people to realize their own projects and support them to face the daily problems.

In order to reach these goals, the Youth Center organizes conferences and seminars which themes range from human rights to gender issues and unemployment. The setting up of a net-work and international visibility, with new media and communication technologies, the participa-tion in international conferences, the publication and distribution of a magazine for young people have provided the Youth Center with a sound knowledge of the problems faced by this popula-tion and made it a real partner.

The Youth Center is dedicated to work all over Yemen with five coordinators in Sanaâa, Hodeida, Aden, Abyan, Thamar as well as in Taiz, the main office. Fourteen permanents are involved in the desks, and the different activities leaded this year by the Youth Center reached more than 1000 persons.

The Youth Center organizes seminars, lectures, training courses and workshops focused on em-powering youth and informing them about the Human Rights, theirs duties and rights as citizen. These conferences overviewed several issues: the youth participation on the emergent democracy process, gender issue, unemployment effects, violence expression, the application of internationals conventions to locals laws, and others issues. All of these themes have been raised, discussed and debated during these training courses.

Moreover, the Youth Center follows the youth working groups formed after the training. These are assigned to spread out the skilled transmitted through the trainings courses. The Youth Centerâ€™s aims at focusing on the effective implementation of the delivered courses.

Also, the Youth Centers target are children, as the coming teenagers. This vulnerable population benefits from the courses of increasing awareness on their rights and duties.

The Youth Center, as one of the main partners of these lectures and workshops, organized throughout all the country, has built up a strong and large national and international network. Among them we can find: UNDP , ICTDAR , Microsoft , NED , The German Friedrich Ebert Foundation ( FES ), National Democratic Institute - NDI ( YEMEN ), British Council - Sanaâa, The German Embassy in Sana’a , The Japanese Embassy in Sana’a , Modern Company of Food Products â€“ Seven Stars â€“ Yamani in Hodeida Shamakh Group of Companies in Hodeida, The Yemen Islamic Bank for Finance and Investment â€“ Hodeidah , Salah Addin Plastic Company Hodeidah , and Individuals and social figures


A brief summary of the project

Aims:

1- To offer information about youth and violence.2- to define and study the phenomenon.3- To give solutions for the phenomenon.4- To discuss the devices that concern the study, given by the aspects that care.

Please let us know in a short paragraph what you would like to achieve at the fair Results expected:

• Getting information about the phenomenon (its reasons, effects and the size of youth’s participation in violence.)

• Finding a base of information for investigators.• Putting the devices that concern the study before the responsible, the international organi-

zations and the civil society to discuss it and make it included among their plans.

This study is the first kind in our country in this subject and in details as well as it will be in differ-ent places and virtual geographic near sea ,rural, next to mountain so it will help a lot of organi-zations and officers as well as government to limit this problem in Yemen in addition to this study aims different of youth.


projeCT TiTLe:

Armed Conflict Location and Event Data and Crisis Mapping

AuThor: Clionadh Raleigh, Researcher, (clionadh1)

CounTry of impLemenTATion: The Democratic Republic of the Congo

probLem definiTion: Understanding what drives political instability and violent conflict is complex. It involves bringing together multiple pieces of information from a variety of sources. It also requires studying changes over time as refugees migrate, disasters like flood or drought move entire populations and political or economic changes alter the dynamics of conflict.

projeCT desCripTion And objeCTives: ACLED (Armed Conflict Location and Events Dataset) is designed for disaggregated conflict analysis and crisis mapping. This dataset codes the location of all reported conflict events in 50 countries in the developing world (please see Map 1). Data are currently being coded from 1997 to 2010 and the project continues to backdate conflict information for African states. These data contain information on the date and location of conflict events, the type of event, the rebel and other groups involved, and changes in territorial control. Specifics on battles, killings, riots, and recruitment activities by rebels, governments, militias, armed groups, protesters and civilians are collected. Events are derived from a variety of sources, mainly concentrating on reports from war zones, humanitarian agencies, and research publications.

ACLED is paired with Spatial Key to create interactive dynamic maps and visualization of violence across states. SpatialKey is a collaborative platform designed to foster interactive sharing, and communication across individuals and organizations. Rather than taking months for organizations to reconcile, integrate and analyze data as they would need to with traditional tools, SpatialKey enables organizations to upload and visually overlay and analyze disparate data sets quickly. This dramatically reduces the time and cost required for organizations to share, assess and understand the relationships between the work they are doing and the data they are working with.

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ACLED is the most comprehensive publicly available dataset on conflict locations and events. Its spatial reference to the village level allows for geographic pattern analysis on hotspots, frontlines, conflict clusters, dynamics, contagion and diffusion for a variety of conflict actors (governments, rebels, communal militias, political militias, rioters, protests and civilian victim). In turn, time stamped information allows for temporal analysis of conflict cycles and prediction patterns (Please see Map 2 for an example of ACLED conflict activity in Afghanistan using SpatialKey).

By employing an easy to use/easily deployable/web-based, location intelligence application, ACLED has entered into the next generation of conflict analysis and crisis mapping. Where the ACLED Project team was previously limited in its ability to identify and understand complex political instability, SpatialKey is a collaborative tool that allows the research community to dynamically display a crisis and to discern similarities or disparities to previous patterns, which in turn can inform predictive models of civil war.



Crisis mapping tools allow for development practitioners and researchers to assess real-time and past conflict information for use in a variety of platforms. ACLED provides the data to allow for practitioners to test conflict patterns and processes generally, but also to answer specific questions such as “what proportion of conflict events happen within ten kilometers of a refugee camp?” and “who is responsible for most attacks on civilians?”. Such information can assist in real-time decision-making. In addition, ACLED is now widely regarded by the academic community as the most comprehensive conflict event dataset available and can be used to test a number of hypoth-eses and theory related to conflict causes and triggers.

sCALAbiLiTy

Both ACLED and its collaborative efforts with spatial key can be scaled to the global level. The user can aggregate all ACLED data to a specific scale. ACLED 2.0 intends to increase coverage of con-flict events to Central and South America, South Africa, Northern Africa, and Middle East states.Please see acleddata.com for coverage information and crisis maps developed with spatialkey more informATion AbouT The projeCT:

A short paragraph introducing the authorClionadh Raleigh is a political geographer who focuses on the spatial patterns of conflict, African political dynamics and the social consequences of drought and famine patterns in African states. She directs the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) Project (see acleddata.com). Her current research is on distress migration and communal violence patterns in the Sahel belt.

Dr. Raleigh writes extensively on civil wars, political instability, conflict dynamics, African poli-tics, environmental politics/political ecology, social consequences of climate change and political geography.

Between 2004-2007, she was a researcher at the International Peace Research Institute (PRIO). She is now an external senior researcher at PRIO through their Center for the Study of Civil War.

A short paragraph describing the organization ACLED (Armed Conflict Location and Events Dataset) is designed for disaggregated conflict analy-sis and crisis mapping. This dataset codes the location of all reported conflict events in 50 coun-tries in the developing world. Data are currently being coded from 1997 to 2010 and the project continues to backdate conflict information for African states. These data contain information on the date and location of conflict events, the type of event, the rebel and other groups involved, and changes in territorial control. Specifics on battles, killings, riots, and recruitment activities by rebels, governments, militias, armed groups, protesters and civilians are collected. Events are derived from a variety of sources, mainly concentrating on reports from war zones, humanitarian agencies, and research publications.


A brief summary of the projectACLED is paired with Spatial Key to create interactive dynamic maps and visualization of violence across states. Spatial Key is a collaborative platform designed to foster interactive sharing, and communication across individuals and organizations. Rather than taking months for organizations to reconcile, integrate and analyze data as they would need to with traditional tools, SpatialKey enables organizations to upload and visually overlay and analyze disparate data sets quickly. This dramatically reduces the time and cost required for organizations to share, assess and understand the relationships between the work they are doing and the data they are working with.

ACLED is the most comprehensive publicly available dataset on conflict locations and events. Its spatial reference to the village level allows for geographic pattern analysis on hotspots, frontlines, conflict clusters, dynamics, contagion and diffusion for a variety of conflict actors (governments, rebels, communal militias, political militias, rioters, protests and civilian victim). In turn, time stamped information allows for temporal analysis of conflict cycles and predic-tion patterns. By employing an easy to use/easily deployable/web-based, location intelligence application, ACLED has entered into the next generation of conflict analysis and crisis mapping. Where the ACLED Project team was previously limited in its ability to identify and understand complex political instability, SpatialKey is a collaborative tool that allows the research community to dynamically display a crisis and to discern similarities or disparities to previous patterns, which in turn can inform predictive models of civil war.

Supply evidence of the field testing of your projectACLED means to assist three separate communities. To begin, ACLED is the most comprehen-sive dataset on conflict activity for academics to use in models of conflict and violence patterns. Several academic pieces have come from ACLED. As subnational data analysis is the ‘new wave of conflict research’, a completed ACLED project holds much promise. ACLED also intends of being the most comprehensive and easy-to-use dataset for Development agencies, the United Nations and several smaller NGOs. The World Bank Research currently funds ACLED and Development and several briefs for the World Development Report 2011 on Conflict are based on ACLED data. Also, OCHA and Relief Web are using ACLED. Once completed from 1997-pres-ent, ACLED can be used by any organization.

Finally, ACLED can be used by media and classrooms to highlight conflict pattern differences and changes in conflict over time.

Please let us know in a short paragraph what you would like to achieve at the fair I would like to see if other data is available from other organizations that can enhance the study of conflict’s spatial patterns and predictive possibilities.

Further, I would like to know what I could do to improve ACLED for on the ground users and NGOs.

Given that you were presented with the right funding and resources to make thrice the im-pact in 2 years what would your ask be? Please be as specific with your ask as possibleResearch support for ACLED funds the:

1) Collection of near real-time data on conflict events in developing countries.2) Expansion of the geographic and temporal coverage of backdated conflict events.


ACLED can provide current conflict event data to the Fragile and Conflict-Affected States Group (OPCFC) and Bank staff working in conflict-affected countries to inform policy and operations in these countries. Additionally, the georeferenced data will be made available to Bank and other researchers working on conflict-related issues. The growing availability of georeferenced data and its use in research through spatial modeling and dynamics suggests that the audience for this data will be growing with the data set.

I have several plans for ACLED and its collaboration with spatial key over the next two years. I intend on expanding the coverage of ACLED to Central and South America and further into South AsiaI will make the website (www.acleddata.com) interactive and with several available versions of the data (i.e. by types of violence, by year, by group, by region)

I would like to provide updated publically available maps by types of violence, by year, by group, by region with SpatialKey.

I intend to bring together academics interested in looking at the underlying causes, correlates and triggers of conflict to meet every six months to work on several ‘high impact’ issues including elec-tions, state failure, civilian violence patterns and climate change and communal violence.


projeCT TiTLe:

Burundian Youth Making Money Work for Themselves

AuThor: Saeed Ullah Khan, Practitioner, (SaeedIRC)

CounTry of impLemenTATion: Burundi

probLem definiTion: A lengthy civil war has had devastating effects on social, economic and political conditions in Burundi. Since 1993, the conflict has claimed more than 300,000 lives and displaced over one million people. This situation is particularly challenging for youth, with limited education and economic opportunities. This project promotes innovative approaches to in-crease youth’s access to financial services to reinvigorate post conflict Burundian economy through youth-led saving and loan associations. Traditional banking and micro financial tools are not avail-able to youth, so this project thus helps make Burundian youth productive economic actors and prevents them from crime and violence.


Objective: Increase youth’s ability to access and manage economic resources.Youth VSLA Methodology: To increase empowerment and employment possibilities for youth, the IRC started a youth focused Village Saving and Loan Association (VSLA) program. VLSAs are informal village-based financial structures where group members meet regularly to save, and the collected funds are used to make loans to group members. Youth VSLA is a self-selected group of young men and women who pool their money into a fund from which members can borrow. The money is paid back with interest, causing the fund to grow. The regular savings contributions of the group are deposited with an end date in mind for distribution of all or part of the total funds (including inter-est earnings) to the individual members, usually on the basis of a formula that links payout to the amount saved. This lump sum distribution provides a sum of money that each member can apply to his/her own needs. The process for creating the VSLA groups involved an awareness-raising meet-ing and specialized VSLA training organized by the IRC Youth and Livelihoods and VSLA teams with youth from the zones in which IRC currently works. They are able to save when they need and in whatever amount they wish. They are able to easily borrow, with peer-approved loans and insur-ance benefits, and can obtain loans that range from small change to several hundred dollars. Typical loans are in the order of $10-20, which is far too small for MFIs to consider.

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The IRC VSLA methodology pilots an innovative approach which specifically targets youth. The process was completely led and managed by youth. To ensure inclusiveness, the only criteria for VSLA members was that they had to be between 15 and 24 years of age. The IRC VSLA intermediates small local pools of capital by youth to satisfy their cash-management needs. It provides immediately sustainable and profitable savings, and credit services to them as banks and micro finance is not available to them or in their areas. Youth led processes led to excellent contribution and repayment rates.



Two youth-focused VSLA groups were established in February 2009 and were so effective that the members requested an increase to the share price to enable them to save more and access larger credits. It increased youth self respect and social capital, particularly amongst girls, who formed 50% of the membership. Impact includes:

i) It is for youth and by youth.ii) Youth can take loans to start a business, encouraging self-employment to ensure timely

contribution to the fund.iii) It creates a sense of responsibly and positive energy amongst the youth, which potentially

prevented them from violence and conflict.

sCALAbiLiTy

The VSLA approach can systematically be scaled via Village Based Agents whose purpose is spread the VSLA methodology to community members who did not participate in the initial VSLA group. Village Agents are encouraged to be entrepreneurial and provide VSLA training services for a fee. Specifically an individual service provider is able to support 8-15 groups; the range is dependent of the service provider’s level of skill and ease with the VSLA methodology as well as the develop-ment stage of the VSLA group.

Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4

No. of Field Officers (FO) 3 5 6 7

VSLA Groups 24 52 73 98

VSLA group Members * 600 1300 1825 2450

*No. of VSLA Members/group 25

No. of VSLA Groups/FO

New FO 3 2 1 1

Experienced FO 0 3 5 6

FO Group Load

New FO 8 8 8 8

Experienced FO 0 12 13 15


A short paragraph introducing the authorMy name is Saeed Ullah Khan and I am Regional Technical Advisor for Youth and Livelihoods with International Rescue Committee. Prior to my current assignment, I was working with United Nations in Kenya, Tanzania and Somalia, and with International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Pakistan and Kosovo. I was involved in different capacities with United Nations Drug Control Programme Islamabad, Oxfam GB in Brighton, United Kingdom and IUCN Pakistan.

I received advance training in development sector from Fletcher School, Harvard and Oxford Universities. I have done Masters in Development Economics from University of Sussex UK and MBA from National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) Pakistan. I am a World Bank


Robert McNamara Fellow and British Commonwealth Scholar. I was part of the teams that won The IRC Einstein Team Award for a willingness to implement new ideas and UNHCR Global Award for Team Achievements in Field Operations.

A short paragraph describing the organizationFounded in 1933, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) is a global leader in emergency relief, rehabilitation, protection of human rights, post-conflict development, resettlement services and advocacy for those uprooted or affected by violent conflict and oppression. The IRC’s Youth & Livelihoods programs focus on holistic and relevant post-primary education and training as well as market-driven economic programming for youth. This approach invests in the development of youth’s social, civic and human assets, with the anticipation that these will have a multiplier effect on other aspects of their lives and help them to make smooth life transitions. Through innovative programming, IRC helps youth to identify market opportunities and develop viable businesses while receiving intensive mentorship, counseling, access to youth-specific financial services, and other necessary supports for young people.

A brief summary of the projectA lengthy civil war has had devastating effects on social, economic and political conditions in Burundi. Since 1993, the conflict has claimed more than 300,000 lives and displaced over one million people. This situation is particularly challenging for youth, with limited education and economic opportunities. This project promotes innovative approaches to increase youth’s access to financial services to rein-vigorate post conflict Burundian economy through youth-led saving and loan associations. Traditional banking and micro financial tools are not available to youth, so this project thus helps make Burundian youth productive economic actors and prevents them from crime and violence. To increase empower-ment and employment possibilities for youth, the IRC started a youth focused Village Saving and Loan Association (VSLA) program in Burundi. VLSAs are informal village-based financial structures where group members meet regularly to save, and the collected funds are used to make loans to group mem-bers. Youth VSLA is a self-selected group of young men and women who pool their money into a fund from which members can borrow. The money is paid back with interest, causing the fund to grow.

Supply evidence of the field testing of your project. In case of a research proposal, kindly provide copy of the proposal or related peer reviewed articles and/or academic referencesTo increase empowerment and employment possibilities for youth, the IRC started a youth focused Village Saving and Loan Association (VSLA) program. The IRC VSLA methodology pilots an in-novative approach which specifically targets youth. The process was completely led and managed by youth. The IRC VSLA intermediates small local pools of capital by youth to satisfy their cash-management needs. It provides immediately sustainable and profitable savings, and credit services to them as banks and micro finance is not available to them or in their areas. Youth led processes led to excellent contribution and repayment rates.

Two youth-focused VSLA groups were established in Burundi in February 2009 and were so effec-tive that the members requested an increase to the share price to enable them to save more and access larger credits. It increased youth self respect and social capital, particularly amongst girls, who formed 50% of the membership. Impact includes:

i) It is for youth and by youth.ii) Youth can take loans to start a business, encouraging self-employment to ensure timely

contribution to the fund.iii) It creates a sense of responsibly and positive energy amongst the youth, which potentially

prevented them from violence and conflict.


Please let us know in a short paragraph what you would like to achieve at the fair given what you knowThis Innovation Fair will be an opportunity to present the IRC innovative approaches to address youth issues in post conflict contexts. It would present an opportunity to learn about other innova-tive programs that made a difference in youth lives. It would represent an opportunity to interact with donors, researchers, practitioners that would help in establishing long term partnerships and collaborations. More importantly, it would facilitate the IRC endures to scale up its financial services programs for youth in other post conflict countries.

Given that you were presented with the right funding and resources to make thrice the im-pact in 2 years what would your ask be? Please be as specific with your ask as possibleThe IRC has the institutional capacity to expand Youth Financial Services program impact in Burundi by a factor of 3 to 5 with a funding support of about USD 350,000 in 2 years time frame.


projeCT TiTLe:

Common Grounds News


CounTry of impLemenTATion: Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, West Bank and Gaza

probLem definiTion: In the Arab-Israeli conflict the importance of print and audiovisual media has grown exponentially to the point where it has become a key player with regards to influ-encing public opinion and even policymakers. Often, however, the media inflame rather than inform the public discourse and contribute to the polarization of both societies on the most sensitive issues. Columnist and opinion makers on both sides (and within each side) compete with one another with inflammatory tones that promote violence and radicalization. Moreover local constituencies usually only access information offered by their own media outlets - within their zones of comfort - there-fore limiting the opportunities for accessing the other’s views and further strengthening the exist-ing stereotypes and risking further violence. Today there is an acute need for the development of alternative, moderate voices reaching out equally to people across the region.

projeCT desCripTion And objeCTives: The Common Ground News Service (CGNews) aims to promote mutual understanding and offer hope, opportunities for dialogue and constructive suggestions that facilitate peaceful resolution of conflict in the Middle East. CGNews publishes articles by local and international experts on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Launched in 2000, CGNews targets media outlets, policy makers, scholars, think tanks, stu-dents and other interested readers in the region. Each week, through electronic distribution, CGNews distributes 5 constructive, solution-oriented articles to over 20,000 subscribers, many of whom are key decision-makers in the region. Most weeks, CGNews commissions three of the articles while the other two are translations of previously published pieces. Through this process, CGNews equips authors to write in a common ground way. Newspapers and online publications are granted rights to reprint articles.

CGNews has an active network of contributing authors and major media partners who regularly run CGNews articles and special series. Articles encourage peaceful and non-violent means to resolve conflicts and ease tension. They highlight positive experiences among communities and interpret events in ways that encourage rational, moderate and positive thinking. Each article is published in three languages, Arabic, English and Hebrew, allowing different communities to read moderate and solution-oriented voices not normally available in their native tongues. As copyright permission is obtained for all articles, media outlets are free to republish them as desired.


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This initiative creates channels of communication among people in the Middle East who would typically not be able to talk to one another. For example, during the 2006 Lebanon War, CGNews ran articles from Israelis and Lebanese, allowing them to read about each others’ perspectives in their native languages. Additionally, CGNews allows the same article to be published in inter-national, Palestinian and Israeli newspapers. In addition to printed articles, CGNews distributes common ground videos that have been previously released on You Tube.Demonstrated Development Impact

• There are three clear impacts from CGNews to date: CGNews is distributed to 20,000 people and has had 14,000 reprints in 1,600 different

media outlets;• Authors have reported that CGNews has changed the way that they write so they are more

constructive;• Readers report that it gives them a more balanced and hopeful view of the conflict

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SFCG aims to scale up this initiative in three ways: the first is to expand the sort of media that it is using to commission video blogs from people in all countries. Secondly, CGNews aims to scale up the number of subscribers and lastly CGNews will expand the number media outlets which reprint articles. more informATion AbouT The projeCT:

A short paragraph about the authorI am Rebecca Besant, the Africa Programme Manager with Search for Common Ground. I have been working with SFCG for about nine years, spending four years based in the Washington, DC headquarters and five years based in West Africa, primarily Monrovia, Liberia. In my role, I work with SFCG’s ten different country programmes, helping to develop strategies for social change that address the root and proximate causes of conflict and then different projects that can move forward the strategy. The best of my job is being able to work with diverse teams in very different parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, and better understanding the successes that they are achieving as well as the challenges that they are facing.

A short paragraph describing the organization Founded in 1982, Search for Common Ground (SFCG) works to transform the way the world deals with conflict - away from adversarial approaches and towards collaborative problem solv-ing. SFCG works with local partners to find culturally appropriate means to strengthen societ-ies’ capacity to deal with conflicts constructively: to understand the differences and act on the commonalities. This approach entails empowering the excluded, increasing recognition of com-mon humanity, and promoting interpersonal and intercultural understanding. Using innovative tools and working at different levels of society, SFCG engages in a pragmatic long-term process


of conflict transformation. The organization’s toolbox includes media production – radio, TV, film and print - mediation and facilitation, training, community organizing, sports, drama and music. The media production division, Common Ground Productions (CGP), creates innovative programming that uses popular culture to communicate themes of conflict resolution and mu-tual respect. All of these tools can be applied to a range of issues, including transition process-es like disarmament and refugee repatriation, elections, and post-elections reform processes, including poverty reduction strategies and other development initiatives. SFCG promotes both individual and institutional change and is committed to measuring the results of its work. More information is available at www.sfcg.org.

A brief summary of the projects:The Common Ground News Service is an electronic media service that distributes articles that present alternative viewpoints, moderate voices, and calls for understanding, dialogue, and recon-ciliation. SFCG produces two services with different focuses: one for the Arab-Israeli context and the other for the growing divide between the so-called Muslim World and the West. The Common Ground News Service is distributed in multiple languages, including English, Arabic, Hebrew, Urdu, and Bahasa Indonesian. To date the CG News Service has more than 19,000 reprints of its articles. Please let us know in a short paragraph what you would like to achieve at the fair I would like to learn about different innovative projects that are being implemented in various con-texts, and gain ideas and inspiration about how some of those ideas might be applied in the coun-tries where we work. I would also like to have SFCG’s projects reviewed and questioned by confer-ence participants as I think these questions provoke reflective thinking that can help us improve our models as well as how we measure their results. Finally, I look forward to meeting other people who are engaged in exciting work and exchanging with them about motivation, strategy, and learning.


projeCT TiTLe:

Empowering censored journalists worldwide

AuThor: Leonard Doyle, Practitioner, (unfreemedia)

CounTry of impLemenTATion: Afghanistan, Congo, Liberia, Myanmar, Niger, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Zimbabwe

probLem definiTion: Journalists, bloggers and other communicators suffer systemic vio-lence when they report on corruption and human rights abuses in almost half the 192 UN member states. Repressive countries send out clear signals to journalists not to cross “red lines” and those that do are soon out of a job, beaten up, arrested and sometimes killed. The most violent, least de-veloped and most corrupt countries tend to have the weakest media. This is troubling because a lack of transparency fuels civil discontent, causes violence and allows for conditions that bring war and even famine. Human rights violations are also a predictor of genocide. For civil society to develop we need the transparency that an independent media brings. When nationalistic passions are inflamed and the drums of war are beaten, an independent media provides a space for debate that allows countries step back from the brink. The Internet is a powerful tool that can bring political account-ability and promote transparency, but only when communicators (journalists, bloggers, scholars), are free to publish and broadcast. The media is effectively gagged in many of the poorest most conflict ridden countries. The international media is also in crisis, devoting far fewer resources to covering foreign news and conflict situations than in the past. If we want civil society to take root and devel-opment to take hold, we must find a way to foster and publish thoughtful local communicators. By leveraging the power of the Internet we can both protect and fund these muffled voices.

projeCT desCripTion And objeCTives: Unfreemedia.com enables independent local journalists - especially those facing censorship and repression - to become “foreign correspondents” for their own countries and reach a global audience. The publishing platform is free from politi-cal interference and enables often marginalized communicators to have an independent source of income. Thus two of the major constraints on the free flow of information are removed. Moreover, they are authentic local voices and know their societies any “fireman” correspondent. The network is highly selective working with a handful of communicators per country, but these journalists will be heard above the din because of the quality of their work and the maturity of their news judgments and analysis. Their reporting has the potential to fill a dangerous void when foreign correspondents are becoming a dying breed. This new network pushes the boundaries of foreign reporting, by dis-pensing with costly budgets, or a need for drivers, translators, fixers and expense accounts. Foreign correspondents have always relied on local experts and the downsizing of the international media provides an opening for emerging local talent. This network will enable more and more independent local journalists to become unfettered narrators of their own news to the international community.

innovATion

This network is designed to drive the news agenda from the periphery rather than the center and to protect investigative journalists in particular from repression, censorship and legal threats.To avoid lawsuits and protect journalists from “libel tourism” laws, the network expects to publish


in future from Iceland where there are proposals to create a legal safe haven for investigative journalism. The network’s regional editors and correspondents will continue to post stories to its seven web platforms from wherever they are based:

Africa - http://www.unfreemedia.com/africa/Americas - http://www.unfreemedia.com/americas/Asia - http://www.unfreemedia.com/asia/Europe and Cental Asia - http://www.unfreemedia.com/europe_central_asia/Mid East and North Africa - http://www.unfreemedia.com/mideast/Global Affairs - http://www.unfreemedia.com/un/Comment - http://www.unfreemedia.com/manbitesdog/

Every story appears on its own country “landing page”. The stories also percolate through the sys-tem and are displayed on the front page and via rss feeds. Landing pages - focusing on the countries of greatest news interest and where censorship is extreme - become powerful drivers of the foreign news agenda. There is also a Global news page covering international diplomacy, humanitarian affairs, human rights and disarmament from an international perspective and focusing on the UN. These landing pages have the capacity to attract large audiences and thereby generate advertising revenue to fund the writers, reporters, scholars and broadcasters. The comment section pushes glob-al debate on human rights, humanitarian and development. The features section looks at culture, the arts and tells the uplifting success stories while also providing a forum for news analysis.


The World Bank Group’s list of fragile and conflict-affected countries is a litany of nations where the media is typically gagged and journalists cowed. But in the absence of freedom to conduct a national conversation, countries stagnate, corruption flourishes and poverty endures. Unfreemedia’s goal goal is to incubatewh an independent, non-state owned, non-commercial, non-profit decentralized media network that will enhance transparency and accountability and provide standards of excellence in reporting for local journalists to aspire to. The network also allows for cross pollination of ideas among journalists and sharing of stories among regional web portals. While unfreemedia.org is a global plat-form, we have identified Afghanistan, DR Congo, Liberia, Myanmar/Burma, Niger, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen and Zimbabwe as countries where the netowrk can produce some immediate benefits to strug-gling media. Zimbabwe is a particular target country and our work on that country is led by the award winning Zimbabwean journalist Basildon Peta. By promoting the work of unsung journalists - often the fixers and translators of visiting foreign media - by mentoring and training them to write responsibly and publishing their work on multiple platforms unfreemedia.org can become a powerful change agent. It is more difficult for a regime to gag a journalist with a global audience than it is to silence a vulnerable local reporter or editor. As a “bottom up” service the news agenda is driven from the pe-ripheries where the news is occuring, rather than in Western capitals. And when there are onslaughts on the media, there is an international network is in place - allied to free speech organisations - which can lobby vigorously to protect endangered local journalists and free speech.

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The unfreemedia.org network pushes the boundaries of foreign reportage as we know it, dispensing with costly budgets, travel, fixers, translators and drivers. It builds trust through quality journalism and sound judgments. It is readily scalable, requiring a small permanent staff of between three and five editors managing and mentoring freelance contributors. It is capable of achieving 2-3 million page


impressions a month over three to five years. Advertising revenue can be high as each landing page is country specific. Foundation grants and micropayments for contributors via Kachingle.com will further empower thoughtful communicators in fragile communities. We identify and select our contributors with assistance from Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Sans Frontiers, International PEN, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch among other. These writers, bloggers and broadcast-ers can achieve financial the independence that will enable their journalism to flourish and a standing in their communities and abroad that can be a shield against further repression.


A short paragraph introducing the authorAn Irish national, Leonard Doyle is a former UN correspondent of The Independent (UK). He spent 10 years as Foreign Editor of The Independent and also worked for the Guardian/Observer group. Now based in Washington DC he covered Barack Obama’s election victory and ascent to the presi-dency. He founded Unfreemedia.org in late 2009, inspired by the bravery of independent journal-ists he encountered while reporting from Iran, Cuba, China and elsewhere. The dire experiences of his Zimbabwean colleague, prominent journalist Basildon Peta, strongly motivated this initiative.

A brief paragraph describing the organization Unfreemedia.org provides a lifeline for embattled independent communicators worldwide. It helps professional journalists and citizen reporters, especially in fragile and conflict-affected states. Promoting fact driven, quality reporting across eight web platforms, (Africa, Americas, Asia, Mid East & NA, Europe & C Asia, Commentary and Global Affairs) it turns local communicators into foreign correspondents in their own countries and raises awareness of the role of freedom of ex-pression plays in development. Consider it a Ryan Air model of foreign reportage, dispensing with costly travel budgets, insurance, armed protection, translators, fixers, drivers and satellite phones.

A brief summary of the projectMany thoughtful independent journalists live fraught lives and are often broke and silenced. Carlos Serpa Maceira an unheralded Cuban photo journalist has welts on his neck from beat-ings. Basildon Peta was deemed ‘enemy of the people’ on national TV and blamed for a currency collapse. Zerihun Tesfaye an Ethiopian business journalist, was threatened with terrorism charges and fled to Kenya last year. To restore the voice of silenced journalists Unfreemedia.org can lever-age the power of the Internet and social media. It’s also a powerful research tool and provides up to date news feeds on specific issues and countries. Accredited journalists can have weblogs to publish in their own languages, feeding into social media sites like Facebook.

Supply evidence of the field testing of your projectThe Unfreemedia.org prototype needs continuous development, testing, probing and assessment by fellow development professionals. It also needs prominent advisers and other advocates. Its needs professional assistance in crafting a code of conduct to underpin its future independence and an edito-rial position to view global poverty through the prism of human rights. Unfreemedia.org is five month old startup which achieved 20,000 page impressions in March and was read in 108 of the UN’s 190 countries (see attachments). Given appropriate funding to pay journalists and editors Unfreemedia.org has the potential to turn the existing, troubled model of foreign reporting, on its head.

Please let us know in a short paragraph what you would like to achieve at the fair Provided it secures funds to pay writers, editors and videographers, the network, the potential to increase its page views from 20,000 to 2 million per month over two years. This would significantly boost impact while creating a sustainable self funding entity. Future funding will be public/private


and come from advertising and foundation as well as NGO sponsorship of journalism on specific countries and issues. This is a model successfully pioneered by the Pulitzer Center on crisis Reporting

Given that you were presented with the right funding and resources to make thrice the im-pact in 2 years what would your ask be? Please be as specific with your ask as possibleA two year budget of $500,000 will pay for a full time editor, regionally based duty editors, con-tributor fees, a manager and essential travel.

A fully operational the site will produce round the clock breaking news stories and features across seven regional and one comment sites. An estimate of 30-40 stories, divided among short blog posts and longer features. Web design & development costs some $40,000 pa. Office expense will be $60,000 pa, rent $48,000 pa. Phones: Several thousand dollars pa with Skype etc, cell and satellite phones. Insurance: Liability insurance 1,200 pa. Conflict zone insurance, an occasional requirement.

Growing the audience: From 20,000 visitors a month to 2 m in 3 years…Quality reporting, social media buzz, clever tags and a library of country specific news feeds will position unfreemedia.org as a ‘go to’ site on any given international news issue. Audience is large. Tapping the Diasporas and national audiences (in local languages) with credible independent media has great potential. A website with a global footprint of 2 million visitors per month should earn ad revenue of over $200,000 pa. By contrast The New York Times website currently has 20 million unique visitors a month. The Huffington Post (reportedly worth an estimated $70 million) claims 4 million unique visitors per month and ad revenue of $7.5m pa.

estimated revenues and potential value In six months and based on projected 500,000 page views per month (up from current 20,000) revenues at unfreemedia.org can be $70,000. After a year, (based on 1m page views per month) $140,000; after two years, (based on 1.5m page views per month $200,000); three years, (based on 3m page views per month $400,000). Estimated value after two years, some 10 times revenue or $2m. To reach these estimates (page views, revenue and value) I have extrapolated research by the firm 247wallst.com which examined the 25 most valuable blogs (summary below).

one to three year income & expenditure estimates Year 1 up to five staff revenues $140,000 expenditures $500,000Year 2 up to eight staff revenues $200,000 expenditures $650,000Year 3 up to ten staff revenues $400,000 expenditures $850,000

Further referencevaluations of existing media blogs (247wallst.com)It is notoriously difficult to accurately put a value on blogs and blogging companies, because of the small number of blogs which have been sold and lack of information about what their revenues may have been. What is clear is that blogs with several good writers do better than blogs with one writer contributes a substantial amount of the content. For example, Talking Points Memo: $860,000. At 1.5 million page views a month, TPM’s annual revenue estimated at over $200,000.


projeCT TiTLe:

Environmental Justice as a Tool for Peacebuilding amongst Youths in Zimbabwe

AuThor: Shamiso Mtisi, Practitioner, (shamiso)

CounTry of impLemenTATion: Zimbabwe

probLem definiTion: The project seeks to address conflicts and violence committed by youths due to political differences and conflicts fueled by revenue from natural resources. Youths are manipulated to cause violence due to poverty, limited job opportunities and lack of knowledge about their rights. They fear to call government and mining companies to be accountable and transparent in exploiting natural resources. Revenue from natural resources is used to sponsor youths to embark on violent election campaigns. Tension and mistrust negatively affects commu-nity development. The youths lack information on their rights, how to break the poverty cycle and capacity to monitor revenue distribution.

projeCT desCripTion And objeCTives: The project will expand an ongoing project by the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association whose objective is to promote environmental, economic and social rights of communities in mining areas. Preliminary project results show that community development is being hindered by political tensions amongst the youths after the vio-lent 2008 elections. ZELA proposes to embark on a capacity and confidence building initiative that will help disengage the youths from violence and crimes by refocusing their attention on justice, reconciliation and peace using the natural resources sector as a unifying tool.

The project objectives are; to promote peace and co-existence amongst the youths from different political parties, to minimize the use of profits from natural resources to fuel violence amongst the youths, to capacitate the youths to use natural resources to generate income for poverty reduc-tion and to instill confidence in the youths to claim and demand community environmental rights.

The proposed activities are; organize youths forums on peace and environmental justice, establish-ment of youths resource watch committees, organize natural resources business forums and inspi-rational talks, give technical support to youths for income generation activities and train youths on human rights and justice.

These activities help reduce incentives for violence among the youths by redirect their attention to community development. Once the youths are aware of their rights and the potential to benefit from natural resources they will start to work together in peace and will not be used by politicians.


projeCT TiTLe:

Generation Grands Lacs (Great Lakes Generation)


CounTry of impLemenTATion: Burundi, The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda

probLem definiTion: Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda have all experienced large-scale violent conflict. The conflicts in these countries have consistently involved regional dynamics which have damaged the relationships between the three countries. Youth have been easily manipulated by political elites who exacerbate stereotyping and prejudices. One sensitive issue in the current peace process in eastern DRC is the return of the refugees across all borders in the region. Many returned refugees face very delicate circumstances, encountering land conflicts among many other obstacles. It is crucial that youth build relationships across the borders to prevent further outbreaks of violence.

projeCT desCripTion And objeCTives: Generation Grands Lacs (Great Lakes Generation) is an hour-long weekly radio program produced by Search for Common Ground, in partnership with radio stations in Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda. The project facilitates dialogue among youth from the three countries in the region, breaking down stereotypes and encouraging understanding among Burundian, Congolese and Rwandan, university students. “The Next Generation of Leaders in the Great Lakes” is recorded live every Saturday, hosted by a partner radio station in the region, and features interviews with key experts on a theme in the news. Young people are invited to call in, debate and share their - sometimes surprising - viewpoints. Through these on-air discussions, listeners discover the diversity of opinions both within their own country, and in neighboring countries, revealing that monolithic stereotypes of “others” oversimpli-fies the real challenges facing the region, and presents an impediment to a brighter future. The ob-jective of the program is to create new attitudes, knowledge and skill by breaking down stereotypes and encouraging dialogue between Congolese, Burundian and Rwandans University students.

While there are several initiatives underway to address the existing and potential land conflicts in North Kivu, there are fewer initiatives to clarify issues, counter rumors and manipulation, and reach out to people on both sides of the border with effective communication. Youth are a particular important target group for this communication, and in particular the educated French-speaking target group, as they are able to influence opinions in their communities if given accurate and impartial information.

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The program’s name is chosen to symbolize the possibility of a new, common, positive identity for youth of these conflict-affected countries. Journalists from five radio stations in the three coun-tries come together with youth leaders to identify controversial issues facing youth in the region. Every program is simulcast via web streaming and FM transmission, enabling listeners in all three countries to listen to and phone in on five radio stations in three countries at the same time. The program is comprised of pre produced segments such as interviews, vox pops or packages.Demonstrated Development Impact


An extensive evaluation of this project through focus groups and surveys of listeners and non listeners found that the Program’s reach among its target audience is enormous. The program is listened to by more than 90% of university students in Burundi, 57% of students in DRC. 20% listen regularly in Bukavu, 36% listen regularly in Kigali, and an astounding 60% listen “every week” or “almost every week”. The program is proven to reduce negative attitudes, and build tol-erance. Whereas 46% of non-listening youth surveyed accepted the proposition that “If someone from my country criticizes it in front of someone from another group in the region, that person is a traitor,” 75% of listeners disagreed or disagreed strongly.

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Search for Common Ground will use its African regional and international capacity to leverage and expand Great Lakes Generation (GGL) methodology to other African countries with similar geographical, cultural and political ties. In DRC, Burundi and Rwanda, the GGL team will produce more programs focussing on information and dialogue around the process of refugee return, with a particular angle on the return of Congolese refugees to North Kivu. more informATion AbouT The projeCT:

A brief summary of the projects:Generation Grands Lacs (Great Lakes Generation) is an hour-long weekly radio program pro-duced by Search for Common Ground, working with local radio stations in Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The project supports peace between countries in the region, breaking down stereotypes and encouraging dialogue between Rwandan, Burundian and Congolese university students – the next generation of leaders in the Great Lakes. The program is recorded live every Saturday, hosted by a partner radio station in the region, and features inter-views with key experts on a theme in the news. Young people are invited to call in, debate and share their – sometimes surprising – viewpoints. Through these on-air discussions, listeners dis-cover the diversity of opinions both within their own country, and in neighboring countries, reveal-ing that monolithic stereotypes of “others” oversimplifies the real challenges facing the region, and presents an impediment to a brighter future. Since August 2008, the program has begun to incorporate a Great Lakes Action segment – prerecorded journalistic reports on youth taking this spirit a step further and taking action to improve among the region’s diverse residents.

Please let us know in a short paragraph what you would like to achieve at the fair I would like to learn about different innovative projects that are being implemented in various con-texts, and gain ideas and inspiration about how some of those ideas might be applied in the coun-tries where we work. I would also like to have SFCG’s projects reviewed and questioned by confer-ence participants as I think these questions provoke reflective thinking that can help us improve our models as well as how we measure their results. Finally, I look forward to meeting other people who are engaged in exciting work and exchanging with them about motivation, strategy, and learning.

Given that you were presented with the right funding and resources to make thrice the im-pact in 2 years what would your ask be? Please be as specific with your ask as possibleFor Generations Grands Lacs, we would request $100,000. The emphasis of the next phase would be on bringing journalists from the eastern side of the region (Rwanda, Burundi and eastern DRC) to Kinshasa and strengthening the link of ties between those elements.


projeCT TiTLe:

Hibr.me youth/citizen alternative mass media outlet (online, in print, in person)

AuThor: David Munir Nabti, Practitioner, (ilovehibr)

CounTry of impLemenTATion: Egypt, Lebanon, Palestinian Territory Occupied, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, West Bank and Gaza

probLem definiTion: Media outlets in Lebanon and other conflict zones are often divided and politicized, with many outlets affiliated with sectarian or political groups. Some media research-ers in Lebanon advise to avoid watching news altogether, due to its provocative and sometimes inflammatory nature. There are few opportunities for young people, civil society groups, or citizens in general to critique or voice “citizen concerns”, and information flow in post/conflict situations is limited and/or unreliable. Efforts to promote critical thinking, creative/collaborative problem-solving, journalistic ethics, or open/transparent monitoring and coverage of important issues are also often-times lacking.

projeCT desCripTion And objeCTives: The objective of Hibr is to offer a mass alter-native media outlet that gives outlet to stories and people previously excluded from traditional media, a venue to monitor public issues and public figures, to promote key values and skills of citizen journalism, to promote critical thinking and creative/collaborative problem-solving, and to promote media literacy and more sophisticated media consumption.

Hibr is a youth-run alternative mass media outlet that is independent of any confessional or political group, inclusive, tech savvy (appropriate tech), fun, provocative (in a positive way), open, participatory, creative, and engaging. Hibr exists both online (www.hibr.me), in print (a free dis-tribution monthly newspaper, rivaling circulation numbers of top traditional media outlets), and in person (organizing a wide variety of activities, competitions, and events), with content in print, multimedia, graphics, photos, audio, and video. Content is gathered from a variety of sources, including unaffiliated young people, civil society organizations, schools, universities, other com-munity/student media outlets (student/university newspapers, for example), and blogs.

Hibr explores new online tools, and how they can be used for increasing engagement of margin-alized groups, and is currently implementing an SMS reporting/monitoring tool (similar to www.ushahidi.com, and building on our experience with www.sharek961.org). We are further explor-ing ways to engage illiterate/semi-literate populations, and developing strategies for what role we should play as a widespread citizen media outlet in disaster communications.

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Hibr is based on a self-developed hybrid media model that builds on both traditional and new media models, operating both in print (to reach those who are not online at all, or are doing only limited activities online) and online (taking advantage of new media communications tools, online


collaboration, multimedia, etc). Hibr is built almost entirely on open source, works to contribute back to the open source community, and uses new online tools and repurposes them to facilitate citizen media, monitoring, and reporting. Hibr also uses and promotes open content licensing to promote collaboration and increase impact.


Since starting in spring 2009 (originally named “Sawt Ashabab”/YouthVoice), Hibr has engaged hundreds of young people in creating videos, writing, interviewing people, editing, designing, tak-ing pictures, doing layout, distributing papers, conducting and taking part in trainings, and more. Approximately 120,000 newspapers have been distributed, created entirely by young people be-tween high school and age 30. Our definition of community (everybody within Lebanon regardless of nationality) brought young people from different groups together who never before had the chance to meet and work together, and hundreds have been trained in various aspects of citizen journalism, ethics, IML (information & media literacy), and Web 2.0/new media tools.

Also check out coverage from the Huffington Post from our earlier phase (Sawt Ashabab) (video available for download here).

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Hibr was designed from the beginning to build towards expansion at the micro level (to establish/support/partner with micro-media outlets in communities, schools, universities, cities, etc, all con-nected to the broader Hibr network) and the macro/regional level (to establish/support/partner with youth/citizen alternative media outlets in different countries, also within the expanding Hibr net-work), developing a sort of “youth/citizen media wire service” and operating within the different contexts in a locally relevant and appropriate way. The expanding network would increase the value to new and existing entrants, and would enable more effective/efficient work and greater impact.


A short paragraph introducing yourselfdavid munir nabti: rootspace & hibr.me (Lebanon) DMN is a strong advocate for social entrepreneurship and technology for social change. He is a firm believer in open source, open licensing, open collaboration, open media, and open systems. He is co-founder of rootspace (www.therootspace.org, a non-profit that organizes trainings and events around tech for social change and social entrepreneurship, and oversees the RootSpace shared office which currently includes 10 local and international non-profits and social enterprises) and hibr.me (www.hibr.me, a youth-powered citizen media outlet in Lebanon that works online, in print, and in person). He is also currently conducting research on barriers to and opportuni-ties for entrepreneurship (especially social entrepreneurship) and innovation in post-conflict and developing countries, with an emphasis on projections to the year 2020 in the WANA (West Asia/North Africa) region. He grew up mostly in Silicon Valley (except for two years in Beirut in the early 1990s), studied at UC Berkeley (political economy), worked for brief periods at Google, Cisco, and a startup company, and moved back to Lebanon 2004. He worked as a consultant to the UN/FAO in Damascus (on a project to establish a policy reform and applied economics research center), and conducted (brief) research on the connection between regime interests, the education system, and economic development in Egypt.


A short paragraph describing your organization and the work they doHibr.me (ينانبل ربح) (Lebanese Ink) is aiming to serve as a large-scale independent (unaffiliated to any sectarian or political group) youth & citizen media outlet in Lebanon that works in print (pub-lishing a monthly free distribution newspaper, currently distributing 20,000 per month), online (with regular content, discussions, multimedia, online collaborations, and more), and in person (with regular events, workshops, competitions, and other activities). Hibr is powered by young people (high school to age 30) while engaging all communities in Lebanon and the Lebanese diaspora community worldwide, and most content is licensed under a Creative Commons license to facilitate non-profit sharing of whatever information and content we create. We are building on that network and platform in order to engage community organizations around the country along with students and faculty from university campuses around Lebanon. Hibr is also working to innovate new technologies and new methods to engage young people and citizen journalists in critical media efforts to promote transparency, freedom of information, communications, public monitoring, and public dialogue around critical public issues, with an emphasis on developing and utilizing high tech tools that engage people from across the tech access spectrum.

As part of the effort to maximize engagement and impact, we are working to launch a “citizen’s media cafe” that will serve as a 24-hour open/community “citizen journalism newsroom” to enable effective content creation for bloggers, independent journalists, micromedia outlets, and those af-filiated with Hibr, and to support “media innovation efforts” in the communities where such tools are needed most (enabling creative/innovative uses of existing citizen/alternative media tools, and helping to create and contribute to the development of such tools, including open source tech tools, mobile/SMS/PBX technologies, and more). We are working to launch the first media cafe in Beirut within the next 6-8 months, with plans to develop further branches soon after, both in Lebanon and in the region (with a focus on conflict/post-conflict and deep developing countries).

A brief summary of the projectWe run a youth/citizen powered alternative mass media outlet. Hibr operates within a hybrid me-dia model that takes some elements of the new media model (non-professional content creation, empowering/publicizing a diversity of voices and points of view, and a crowd-sourced/collabora-tive approach to being a “media platform” for civil society and different communities) and some elements of the traditional media model (operating in print in addition to being online, a strong code of ethics, an editorial process, etc).

Since media and new media skills (technical, writing, critical/creative thinking and problem-solving, etc) are often lacking, Hibr is run heavily as a training and mentoring project, with substantial time, training, and support given to young people and organizations.

We think this project is critically important in Lebanon and other developing/conflict/post-conflict environments since the media often play a divisive/inflammatory role, young people and civil society efforts are oftentimes marginalized and denied access to broad-based communications and public education efforts, and lack of access to information inhibits efforts to promote transpar-ency, accountability, reform, and good governance.

Please let us know in a short paragraph what you would like to achieve at the fair given what you knowI would love to learn about other innovative projects and approaches to see how they might be relevant/valuable in terms of our work in Lebanon and the WANA (West Asia/North Africa region), see about possible partnerships (either in Lebanon, or ways to expand our work regionally), see how what we are doing could be valuable for others or in other contexts, and see about potential


funding opportunities to expand what we are doing, both in terms of expanding our work in Lebanon and expanding our work regionally.

Given that you were presented with the right funding and resources to make thrice the im-pact in 2 years what would your ask be? Please be as specific with your ask as possibleWe are working to expand both at the micro and at the macro-level, and in ways to support citi-zen media innovation. The three things we are looking to expand on include:

1• micro-media outlets and the domestic network: Developing micro-media outlets in high schools, universities, Palestinian camps, small com-

munities, and different cities in Lebanon (or within any other country where we are work-ing), and working to develop the network elements to enhance collaboration between such efforts (including the development of a country-based “youth/citizen wire service” for all partner/participating media efforts and organizations), training and content sharing, and to deepen the impact of such efforts.

Ideally, in 2 years, we would like to foster and support the development of 10-15 “micro-me-dia” initiatives in Lebanon at universities, schools, towns/cities, and Palestinian camps (along with efforts to expand the broad “youth/citizen wire service” network that could include many other independent initiatives, offering light support to each participating media effort), which would cost approximately $500,000 USD total/year (we are currently developing different revenue-generation tools that could develop sustainability mechanisms for each effort).

2• regional hibr branches & the regional network: We would like to develop country-based branches of Hibr, operating both with an element

of independence from the effort in Lebanon and the “regional Hibr”, but with a strong element of consistency and support from the regional effort (but with a very inclusive leader-ship approach including the different groups), and with a strong/open element of building out the regional network of the “youth/citizen wire service”, enhancing cooperation and information-sharing. We would like to develop these efforts at the next stage in 3-5 other countries, with each country costing approximately $300,000-400,000 each per year.

3• media cafe/media laboratories: While tools, technologies, and the media sector in general are changing rapidly, several

things remain constant. The need for collaboration will remain, we need to enhance access to information to those who need it most, the power of the media and alternative/citizen media is strong and will grow stronger, and creativity/innovation in each country and context is critical and needs to be fostered.

The media cafe/laboratory is a physical cafe that serves as a 24-hour newsroom for citizen/youth journalists, and a powerful information access point and community gathering/meeting place to support media initiatives, content creation, and innovation in citizen media. Each space houses a functional cafe (making the space very open/inclusive, and offering an alternative revenue stream) with a strong media monitoring and media creation component (archiving broadcast media content, facilitating the media creation efforts with light video/audio production facilities, hosting regular trainings in citizen journalism tools/methods/ethics, etc), a strong social/community component (regular community gatherings around media topics, community issues, media innova-tion efforts, citizen journalism/media efforts, content creation and localization issues, and more), and a media laboratory/innovation space (for experimenting with new uses/technologies, hacking computers and mobile phones to explore new applications of existing tools, running contests and


workshops on hardware hacking for social change and web/mobile phone tools, etc). A core element of the media cafe project is to develop a very light structure that could be imple-mented in communities that don’t have a strong youth/citizen media or innovation community, and to support the development of that community, thus operating in a very light/open “franchis-able”/network approach to enable implementation in a wide variety of development and conflict/post-conflict environments.

There is an intentional effort to also develop the “media cafes/labs” in a way that they could serve as “war-rooms” in cases of conflict or natural disaster, information/communication access points for citizen/civil society efforts, using both new and traditional tools and technologies to facilitate local/international civil society efforts to rapidly address critical needs.

We would like to develop/launch four media cafes/laboratories in the coming 12-18 months, with 2 in Lebanon and 2 in critically needy locations in the region, with the aim of refining the model and pushing for rapid further expansion beyond that. A core interest is to develop such media cafes/laboratories in conflict zones as early as possible in the transition towards post-conflict, in order to further catalyze that transition towards stability and positive growth. Estimated cost is approximately $400,000-$500,000 each to set up and for first year expenses, though a core element of the design is to build in several revenue-generating elements to make each location self-sustaining with the first 12-18 months of launching.

While these are describe here as three different efforts, they are intimately and critically linked, and so we are looking to launch them in parallel and build out the efforts in different communities together. More information is available about each approach, and we would be happy to go into more detail about any of them


projeCT TiTLe:

Jericho

AuThor: Gina Estrada, Researcher

CounTry of impLemenTATion: Paraguay

probLem definiTion: A security policy that addresses the phenomenon comprehensively. Criminal psychology, must generate initiatives that aim to close the cycle of crime through the development of rehabilitation and reintegration opportunities for certain people who have been convicted, so that these people acquire the skills and skills needed to function normally in society.

projeCT desCripTion And objeCTives: In this perspective, the axis of Rehabilitation and Social Reintegration REMAR PARAGUAY groups a set of action initiatives whose focus is to generate an adequate supply for the development of capacity venture skills, employ-ability and training for persons who have committed crime or offense. Additionally, we intend to generate opportunities for treatment for those offenders / as for alcohol abuse and drugs, which, in many cases, explains the commission of crime. Ultimately, the purpose of this axis is to reinte-grate these people into the community.

Objectives

A. Generate and implement strategies for social reintegration of adult offenders under criminal laws.

B. Generate and implement intervention strategies and social rehabilitation for young offenders / as affections / as to the Adolescent Criminal Responsibility Law.

C. Generate and implement programs for drug treatment for adult offenders in the Criminal Law.

D. Generate and implement treatment programs for young drug offenders / as affections / as a Teenage Criminal Liability Act

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The purpose of an innovation as Farm School is an integrated way:

a) By way of helping to restore emotional and psychological health of the social outcast dignified, and

b) Use appropriate spaces for recovery through the Re Education, Prevention, Training, Social Cohesion and Social Reintegration of Marginalized within available resources, using simple and inexpensive technologies that allow more efficient to do the tasks that are performed and

c) Show that there are alternatives that can do more profitable production systems and becom-ing self-sustainable reintegration, which will have an income to improve living conditions.



Each Ministry provides assistance to over 680 individuals directly and indirectly 2720 people. With the exception of the Ministry of Education and Prevention or Children and Adolescents at Risk (CIPCA) because it has a program covering 15,552 students per year directly and 145,152 individuals per year indirectly.

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The possibilities of projection of the philosophy and methodology of the REMAR INTERNACIONAL support the proposed program called Agro-Ecological Model Community School For Social Reintegration. In this integration, we combine the institutions, the establishment of farms for self-sufficiency in basic food and income generation, production and marketing agribusiness community and the projec-tion through the rehabilitation programs and learners.


projeCT TiTLe:

Rural Internet Kiosks Providing Ownership and Employment to Youth

AuThor: Crystal Kigoni, Practitioner, (crystal.kigoni)

CounTry of impLemenTATion: Kenya, Uganda

probLem definiTion: Information and communications technologies have the power to change the way we practice development in Sub Saharan Africa. The digital divide, defined by a lack of access to information for a specific population, symbolizes the largest difference between developed and developing countries: the opportunity to obtain and utilize information. The digital divide runs much deeper than hardware and software. While equipment is necessary it is not sufficient. The real heart of the digital divide is that those without access to information resources often suffer needlessly while the solutions to their problems are floating in the air.

The heart of the Rural Internet Kiosk project lies at the intersection of business and development. Where education is very inexpensive yet the community sees a return in youth employment. Youth and community members will be trained on Computer Basics, Wonderful World of the Web Levels 1&2, and Social Enterprise. Additional courses will be taught upon demand. Community groups will be able to utilize the RIK to teach other community members about sustainable development issues such as HIV/AIDS, community health workers, and human rights to name a few applications.

projeCT desCripTion And objeCTives: The youth in Kenya will soon have the opportunity to borrow funds from the Youth Enterprise Development Fund to own Rural Internet Kiosks in conjunction with a local community based organization from their villages. Community based organizations (CBOs) will partner with the youth groups and help to finance the RIK pur-chase through Constituency Development Funds and will be key stakeholders. Rural Internet Kiosk operators will be small social business owners training their local communities on the usage of computers and the Internet for a small fee. The RIK operators will each be paid a salary for their time. Profits after expenses will be divided three ways: the youth group to reinvest in new social businesses for the youth, the CBOs will invest in income generating community development projects, the community to provide services to the most vulnerable in the community typically widows and orphans. In partnership with BOSCO Uganda we will build on their work and extend in Uganda within 6 months.

Voices of Africa for Sustainable Development and BOSCO Uganda are committed to bring-ing innovative ICT4D projects throughout Sub Saharan Africa and to creating an international knowledge sharing network for sustainable development. Along with other strategic partners we will empower development innovators to create tangible, on the ground evidence of the social, political, and economic change possible through ICT4D and Internet access.


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The Rural Internet Kiosk (RIK) is an self contained 100% solar powered kiosk featuring three industrial design computer terminals, a manned administrator terminal, and broadband wireless Internet connectivity. RIK has been designed to help bridge the digital divide and concentrates on connecting rural areas and informal settlements where there is high percentage of the population who have no access to ICT infrastructure or education.


In our pilot implementations we have seen hundreds of youth trained informally on basic com-puter skills. The project has employed more than 20 youth so far and with scale up will employ many more. It is challenging to empirically measure what the impact of ICT has has on the lives of the youth, but we have seen a change in their thought processes, personas, and we have seen the youth become empowered to believe that they can change the future of Kenya. The youth have become the drivers of change through the information they have learned via the Internet.

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The RIK was designed to be easily scalable as it is a cookie cutter design. The units are being manufactured in Kenya by Kenyan youth. The implementation model has been solidified through trial and error and we now have a framework for duplication including monitoring and evaluation. It is our goal to have a countrywide roll out in Kenya and a presence in Northern Uganda by the end of the year. We will begin pilots in Congo Brazzaville and Nigeria within 6 months. Interested parties have contacted us about deployment in 19 African countries.


projeCT TiTLe: Sisi ni Amani - Mapping Peace in Kenya

AuThor: Rachel Brown, Practitioner, (SisiNiAmani)


probLem definiTion: In 2007 post-election violence left 1000 dead in Kenya, and the country faces its 2012 elections on shaky ground. How can the youth, who perpetrated much of the violence, be channeled to peaceful activities? Recent reports show signs of an arms buildup in contentious areas of Kenya, and Kofi Annan warned that current divisions could lead to violence in the upcoming elections. While many individuals and grassroots organizations are mobilizing to promote peace and stability, much of this movement remains fragmented and disconnected. A comprehensive approach is needed to map and connect peace efforts to prevent future violence.

projeCT desCripTion And objeCTives: Sisi ni Amani (“We are Peace” in Swahili) provides an alternative to violence by using crowdsourcing technology and innovative media to map and connect the many disconnected peace initiatives in Kenya, strengthening the Kenyan peace movement through the 2012 elections. The online platform will highlight youth efforts, pro-viding young people with crucial information to connect with each other and generate a network of technical and psychological support.

Sisi ni Amani will launch a new online peace platform in partnership with Ushahidi (“Testimony” in Swahili), a free and open-source Kenyan-built platform used to crowdsource and map crisis information. Young Kenyans will be able to report peace initiatives and receive updates on initiatives in their vicinity through SMS and the Web. Information from this platform will be the starting point for a comprehensive guide of ongoing peace efforts throughout Kenya, initiat-ing a dialogue through which Kenyans will be able to identify and define the civic and youth leadership in their communities. By training Kenyan student volunteers to map crowdsourced information and conduct follow-up interviews, it will engage Kenyan youth in social networks promoting peace and stability.

Finally, Sisi ni Amani will facilitate networking sessions to bring together members of different peace efforts, building a nation-wide network of youth and adult peace leaders with different skills and knowledge. Connecting youth with non-youth leaders will promote the sharing of knowledge and experience to generate actionable solutions to the underlying causes of violence.

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Crowdsourced platforms have been used to map crises worldwide, from the Kenyan 2007-2008 post-election violence to the recent earthquake in Haiti. Using these technologies to comprehen-sively map peace represents a new and transformative approach to understanding strengthening civil society networks promoting stability and non-violence. Sisi ni Amani will directly engage youth in mapping Kenyan peace efforts, and mapping and connecting youth peace efforts will allow


young leaders to prevent and respond to emergent violence. Focus groups will generate new local and national peace-focused networks, increasing Kenyan peace actors’ ability to transform their society into a peaceful and stable one.


By strengthening Kenya’s civil society, Sisi ni Amani will help young leaders repair and reinforce the social capital networks that underpin the growth of their communities. As the 2007-2008 election violence devastated local economies and tore apart the social fabric of Kenyan society, a concerted effort is needed to preempt further disintegration of communal and national stabil-ity. Capacity-building workshops based on the self-identified needs of peace actors will enhance the work of at least seventy Kenyan civil society leaders, increasing their agency and ability to prevent a repetition of violence in 2012. Finally, employing Kenyan student volunteers to map and verify crowdsourced information will provide a core group of youth with valuable violence-prevention research and technological skills.

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Peace mapping is applicable to any region suffering from a history of tensions or ongoing violence. It can leverage the strength of existing civil society actors to create crucial networks and infrastructure for crisis prevention, stability, and sustained growth. Ushahidi’s crisis mapping platform has proven scalable and applicable to a wide variety of situations, from the mapping of political violence to natural disaster response. Drawing upon the success of crisis mapping in Kenya, peace mapping represents the next generation of crowdsourced networking and can be replicated regionally and globally where civic cleavages exist to strengthen civil society’s violence prevention capacity. more informATion AbouT The projeCT:

A short paragraph introducing the authorRachel Brown is Project Director for Sisi ni Amani (“We are Peace” in Swahili), and Cody Valdes is the Project Manager. Both students at Tufts University, Brown and Valdes bring experience in inter-national research, leadership of research groups in foreign countries, capacity building workshop planning and facilitation, tenant organizing, and work with vulnerable populations domestically abroad. Together, they have academic backgrounds in Swahili, Kenyan politics and development, African history, and international relations, and both are trained in Ushahidi’s mapping technol-ogy. The inspiration for the project derives from Rachel’s interactions with inspiring peace leaders in Kenya, and the desire to play a supporting role to enhance the work of these individuals by connecting them in strong networks and publicizing their efforts nationally and globally. In July, Rachel and Cody will be launching Sisi ni Amani in Nairobi.

A short paragraph about the organizationDigital Democracy’s mission is to empower civic engagement among young people through the use of new technologies. Working globally, we target youth in marginalized communities and empower them through digital skills and community storytelling. Our programs connect youth to global decision-makers, and our curriculum gives them the tools they need to impact their society. Since our Fall 2008 launch, we have conducted research and trainings on four continents, provid-ing technology and security trainings and computer skills certification to journalists and bloggers from repressive regimes as well as students from Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe and Southern Africa. Sisi ni Amani is Digital Democracy’s signature peacemapping program, which compliments


and builds upon Handheld Human Rights (HHR), a Digital Democracy program that uses mobile phones to make human rights data accessible and actionable in and around Burma/Myanmar. It also builds upon our Open Education platform (Roebling) and curriculum (Einstein), which enable community reporting through new media tools.

A brief summary of the projectIn 2007 post-election violence left over 1000 dead in Kenya, and the country faces its 2012 elections on unstable ground. While many individuals and grassroots organizations are mobiliz-ing to promote peace and stability, much of this movement remains fragmented and discon-nected. Sisi ni Amani uses a citizen-led approach to map and connect peace efforts to prevent future violence. We focus specifically on youth, who perpetrated much of the 2007-8 violence, in order to enhance their participation in peaceful activities. Sisi ni Amani will launch a new online peace platform using crowdsourcing technology to enable young Kenyans to report peace initiatives and receive updates on initiatives in their vicinity through SMS and the Web. Information from this platform will be the starting point for a comprehensive guide of peace efforts in Kenya. Kenyan students will be trained to map the crowdsourced information and conduct follow-up verification interviews with peace leaders. Additionally, Sisi ni Amani will facilitate networking sessions to bring together members of different peace efforts, build-ing a nation-wide network of youth and adult peace leaders to share their different skills and knowledge. By strengthening Kenya’s civil society, Sisi ni Amani will help young leaders repair and reinforce the social capital networks that underpin the growth of their communities, whil providing a model for mapping and connecting peace activities that is applicable to any region suffering from a history of tensions or ongoing violence.

Please let us know in a short paragraph what you would like to achieve at the fair We hope to emerge from the Innovations Fair with new partnerships, both for collaboration on programming and for the sharing of skills and knowledge, so that Sisi ni Amani’s work may strengthen and be strengthened by programs promoting peace for youth globally. Through these partnerships, we also aim to increase understanding of the concept of peace mapping among our peers, and to create relationships that can be leveraged to scale Sisi ni Amani’s model for peace mapping in the future. We hope to gain input from expert speakers and from peer and expert working sessions, and to use this input and knowledge to refine our project’s assumptions, activi-ties, and goals. Finally, we would like to create relationships with potential donors for the purpos-es of fundraising and obtaining insight for additional fundraising strategies.

Given that you were presented with the right funding and resources to make thrice the im-pact in 2 years what would your ask be? Please be as specific with your ask as possibleIf given sufficient funding and resources to make thrice the impact in two years, Sisi ni Amani would use its implementation in Kenya as a model to replicate its peace mapping and network-ing sessions programming in two additional countries in Eastern Africa, creating a peace infra-structure leading up to elections and major political events in all three countries. This scaling of the project would have tremendous regional impact in an area of the world that has been home to major conflict and tensions for decades. Specific second and third countries for consideration include Burundi, Rwanda, and Sudan, all of which have recently experienced major conflict and remain unstable to some degree. The expansion of peace mapping and networking to two additional countries would expand Sisi ni Amani’s network, forging regional connections and innovation through coordination, skill-sharing, and comparison of effective practices. Two major regional conferences would bring together peace actors from different countries to strengthen their efforts through shared skills and experience, and to provide an understanding of similari-ties and differences in peace efforts and their effectiveness throughout the region. In order to


accomplish this programming, Sisi ni Amani would need approximately $310,000, which will include the cost of implementing and running the Kenya-based and tested program in two addi-tional countries in Sisi ni Amani’s second year, with an additional percentage of funding allotted towards the coordination of two regional conferences, including the cost of attendance (travel and accommodations) for all attendees from each participating country.

Additional Information:

Sisi ni Amani Websiteswww.sisiniamani.orghttp://digital-democracy.org/what-we-do/programs/#siFull Team Bios: http://digital-democracy.org/who-we-are/team/

Links to PublicityDigital Democracy Blog on Sisi ni Amani: http://digital-democracy.org/2010/03/12/mapping-peace-in-kenya/iRevolution Blog entry on Sisi ni Amani: http://irevolution.wordpress.com/2009/11/21/peace-mapping/Global Post article mentioning Sisi ni Amani: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/worldview/091124/out-africa-crowdsourcing-crisis-information


projeCT TiTLe:

Sport as a tool for social transformation and peace building

AuThor: Marion Keim Lees, Practitioner, (Marion)

CounTry of impLemenTATion: South Africa

probLem definiTion: Since apartheid ended in 1994, we are in a post-conflict and current conflict situation, with the world’s highest murder and rape rates. Apartheid’s legacy persists in the form of ongoing separation between racial groups - white, black, coloured (Asian and mixed-race heri-tage) - and deep mistrust between individuals. Apartheid destroyed the fabric of trust that holds society together, and it has not yet been repaired. The vast majority of South African children and youth still live in a formerly segregated black and coloured communities with almost no recreational activities nor opportunities for healthy multicultural activities to interact and make friends across the cultural divide.

projeCT desCripTion And objeCTives: Kicking for Peace brings together boys and girls from volatile, formerly segregated communities in South Africa to share the joys of sport and learn life skills that transform them into citizens equipped to live together peaceably and for all to participate in the peaceful development of our nation. We offer multilingual activities using sport as a tool for conflict resolution, peace building and social transformation. Through soccer, we teach essential skills for a just and harmonious society to build bridges across racial divides. These life modules are: conflict transformation sills, communication, problem-solving, leadership, community development and peace building skills. The youth learn about fair play and about managing conflict and communicating with peers from different backgrounds, where few extra-mural activities or recreational programmes are taking place. Their capacity for trust, love and dedication grows as they develop respect for themselves and others they were forcibly separated from. We measure at-titude change though participatory evaluations conducted in cooperation with the University of the Western Cape. A focus of this initiative is to use soccer as a vehicle to bring different communities together and thus to nation-building. We believe “Kicking for Peace” will assist in the social transfor-mation and peaceful development of our communities and the same time spread the joy and enthu-siasm for soccer between now and 2010 but also beyond to all communities in the Western Cape. The project’s long-term impact is to build a South Africa as a nation free of prejudice and violence.

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Kicking for Peace is a bottom-up, grassroots initiative using sport to develop skills and attitudes that help build a just, peaceful society. It is implemented by the Network for Community Peace and Development, a unique collaboration of NGOs, local communities, University of the Western Cape, supported by provincial governments and City. Kicking for Peace brings children, parents and coaches from formerly segregated communities together for the first time and responds to the needs of a society in transition. While personal development of youth is part of our work, the larger goal is building a safer, more caring and harmonious nation.



Since 2006 over 1500 children practicing weekly in 13 communities each consisting of around 300 000 inhabitants, many of whom had no contact with other cultural groups prior to our multicultural sport and life skills events. We measure attitude change though participatory evaluations conducted in cooperation with the University of the Western Cape, resulting in numerous international journal publications about the programme. We also offer accredited training in conflict resolution and coach-ing courses with the University and trained 60 coaches and mentors last year. In 2009 the Kicking for Peace Initiative was selected as one of the 3 finalist for the International Sport Award in London honouring the best international projects and standout examples in sport, development and peace.

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Our Network started 2005 with 6 organisations, now we are 39 member organizations. The num-ber of communities participating in Kicking for Peace is constantly increasing expanding the train-ing in life skills, leadership and community peace-building. Every hour spent in soccer and life skills training is an hour not spent in activities that undermine youth’s lives, like drugs and crime. Our model is easily replicable in other South African provinces and internationally with the potential to serve millions of children. With the exposure through the World Bank we would encourage other countries to adapt our model to their own circumstances.


A short paragraph introducing the authorMarion Keim Lees holds a DPhil in Sports and Social Sciences from the University of Heidelberg, Germany and a Law Degree from the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. She an as-sociate professor and the Director of the Interdisciplinary Centre of Excellence for Sports Sciences and Development of the University of the Western Cape. She is also the Chairperson of the Western Cape Network for Community Peace and Development, a civil society peace and development network consisting of 37 NGOs and an Advocate of the High Court of South Africa. Marion Keim Lees has published nationally and internationally, amongst her books are : Nation Building at Play, Sport as a Tool for Social Integration in Post-apartheid South Africa , with a Foreword by Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu, Meyer & Meyer Sport (UK) Ltd., Aachen, Germany, 2003 and Umama, Recollections of South African Mothers and Grandmothers, Umuzi, Randomhouse March 2009.

A short paragraph describing the organization The Interdisciplinary Centre of Excellence for Sport Science and Development (ICESSD) which started its work in 2009 at the University of the Western Cape is the first centre in Africa to promote sport as a powerful tool for development, health, wellbeing and social change through high quality research, teaching, community engagement combining the areas of sports and health sciences and community development and wellness. It conducts inter- and multidisciplinary re-search and service programs, teaches and trains the next generation of sport leaders by providing continuing education opportunities in the field of sport and health sciences and community devel-opment and wellness. It also provides performance enhancement services to emerging athletes and coaches from traditionally underserved communities, and it pursues Community Outreach through its inter- and multidisciplinary community service program with a focus on youth devel-opment, health and wellness and professional development, coaching assistance, liaising with federations, sport clubs, schools and community organisations and the provision of holistic com-munity sport leaders programs, internships and participatory research opportunities.


The University is a partner of the Western Cape Network for Community Peace and Development , a unique collaboration of 37 NGOs, local communities, the University of the Western Cape, supported by provincial governments and City.

A brief summary of the projectSport as a tool for social transformation and peace building.: Kicking for Peace is a model grassroots initiative that uses soccer as a vehicle for social transformation, conflict prevention and peace-build-ing in post-apartheid South Africa.

It brings together boys and girls from volatile, formerly segregated communities in South Africa to share the joys of soccer and learn life skills that transform them into citizens equipped to live together peaceably and for all to participate in the peaceful development of our nation. The initiative is imple-mented by the Western Cape Network for Community Peace and Development, a unique collabora-tion of NGOs, local communities, University of the Western Cape, supported by provincial governments and City.

Please let us know in a short paragraph what you would like to achieve at the fair:I would like to interact and exchange experiences with other projects in the same field but also with funders and experts who can assist us in drawing up a proper business model which will enable us to reach more youth. I also would like to interact with experts in PR and marketing and media as we just started to create for the first time a DVD of our project and we would like to make it a series of positive stories using sport for community peace building.

Given that you were presented with the right funding and resources to make thrice the im-pact in 2 years what would your ask be? Please be as specific with your ask as possible.The number of communities interested in participating in Kicking for Peace is constantly increas-ing. With increased funding, we could serve an additional youth, expanding our project to more Western Cape communities: black, coloured and white and also including other sporting codes

We would also expand the amount of training in life skills, leadership and community peace-building. Every hour spent in sport and life skills training is an hour not spent in activities that undermine youth’s lives, like drugs and crime. We started a film series called “who cares” for our youth. Funding would allow us to provide the filming of more positive examples / stories from our communities as teaching and motivational tools for other children and youth growing up in similar circumstances

Funding would also pay for regular transport of teams between communities, as the legacy of apartheid has created communities that are geographically isolated. Increasing the number of tournaments would provide more opportunities for youth and adults to interact with people on different sides of the many divides that sepa-rate South Africans. Funding would pay for more part-time coaches, increasing the amount of soccer training and adult mentorship youth receive. It would also provide jobs for young adults in townships with unemployment rates of 60%. Last but not least funding would allow us to conduct more participatory research with students from UWC/ICESSD which creates an evidence-based platform to im-prove the quality of our sport, social transformation and peace and initiative.

Our model is easily replicable in other South African provinces, with the potential to serve millions of South African children. With the exposure the World Bank would offer, we could encourage others to adapt our model to their own circumstances.


projeCT TiTLe:

Strengthening traditional/social networks to bridge youth groups and prevent violence in West Africa

AuThor: John Atibila, Practitioner, (atibila)

CounTry of impLemenTATion: Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo

probLem definiTion: Violent conflicts in Burkina Faso, Ghana and Togo involve youth of the same community and same tribal group, taking up arms against their colleagues. Evidence from northern Ghana shows that warring youth groups have the same thing in common; they belong to different political parties. Though politicians try masking how they fuel ethnic conflicts, the unemployed youth and their communities, who live in the poorest regions in the Ghana and the neighbouring states, could not afford the costs of buying very sophisticated weapons used in battles. The youth have allowed political influences to over-ride their socio-cultural networks that bonded their grand -parents together and offered social protection to them in times of problems.

projeCT desCripTion And objeCTives: The project uses extensive email and SMS, as well as rural radio networks to reach youth groups in remote areas, towns and cross borders. The idea comes from studies on the traditional political systems and youth networks of the Ashanti (Ghana) and Mossis (Burkina Faso) and Ewes (Togo). These have stable traditionally democracies; chiefs are not removed from office with any change of national government. In these traditionally stable states, the youth are more bonded, like their older generation, and political divisiveness is low. Even though youth misunderstanding arises, which is normal, it does not escalate into major conflicts. However, in the northern Ghana, which borders southern Burkina Faso and north west-ern Togo, any minor argument between two young people has often amplified into war, resulting in loss of hundreds of lives and property worth millions of dollars. Such wars often spread across borders into the neighboring countries. The aim of the project is to initiate peace-building in conflict prone-areas of northern Ghana, North-western Togo and South-eastern Burkina Faso. The objec-tives are: (1) Create a sub-regional forum of chiefs, local government and civil society to discuss and share best practice of strengthening bonds among the Mossi-Dagbane tribe, living across borders in the three countries; (2) Establish and build capacity of Mossi-Dagbane Youth Development Network to strengthen bonds among themselves and actively participate in peace-building initiatives in the region; (3) Promote employment for the youth in the region through social, cultural and economic entrepreneurial training and financing; (4) Advocate for political parties to desist from polarizing and fuelling conflicts; (5) Advocate for criminalization, disbanding and severe punishment for youth gangs that perpetually violet peace in conflict-prone areas.


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The project differs from all other initiatives in West Africa by linking stable traditional institutional governance systems with long term peace and adapting this model for peace-building in fragile and unstable zones in West Africa. The innovation is that achieving stable traditional systems are the key to long term peace and social development. The project emphasises the enormous ben-efits accruing to youth of the same tribal group as a result of increased social capital and encour-ages the youth to take advantage of the employment and socio-economic opportunities instead of killing themselves for the sake of political expediency, and provides security to young/children in the region.


From 1985 to 2009 Ghana spent over $100 millions on military operations in northern Ghana. During this period, poverty tripled in the area. Northern Ghana was the centre of production and marketing of livestock. With peace the livestock production will be resume, and all peoples can go about their livelihood actions witout fear. Funds being ‘wasted’ on peace operations will be invested in building schools, clinics, and providing drinking and irrigation water resources for poor people. Conflicts have often disrupted transport of goods from Tema/Takoradi to land locked Burkina Faso and Mali and Niger, resulting in loss of $millions. Long term peace will ensure safe passage for goods from Ghana’s ports to other ECOWAS cities, thus promoting development.

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The project is scalable in West Africa, where the same tribes live across the borders. The Mossi-Dagbane Tribe is one of the largest in ECOWAS region. This peace models targets people in Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana and Togo. It can be extended to close the loop for the Yoruba-Hausa people living in Benin, Nigeria and Niger, as well as used to link Arab-Berber-Fulfulde and Wolof peoples living along the Sahel regions of Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal and Mauritania. The same strategy can be used to link up the Mende of Sierra Leone and Gambia. Using separate loops, the project can bond and bridge the people of the ECOWAS region to form a large social capital base and market for the West African Community.


projeCT TiTLe:

The Hub - Inspiring and Supporting Social Innovation

AuThor: Moraan Gilad, Practitioner (moraan)

CounTry of impLemenTATion: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, Egypt, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Rwanda, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States, West Bank and Gaza

probLem definiTion: We believe that there is no lack of good ideas to solve the world’s most pressing social problems. However there is a crisis of access to the infrastructure that sup-ports those who have good ideas for a better world to realize them. The Hub is a global network of spaces and communities that give social innovators access to the facilities, knowledge and connections they need to start and grow their initiatives. Hubs create fluid, inclusive, stimulating environments of collaboration and support in order to convene, connect, facilitate and strengthen diverse social and entrepreneurial initiatives.

projeCT desCripTion And objeCTives: Those creating social value share a critical need for access to the same key elements. These elements form the basic Hub services model:

• Hosted space: in which to meet, work, collaborate, innovate, share, experiment and grow;• Tools: internet, printing, telephone, etc.• Connections: to a local and global community of diverse members and experts;• Knowledge: a program of learning lunches, talks and workshops helps members access the

skills and learning they need to grow their initiative and themselves;

This offering is framed by and instilled with the following core values:

• Courage: a culture that supports the risk-taking involved in learning through doing;• Conviviality: enabling spaces that thrive on generosity of spirit and interdependence;• Imagination: seeing things not as they are but as they could be.

Utilizing these principles, Hubs create diverse, vibrant, inclusive, hosted communities of collaboration and horizontal learning, cultivating the conditions in which social initiatives flourish. Hubs employ a careful process of member attraction to create ecosystems of diverse talent. These ecosystems are safe, supportive, multidisciplinary spaces for people to try new solutions to shared problems.

There is now a particularly strong call for Hubs in conflict-affected and fragile areas such as Rwanda, Palestine and Colombia. These Hubs will have a dedicated knowledge-sharing infrastruc-ture, and support in developing the services and models that will be applicable to those contexts.


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The Hub exists to establish a new type of business: one which is creating added value beyond monetary gain. It is a platform for individuals to collaborate and find more integrated and holistic solutions. We do this by creating group dynamics which allow for more social cohesion, exchange and inter-reliance.

Wherever possible we use bottom-up approaches, which produce greater creativity and innova-tion. Support and learning is accessed horizontally across the communities and networks by link-ing members who can help each other. This can occur one-on-one with small requests, or in the shape of a lunch-topic or workshop when patterns emerge.


15 Hubs have been developed over five years, 5 more are about to open and 65 teams are devel-oping Hubs around the world. A total global community of 5221 social change-makers have used the Hub platform and community to grow and develop a phenomenal diversity of world-changing social enterprises: from ethical fashion to HIV awareness events for the deaf.

At the user level, a recent Hub London survey demonstrated The Hub’s impact for members:

• 47% met someone instrumental for business development;• 53% collaborated on a project with another member;• 74% accessed critical information from the network;• 95% said being here has a significant impact on my emotional wellbeing;• 89% highly recommended The Hub to others:

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The critical success factors which ensure that the Hubs will be able to replicate this impact in con-flict and post-crisis contexts:

• Allow local entrepreneurs to adapt the core model to suit their contexts; Projects must gar-ner genuine ownership;

• Identify and develop a local team that is diverse, neutral and united; that is capable, re-spected, contains broad range of talents;

• Create a secure space for diversity to meet and interact; train the hosting teams’ community building and conflict transformation skills;

• Form productive partnerships (knowledge or resource partners) with other peace building and specialist organizations.


projeCT TiTLe:

The Peace Portal: local voices - global action

AuThor: Jenny Aulin, Practitioner

user nAme: ECCP

CounTry of impLemenTATion: Georgia, Japan, Kyrgyzstan, Netherlands, Philippines, Russian Federation, Serbia, Sri Lanka

probLem definiTion: Every day we hear news of longstanding violent conflicts, where solu-tions seem difficult to even imagine. Local communities in conflict regions are underrepresented in the media, only visible when calamities occur. The haste with which stories need to be covered often make that the stories of people on the ground are overshadowed - including the day to day eco-nomic, political, social and spiritual dynamics of a community, which are crucial factors in creating or solving conflicts. It is the people within these communities who understand the local context, opin-ions, hopes and worries best. However, policymakers do not usually hear these local voices, and in-stead depend on external information and analysis. Behind the scenes, hundreds of local civil society organizations (CSOs) are actively working to bridge gaps and prevent conflicts, and to build peace. The peace building community is however often unable to work with media in a constructive way to support their efforts. Many cases have shown that the media can exacerbate conflict tendencies and incite people towards violence. The impact of the media on conflict has so far (through a number of studies) been shown to be greater than its impact on conflict prevention and peace building.

projeCT desCripTion And objeCTives: The Peace Portal is a web-based platform dedicated to conflict prevention and peace building. As the secretariat of the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC), ECCP is building the Portal for the communication, interaction and operational needs of its members across the world. To operationalize the Portal in its pilot phase, GPPAC has a network of Media Focal Points in GPPAC regions - designated CSO representatives implementing media and public outreach strategies for the network. The Portal is a practical platform to reach out and connect with the media; to harness its potential to connect peace building CSOs with the media, GPPAC representatives from across the world came together in August 2009 to develop a pilot project. The event also included training (and Train the Trainer) on how to engage with the media. A virtual community has since been developed on the Peace Portal, with the aim to start sharing the experience of GPPAC members in dealing with the media and the broader audience of the Peace Portal. In addition, communication strategies will bring larger audiences, especially media, to the Peace Portal. The aims and objectives of this process are: 1) To ensure local conflict issues and communities are represented in the media; 2) To make concrete conflict prevention efforts visible in the media in conflict regions; 3) To facilitate cross-regional exchange of CSOs and increase the media outreach capacities of peace builders on the ground with the help of internet technology.


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The Peace Portal is a unique online platform for cooperation, learning and action in the conflict prevention and peacebuilding field. It aggregates the newest digital technologies allowing communi-cation via the participatory-web, mobile phones and twitter. Specifically built for conflict prevention purposes, it ensures anonymous and secured communication to protect individuals and CSOs oper-ating in repressive contexts. The Portal is a tool to support more decentralised and people-centred initiatives for conflict early warning. Built on open source Internet technology it includes features such as social networking capabilities, real time information and communication, and user-generated information. The project has a) given a voice to people that work directly with and in communities in conflict areas through social media tools that stimulate dialogue; b) empowered sources from the ground with on- and offline tools to become reliable peace reporters; c) applied these skills in ensur-ing that the voices of local communities living the consequences of war are heard.


Through the GPPAC Media Focal Points, peacebuilding organizations have been able to raise awareness on specific issues across different regions simultaneously and in a coordinated fashion. Their work is essential to the success of the conflict prevention and peacebuilding initiatives on the ground, not only because it gives CSOs more leverage with policy makers, but also because of the importance of media in opinion forming especially in conflict areas. With the Peace Portal, the Media Focal Points will increase the capacity of CSOs in this area manifold. Studies such as ‘New Technologies in Emergencies and Conflict’ (United Nations Foundation/Vodafone Foundation 2009) have demonstrated how much of the potential of information technology in conflict pre-vention is still untapped. This project is a first step in building on that resource. The Peace Portal, in combination with the capacity building training, offers the GPPAC members both the space and the skills to share their knowledge, experiences, warnings and recommendations with other stake-holders, especially the media. Additionally, this gives them the chance to increase their visibility, learn from each other and cooperate on specific outreach campaigns.

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Projects, activities and training for additional GPPAC members and regions are currently in the making. Given the global scope of GPPAC, and the great variety of its membership, the Peace Portal functionalities will eventually be rolled out to all GPPAC regions, spanning activities such as election monitoring and early warning in the Philippines, engaging local ‘Peace Reporters’ in East and Central Africa, and lobbying the African Union and the UN on the conflict prevention and peacebuilding agendas. Essential to all initiatives is the link to local level actors and their ability to reach and interact with wider audiences, including media, policy and decision makers, campaign-ers and civil society networks - from the local, to the regional and global levels.


A short paragraph introducing the authorMy name is Victoria Carreras Lloveras and I am the manager of the Peace Portal. Through my career I have seen the power and possibilities that Internet offers both in the commercial and academic world. This has motivated me to apply my experience to the non-profit field, especially in conflict prevention/peace building where if we can make a difference it can be a matter of life or death. A challenging but great opportunity!


A short paragraph describing the organizationThe European Centre for Conflict Prevention (ECCP) is based in the Hague, the Netherlands, and it functions as the secretariat for a network called the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC in short). GPPAC is a member-led network of civil society organizations active in the field of conflict prevention and peace building across the world, working for a global shift from reaction to prevention of armed conflicts. The network is organized around 15 regional networks of locally based organizations, each region having its own priorities, character and agenda, and significant links to other relevant fields (such as sustainable development, gover-nance, human rights, democratic space).

Together we aim to achieve greater synergy in the field of conflict prevention and peace building by connecting different levels (from local to regional and global action), and especially to strength-en the role of local civil society groups. GPPAC supports the capacity of the regional networks to interact and act together, but also facilitates global exchange, where members from different parts of the world come together and learn from each others’ experience and plan joint actions. There is much emphasis on connecting with other actors in the field, such as academia, the UN, regional intergovernmental organizations and state actors.

Since 2005, GPPAC’s work has been concentrating on five programs:

• Network and Capacity Building• Advocacy and Interaction• Early Warning and Early Response• Awareness Raising• Peace Education

A brief summary of the projectThe Peace Portal (www.peaceportal.org) intends to enable civil society to better harness the pos-sibilities of the Internet for the prevention of violent conflicts. It aims to be a main source and opportunity to share and integrate information leading to action aimed at preventing conflicts and building peace. The information on the Portal will be categorized, aggregated, verified and qualified in an open platform belonging to all participating organizations. The Portal will support communication and collaboration within and across organizations and individuals.

The Peace Portal is a unique online platform for cooperation, learning and action in the conflict prevention and peace building field. It aggregates the newest digital technologies allowing com-munication via the participatory-web, mobile phones and twitter. Specifically built for conflict prevention purposes, it ensures anonymous and secured communication to protect individuals and CSOs operating in repressive contexts. It is a tool to support more decentralized and people-centered initiatives for conflict early warning.

The Portal facilitates civil society cooperation on-line: allowing users to interact, discuss, build networks and start communities on issues of specific interest. There is also space to publish mate-rial and reports, as well as enable users to collaboratively produce content. Organizations have, furthermore, the possibility to integrate the content of their own websites with that of others and in this way reach a bigger audience. The Portal is different from a traditional website in that it is a collaborative endeavor and the content will be produced and shared by its users.


Supply evidence of the field testing of your project. In case of a research proposal, kindly provide copy of the proposal or related peer reviewed articles and/or academic referencesThe Peace Portal is a practical platform to reach out and connect with several stakeholders: CSOs, the media, policy-makers, as well as citizens. To harness its potential to connect peace building CSOs with the media, as part of GPPAC’s Awareness Raising program, a planning and capacity building meeting was organized for GPPAC members from all over the world in September 2009. It entailed the development of a pilot project for the Peace Portal, as well as a training to develop the participants’ capacity to engage with the media.

Since then, a virtual community has been developed on the Peace Portal (http://www.peaceportal.org/web/media-community), and a process for content development has started, with the aim to start sharing the experience of GPPAC members in dealing with the media and the broader audience of the Peace Portal. At the same time, communication strategies are being developed and implemented to bring larger audiences, especially media, to the Peace Portal. The aims and objectives of this process are:

• To ensure local conflict issues and communities are represented in the media • To counter conflict sensationalism and make concrete conflict prevention efforts visible in

the media in conflict regions • To facilitate cross-regional exchange (across conflict lines) of CSOs and increase the media

outreach capacities of peace builders on the ground with the help of internet technology, • To increase the capacities of GPPAC members to transfer the acquired knowledge and skills

to their peers in regional networks of peace builders.

Please let us know in a short paragraph what you would like to achieve at the fair given what you knowWe would like to learn about and connect with other initiatives using technology in the field of conflict prevention and peace building. Meet possible partners to collaborate in concrete projects or who see potential in using our portal. Collaboration can also be in the form of sharing or co-developing new functionality or content.

In addition, we hope to get the message out to potential donors about the plans and possibilities of the Peace Portal. Time and accordingly money are needed to generate traffic and content to the portal, to learn from specific requirements from the field, to build capacity within CSO’s about the usage of new tools and to further develop technically the portal. The Peace Portal has funding until June 2011. Our intention is to become self-supporting on the mid-term (3/4 years).

Given that you were presented with the right funding and resources to make thrice the im-pact in 2 years what would your ask be? Please be as specific with your ask as possibleWe would invest in 4 areas:

1. The further development and training of our Media Focal Points in 15 regions worldwide. To countermeasure the fact that local communities in conflict regions are underrepresented in the media, only visible when calamities occur. We want to make it possible for people on the ground to become visible - the day to day economic, political, social and spiritual dynamics of a community, which are crucial factors in creating or solving conflicts. It is the people within these communities that understand the local context, opinions, hopes and worries best. However, policymakers do not usually hear these local voices, and instead depend on external information and analysis.


2. Risk /early warning analysis: The peace portal is a tool to support more decentralized and people-centered initiatives for conflict early warning. We intend to collect and aggregate the experience and warning signs coming from local level and apply the systematic and multi-stakeholder approach of Preventive Action developed by GPPAC.

3. We would like to use the portal to engage with citizens and policy and decision makers in countries where latent/potential conflict can be present during elections. This is not a monitoring elections project, but more a mid-term project (starting at least 6 months before elections) to engage citizens and civil society around elections with the objective to prevent violence from escalating.

4. Mapping Peace around the world. We are used to seeing maps of conflict, but not of peace. With our mapping functionality with which we can geo-tag all information coming into the portal, we enable organizations to map themselves, the projects they are working on and their reports/analysis they produce. By this you can easily then find which organizations are active in a certain area and what projects are going on.


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Tosalel’ango (let’s do it)


CounTry of impLemenTATion: The Democratic Republic of the Congo

probLem definiTion: Years of war, displacement, unemployment and lack of good governance has impacted the relationship and trust that youth have in their government in DRC. This lack of trust has further eroded the belief in young people that they can contribute and bring about meaningful change to their communities. SFCG aims to repair this relationship through joint activities using media, culture, sports, conflict transformation trainings, and communal projects to create a line of communication between ethnic groups, tribes, young people and their government.

projeCT desCripTion And objeCTives: Tosalel’ango is a game reality televi-sion series, which uses an innovative format to highlight youth engaging in positive change in communities reddened with conflicts. The program uses a reality television format featuring two new youth ‘challengers’ each week. Youths younger than 30 years old contact the team by email or sms, describing their vision of what they want to change in their community. The Tosalel’ango production team, who receives hundreds of such messages, makes a selection of which two youth will appear in each program. The youth are selected based on the pertinence of their vision for change, and their drive to make a difference.

The program then put before three ‘challenges’ on the road of making a difference, and films them going through these challenges. The youth need to demonstrate determination, teamwork, advocacy and innovation in order to make headway on difficult problems such as pollution, cor-ruption, electricity cuts, or discrimination. The challenges often push the ‘challengers’ towards getting firstly more informed themselves, in order to understand where and with whom they can influence the problem. In each episode, the youth ‘challengers’ engage with local and elected authorities and service providers, as often the issue requires improved collaboration between these stakeholders. In other cases, the ‘challengers’ undertake advocacy campaigns using petitions, sensitize the community, or engage different stakeholders in joint actions.

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The program is filmed entirely in the streets, schools, markets, and in the offices and meeting rooms of local authorities and officials around Kinshasa. The show is hosted by a well-known Congolese R and B singer Pasha Bay is filmed entirely in the streets, schools, markets, and in the offices and meeting rooms of local authorities and officials around Kinshasa. It is interspersed with ‘specials’ which bring the ‘challengers’ in front of a studio audience of 200 youth, during which they discuss the successes and difficulties in their Tosalel’ango experience of making change as a young Congolese.



Search for Common Ground produced and broadcast 11 episodes of Tosalel’ango during its first sea-son in 2008, and in 2009 produced 12 new episodes and 4 specials. The second season was broad-cast on five Kinshasa-based television stations and seven regional television stations around the coun-try. A third season is currently in pre production. An audience survey during the last quarter of 2009 showed that one out of four Kinshasa residents know of Tosalel’ango and 16% watch it regularly.

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Tosalel’ango is part of a menu of 12 radio and two television programs produced by Search for Common Ground in the DR Congo. The radio programs are broadcast on a network of 97 radio station around the country. In addition to Tosalel’ango, SFCG is currently finalizing the production of a television drama for good governance around a fictional female football team, called ‘The Team.’ The first of the 12 episodes is scheduled for broadcast in May 2010. more informATion AbouT The projeCT:

A brief summary of the projects:Tosale’longo! (Let’s do it) is a 30 minute reality TV program that encourages Congolese youth to face and solve the problems that affect their daily lives and communities. The show encour-ages youth to organize their communities and constructively engage authorities to advocate their interests. In each episode, two contestants tackle a new problem, and are guided through a series of “challenges” as they seek a solution to real-life problems in their neighborhoods. Past episodes have examined power cuts, water shortages, rent payments, and waste management. It looks at the issues through a community lens, and helps people determine concrete ways that they can improve these situations. Recent surveys show that Tosela’longo ranks 6th among popular TV shows in Kinshasa.

Please let us know in a short paragraph what you would like to achieve at the fair I would like to learn about different innovative projects that are being implemented in various contexts, and gain ideas and inspiration about how some of those ideas might be applied in the countries where we work. I would also like to have SFCG’s projects reviewed and questioned by conference participants as I think these questions provoke reflective thinking that can help us im-prove our models as well as how we measure their results. Finally, I look forward to meeting other people who are engaged in exciting work and exchanging with them about motivation, strategy, and learning.

Given that you were presented with the right funding and resources to make thrice the im-pact in 2 years what would your ask be? Please be as specific with your ask as possibleFor Tosela’longo, $600,000 over two years would enable us to continue the series for two more years, and take filming and community participation to new communities far outside of the capital. We could also expand the broadcast coverage, targeting new cities where we are not yet on the air.


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Trust Units: Dealing with Fear and Anger in a Violent Environment

AuThor: Alfonso Valenzuela Aguilera, Researcher, (Avalenzuela)

CounTry of impLemenTATion: Haiti, Mexico, Nepal, Yemen

probLem definiTion: Violence has permeated the urban environment, from drug-related violence in cities such as Juarez or Rio de Janeiro, to fragile and conflict-affected areas with ethnic, social and civil conflicts. In the midst of it, children and young adults are left with little room to meet and interact in a safe environment. The proposal relies in the fact that fear and violent behavior is transmitted from one generation to the other, that healthy male figures are scarce and that the only way to control our anger is to learn how to relate to ourselves and regain our self-esteem.

projeCT desCripTion And objeCTives: The project consists in creating or habilitat-ing physical spaces in conflict-affected cities where kids and young people can process their fear and anger through workshops, art and therapeutic activities. The Trust Unit consists of a flexible area where people can meet, interact, take a writing workshop, meditate, draw, or rehearse a play to be presented to the local community. The project is grounded on the notions that in order to stop the spiral of violence it is necessary for young people to reflect on the existing conditions and get in contact with themselves. The proposed tools to achieve greater insights on the nature of fear and violence is through art, writing, representations of reality (theater, video, etc.), and also through the power of words. The physical unit will be made of existing materials, prefab elements or recycling any suitable building. The objectives are: a) provide young fellows with a safe space for social inter-action; b) develop their sensibility through the arts in order to get more insights and express their feelings; c) Create a space for reflection on the consequences of extended violent practices; and d) Enhance self-esteem among the youth in order to recapture the conviction that life is sacred.

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The Trust Units are flexible spaces where young people living in dangerous environments can find a safe place to talk, get therapeutic assistance, participate in workshops (on self-esteem, arts & Crafts, meditation, etc.). Trust Units can be built with recyclable materials such as containers, industrial assembling parts, or prefab elements, but they can also be envisioned as a permanent building or reusing an old factory, barn or office building site.

Providing an emotional shelter out of the surrounding hostile environment is crucial to overcome the spiral of violence. The Units serving as spaces of trust where young people can interact in a protected environment enable the youth to express their feelings, get professional as well as peer-to-peer advice to cope with their ruthless reality.



The Trust Units contribute to maintain an emotional equilibrium of the kids so they will grow as secure persons even if they come from broken homes or they have little working options. The Units will provide a setting where anger and fear can be processed and transformed through, literature, theater, music and the arts.

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The Trust Units can be scaled-up to different areas where violent conditions exist. For instance, in drug-related violence has hit cities such as Juarez, Sinaloa and Chihuahua in Mexico, or in fragile and conflict-affected countries such as Haiti, Nepal or Yemen. The activities to be sponsored in each Trust Unit will relate to each specific set of local needs and cultures.


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Voices Beyond Walls: Digital Storytelling & Media Programs with Palestinian Youth

AuThor: Nitin Sawhney, Researcher, (nitin99)

CounTry of impLemenTATion: Palestinian Territory,Occupied

probLem definiTion: Violent conflicts, displacement and political marginalization in global settings today often arise from ethnic, religious and territorial claims, while younger gen-erations are burdened with the ensuing psychosocial effects and everyday struggles for survival. In the context of Palestinian youth in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, the ongoing effects of the Occupation with limited freedom, insecurity and economic deprivation, creates an environ-ment where youth must continually seek means to retain a sense of hope, non-violent resistance, and advocacy for their rights. Can creative and participatory engagement support new forms of civic action, advocacy and resilience among such marginalized voices?

projeCT desCripTion And objeCTives: Voices Beyond Walls is a participatory media initiative that supports creative expression and human rights advocacy among marginalized children and youth (aged 10-25) through digital storytelling workshops, new media production, and global dissemination of their work.

It was founded in 2006 to serve youth and communities in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, though it is envisioned as a broader initiative that can be replicated with community centers to support marginalized youth among inner-cities and impoverished settings anywhere.

It consists of a program of digital media trainings and capacity building with local community centers, collaborative digital storytelling and mapping workshops conducted with children and adolescents, ongoing evaluation and assessment, screenings/exhibitions as well as follow-up op-portunities for learning and creative engagement with the communities.

Weaving together original stories, drama, poetry, photography, music, and digital video, youth in this program learn to express their own perspectives on history, culture and everyday life in the refugee camps, as well as their dreams and aspirations. Since 2006, it has been conducted in 6-7 refugee camps with hundreds of participants, with over 60 digital media shorts produced; these have been screened with photography exhibits locally and internationally. In June-August 2010, the program will be launched in the Gaza Strip, in partnership with local community centers. In the future we hope to adapt and gradually expand the program in other global conflict/crisis settings in the Middle East, Asia and South America.

Project Website: http://www.VoicesBeyondWalls.org


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The program focuses mainly on marginalized youth in resource-constrained conflict/crisis settings. While there are numerous projects using photography or storytelling, it supports a more extensive multi-modal approach engaging children and adolescents in the full production cycle of creating narrative video shorts in just two-weeks. It draws on participatory and cross-sensory learning using script-writing, storyboarding, drama, photo/video shooting, digital editing, and community map-ping in local neighborhoods.

The training of local facilitators, open curricula, and capacity-building among community centers in the network ensures sustained adoption and program follow-up. Local and international exhib-its, festivals, and online dissemination showcase youth work to broader audiences.


1. Digital media capacity building: We continue to train 40-50 Palestinian facilitators each year, working with 150-200 children in focused workshops and follow-up programs. The program has scaled incrementally each year, as more facilitators cross-train others and expand the number of children engaged in our workshops.

2. Creative Activism, Resilience and Expression: The project supports youth in developing new forms of citizen media journalism, documentary or narrative work, civic actions in their own communities, and collective advocacy of their rights in global settings.

3. Media advocacy and distribution: Each year we exhibit and screen the photography and films emerging (over 60 youth video shorts thus far) at local community centers, cultural centers, universities and film festivals in Israel/Palestine and internationally.

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\We firmly believe in maintaining high-quality creative engagement, individual attention and ongo-ing follow-up with participants as we scale our efforts. We have been successful in disseminating the participatory media training and youth workshops program, and seek to expand the multi-lingual curricula, and evaluation tools packaged for reuse and repurposing in localized settings worldwide. We expect that with suitable incentives and resources, at least one new site could be trained each year by volunteer trainers from each community center in the network (as we have done in the past 5 years), thereby naturally scaling the program within the region and globally.


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Yes, Youth Can

AuThor: Njideka Harry, Practitioner, (nuharry)

CounTry of impLemenTATion: Nigeria

probLem definiTion: Democracy in Nigeria is still in its infancy. Military militias have been removed from power for less than 10 years; majority of citizens remember the 33 years of the military’s incidents of hazing, assassination, and insecurity. Elections have been condemned as un- free, unfair, massively flawed and a period of increased violence.

Witnessing these incidents, young people feel alienated and disillusioned by the government. They have never been consulted in a structured manner to give input on issues that affect them. During the election period, many are “employed” as thugs, thereby posing a threat to democracy and institutionalizing political violence.

projeCT desCripTion And objeCTives: The 2007 elections in Imo State were burdened with irregularities on the part of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and political parties in terms of preparedness, rigging, intimidation and availability of voting ma-terial. Imo State’s 2007 gubernatorial results were challenged in court, suspending the swearing in officials for almost two years.

Objectives of Yes, Youth Can are (1): To encourage open discussion among youth in Imo State about the political and electoral process with respect, tolerance negotiation and compromise; (2). To raise awareness about the obligations and rights of citizenship in a democratic society (3); To advocate for the documentation and distribution of program material in other fragile and conflict regions.

Youth are mobilized through an awareness campaign targeting community groups, schools, and religious institutions. Youth attend eight workshops incorporating basic computer skills to teach youth about political participation, the electoral process, the constitution and social advocacy. Participants will creatively convert the knowledge acquired from each workshop into actions such as conducting research over the Internet about democratic practices in other countries, prepar-ing advocacy presentations, writing reports and mapping out polling stations. The workshops will culminate in an election of a Yes, Youth Can Leadership Team. The elected President, VP, Scribe, Publicity Chairperson and Reporter will organize on-going group activities to keep beneficia-ries aware and involved in democracy-building activities. In democratic fashion, group input is solicited to define the frequency, location, topics and formats of ongoing activities leading up to Nigeria’s 2011 presidential elections.


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No program exists in Nigeria that brings together young people who have never had a say in the current democratic process and coaches them on the role that they can play in strengthening Nigeria’s nascent democracy, while equipping them with appropriate technology skills to research, document and disseminate best practices.

Yes, Youth Can combines workshops, youth-led activities, and technology to enhance theoretical knowledge and deepen youths ‘understanding of civic participation, and the tenets of democracy. The program’s intent is not to turn youth into politicians or to encourage a specific party affilia-tion, but to educate, advocate and enlighten.


Process and outcome approaches are key parts of the program evaluation plan. Measured by pre and post-program questionnaires, at least 75% of students will increase their knowledge of cur-rent government practices and will report being “comfortable with” or “confident in” their ability to conduct research to learn more about pertinent local, national and international political issues, civic participation and democracy in action. At least 60% of students will participate in two or more youth-led discussions or educational outreach activities as measured by attendance and a survey. At least 75% of students will report that they “agree” or “strongly agree” that Yes, Youth Can discussions were conducted with respect, tolerance, negotiation, and compromise.

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Communities benefit from the voices of young people and it is important that they are part of the molding process for democracy to be meaningful, stable and functional. The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) recently provided a grant to Youth for Technology Foundation (YTF) for Yes, Youth Can. In yr.1, at least 3200 youth will be directly impacted. In 2011, YTF team will work with Yes, Youth Can youth leadership to replicate this program in other communities across Nigeria. By 2013, YTF’s Yes, Youth Can will be successfully implemented across Nigeria and the paradigm can begin to be replicated in other African countries with fragile and conflict affected states like Cameroon and Sierra Leone.


A brief paragraph about the authorAs the Founder and Executive Director of Youth for Technology Foundation (YTF), Njideka Harry has demonstrated a sincere passion for helping disadvantaged people take charge of their future. Her strengths include transformative leadership and networking skills and her ability to motivate, inspire and enact positive change. Njideka’s social and economic development work over the last decade has made her a mentor to many young people.

Njideka is responsible for the strategic development, implementation and replication of YTF’s pro-grams. She accomplishes this by partnering with other local non-profit organizations to replicate the Digital Village ‘movement’ in their communities. Over the last decade Njideka has led YTF’s vision for community technology in Africa, leveraging her personal experience and skills in using technology for development, entrepreneurship, program design and management, youth and women’s rights and empowerment, social advocacy and financial management.


YTF received seed funding for the establishment of YTF’s pioneer community technology and learning center in southeastern Nigeria, the Owerri Digital Village, from Microsoft and has earned funding and recognition from prestigious organizations for our innovative and impactful programs as “Empowering Rural Igbo Widows Towards Self Sustainability “, (World Bank InfoDev Finalist, 2002), “Young Nigerians Health and Science Tele-Academy” (World Bank Small Grants Program, 2004), “Women’s Economic Empowerment Program” (UNIFEM Grant, 2006) and received pilot funding from the National Endowment for Democracy for “Yes, Youth Can” (NED, 2010).

A brief paragraph describing the organizationYouth for Technology Foundation (YTF) is an international non-profit organization. The mission of YTF is to create enriched learning communities where the appropriate use of technology affords opportunities for disadvantaged people, particularly youth and women.

YTF’s mission ensures that learning needs of people living in underserved communities are met through equitable access to appropriate life-skills programs. YTF views the communities it works in as the solution, not the passive beneficiary and partners with community members to design innovative programs that address real needs of the people.

YTF’s programs first work with the beneficiaries to identify a concrete issue and then learn how to use appropriate tools to research, document and disseminate information and possible solutions to the issue.

A summary of the projectYTF understands that participation of youth in the political process is imperative. YTF knows that communities benefit from the voices of young people; hence it is important that they are part of the molding process for democracy to be meaningful, stable and functional.

The 2007 presidential and gubernatorial elections in across Nigeria, and particularly in Imo State, were burdened with irregularities on the part of Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and political parties in terms of preparedness, rigging, intimidation and avail-ability of voting materials. The results were challenged in court, suspending the swearing in of the current elected official for almost two years. Witnessing these incidents, youth in Nigeria feel alien-ated and disillusioned by the government. They have never been consulted in a structured manner to give input on issues that affect them. During the election period, hundreds of young people are “employed” as thugs, thereby posing a threat to democracy and institutionalizing political violence.

The objectives of Yes, Youth Can! are to encourage open discussions among youth in Imo State, Nigeria, about the political and electoral process and to raise awareness about their responsibilities as citizens in a democratic society.

Please let us know in a short paragraph what you would like to achieve at the fair I am looking forward to meeting and talking with other innovation fair finalists, experts and practitioners to “think out of the box” on best practices and funding opportunities to replicate or scale-up Yes, Youth Can! in other fragile and conflict states. I am looking forward to an opportu-nity to “pitch” the Yes, Youth Can! program and its potential impact to the World Bank and other international funding agencies. In leveraging the networks of people I meet there, I would hope to be able to use leverage their backgrounds, experience and contacts in the creation of a Yes, Youth Can! advisory board.


Given that you were presented with the right funding and resources to make thrice the im-pact in 2 years what would your ask be? Please be as specific with your ask as possibleYes, Youth Can! has the potential of exponentially increasing its impact if additional funding was available. Some actions that could be taken in the very short term to do this include:

• Focusing on the entire southeastern region in the first year of this program. 5 states; Imo, Abia, Enugu, Ebonyi and Anambra make up the southeastern region.

• Taking the message into each of the communities that make up parts of the LGA. Currently, we are transport-ing participants from their villages to YTF’s Owerri Digital Village for training. Ideally, we would want YTF’s trainers to also go out into the communities to impart the information. It is likely that more people will be reached that way.

An “as-is” budget and a “to-be” budget with the defined benefits will be discussed with inter-ested and potential funders during the Innovation Fair.


projeCT TiTLe:

Youth-led Peacebuilding through Photography and Grassroots Media

AuThor: Kyle Dietrich, Practitioner, (PeaceinFocus)

CounTry of impLemenTATion: Burundi, Liberia, United States

probLem definiTion: Media and visual culture often reflect and perpetuate social ills, including stereotypes of misunderstood cultures, marginalization of minorities, and violence among young people. Rather than being seen as leaders, youth are often typecast as victims or perpetrators. We work to reverse this influence by fundamentally changing the way young people relate to media. Peace in Focus teaches young people to be mindful consumers and responsible producers of media. Specifically, our workshops teach peace photojournalism to inspire under-served young people to en-gage in activism and service through journalism and photography. We focus on post-conflict or frag-mented communities to empower teens to cope with and overcome social tension. Our innovative curriculum combines leadership development, conflict transformation training, and peace photojour-nalism to provide youth with new and creative skills to capture their commonalities, understand and re-frame conflict, re-imagine their communities, and communicate a vision for peace.

projeCT desCripTion And objeCTives: Peace in Focus provides peace and media literacy education to marginalized youth in fragmented and post-conflict communities. Our work-shops, after-school programs, and exhibits facilitate positive relationships, foster communities, and promote cross-cultural understanding by training youth in creative conflict transformation. We strive to break down socially constructed barriers that lead to conflict and violence; in their place, we nurture shared interests and develop commitments to positive social change.

Our workshops offer intensive photography, leadership, and non-violence training aimed at sup-porting youth voice and civic engagement. The seminars encourage critical thinking, problem solv-ing, and collaboration between diverse groups by teaching them to re-frame adversarial images and perceptions. Our blog and “world connect” projects link sister locations in Boston, Burundi, and Liberia, reducing the perceived distance and difference between young people around the world. Photography exhibits and a youth journal engage the larger community to give participants a chance to share their experiences and vision for peace through words and images.

Within the next five years, we plan to leverage our programs and network to create a global Peace in Focus Institute, which will offer “train-the-trainer” service learning programs, hold peace photo-journalism workshops, develop after-school programs for teens, organize international symposia, and disseminate best practices in creative peacebuilding. A leader in peace and media education, the Institute will engage teens, young professionals, and academics in this field to ensure program sus-tainability, innovation, and impact. Our programs will address the four root causes of youth violence by providing conflict transformation education, extra-curricular and employment opportunities in peace photojournalism, media literacy training, and a platform for public and civic engagement.


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While youth development organizations increasingly incorporate participatory media into their programs, few use it as a tool for conflict transformation. PiF is the only organization of its kind to apply symbolic photo concepts (framing, focus, perspective, etc) to communication, leadership, dispute-resolution, and non-violence training. Other organizations aim to give youth a voice, a technical skill, and a medium for creative self-expression. We share these objectives; however, we place equal importance on youth leadership and youth action. Our programs stress the importance of community leadership to affecting social change.

Peace in Focus is innovative in its approach, model, and impact:

Photography is not only a tool for documentation and self-expression, but also an instrument of social change.

PiF Institute offers a social entrepreneurship train-the-train-er model to develop leadership at all levels.

Our programs are accessible not only to the youth that participate in them, but to communities and sister loca-tions, as well. Images and visual stories can be easily shared around the world in photography exhibits, online

networks, new media, journals, and books. We strive to build this global network of youth narra-tives to nurture cross-cultural understanding and appreciation for diversity. demonsTrATed deveLopmenT impACT

Since 2008, Peace in Focus has trained nearly 100 youth in grassroots peace photojournalism in Boston, Burundi, and Liberia. These teens learned transferable skills in photography, leadership, communication, and peacebuilding, creating opportunities to generate income and expand the social impact of our work. After the training, one group went on to launch a youth journal with our support. The stories and photographs that have emerged from our workshops have contrib-uted to a youth narrative that is often overlooked or under-represented. Thousands of people have heard our young people’s message of peace through our photography exhibits, TV and radio interviews, blog postings, and community events.

In 2010, Peace in Focus will increase its impact by launching after-school programs in three loca-tions. Additionally, we will hold another round of workshops in each country. We estimate that at least 100 new participants will enroll in our programs this year, and over 10000 will view their artwork in community exhibits. As a result of our programs, youth previously on the margins of

society (former child-soldiers, delinquents, refugees, etc) begin to play an important role in deciding how their communities overcome violence and division. We measure progress toward these outcomes by the number of youth trained, projects and exhibits realized, the level of collaboration between participants, the incidence violence, and the level of youth leadership in the com-munities we serve.


sCALAbiLiTy

At present, Peace in Focus holds youth workshops, after-school programs, and photography exhibits in Boston, Burundi, and Liberia. However, our long-term vision is larger. By 2012, we plan to estab-lish a Peace in Focus Institute and by 2015 have a presence in 10 countries. This is possible because of our partner-driven model. We are currently building partnerships with community-based organi-zations in Sri Lanka, the West Bank, Uganda, and Haiti, and are working to strengthen the capacity of existing organizations by training them in new approaches to conflict transformation and youth development, and by building a global network of youth leaders and peacebuilding practitioners. The Institute will offer field-based service trainings, workshops, after-school programs, and interna-tional symposia around creative approaches to peacebuilding. The Institute will advance this field through research and service and will train young people to train other youth in creative approaches to peacebuilding. As Peace Fellows, graduate students and young professionals will learn to design and implement creative peacebuilding projects using our curriculum and will carry out their own workshops with international partners as a part of the service-learning component of our program.

Thus, each person we train will train another group of teens. This social entre-preneurship model is innovative because it not only places young people in leader-ship positions and gives them field-based experience, but it also ensures program sustainability and significantly enlarges our organization’s impact. Our vision is to serve as a leader in arts and media-based peacebuilding by creating innovative cur-ricula, developing international programs, and building a powerful global network of academics, practitioners, and youth.

To read more: http://www.peaceinfocus.org/



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In Nov Fair Program

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short paragraph