Information and Communication Technologies for Poverty Reduction
and Rural Development in Asia
Roger Harris Associates
Roger W. Harris PhDRoger Harris Associates
Hong Kong
Asian Institute of Technology, BangkokThe Centre for Learning Innovation and Quality (CLIQ)
11 September, 2009
• Promoting rural ICTs for poverty reduction since 1997
• Major aid agencies; UN, WB, ADB, IDRC, APEC…
• Hands-on implementations– Individual telecentres– Programme implementations– Programme evaluations– Research
• Knowledge sharing• Advocacy• Multi-country:
•Malaysia•Nepal•Vietnam•Philippines•China•Sri-Lanka•Lao PDR
•India•Thailand•Taiwan•Indonesia•Papua New Guinea•Mongolia•Bangladesh
IntroductionRoger Harris Associates
INFORMATION ANDCOMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES
FORPOVERTY ALLEVIATION
Roger W. Harris
[email protected]://rogharris.org
Current Projects
• Communication for Empowerment of Asia’s Indigenous Peoples; UNDP
• Support for Trans-Mongolia Sustainable Tourism; EU
• Encounter Laos; GKP• eBorneo; Bario Radio• Research mentorship; SiRCA, Bangladesh
Agenda
• Poverty• The Digital Divide• Information and Communication Technologies
(ICTs)• Examples• Some Issues• Teaching and Research
Poverty“If we can imagine a world where nobody should be a poor person, we can create it”
Global Population and Incomes
Population
Low IncomeCountries2.33bn37%
High IncomeCountries1.01bn16%
Middle IncomeCountries
3.02bn47%
High Income Countries e.g.;EuropeNorth AmericaAustralasiaJapanSome Middle East
Middle Income Countries, e.g.;ChinaIndonesiaPhilippinesThailandMexicoRussiaTurkey
Low Income Countries, e.g.;BangladeshIndiaPakistanViet NamD.R. CongoEthiopiaNigeria
GDP Per Capita US$*
High IncomeCountriesUS$ 28,480
Low IncomeCountries
$ US 2,110Middle IncomeCountriesUS$ 5,800
* GDP = Gross Domestic Product. It is the total value of goods and services produced by a nation.The GDP of a country divided by its total population yields per capita GDP
The Consequences of Global Poverty
• One third of deathsdeaths - some 18 million people a year or 50,00050,000 per day - are due to poverty-related causes, the majority women and childrenwomen and children.
• Every year more than 10 million10 million children die of hunger and preventable diseases -that's over 30,000 per day and one every 3 seconds3 seconds.
• Over 1 billion1 billion people live on less than $1 a day with nearly halfhalf the world's population (2.8 billion) living on less than $2 a day.
•• 600 million600 million children live in absolute poverty.
• The threethree richest people in the world control more wealth than all 600600 millionmillion people living in the world's poorest countries.
• Income per person in the poorest countries in Africa has fallenfallen by a quarter in the last 20 years.
•• 800 million800 million people go to bed hungry every day.
• Every year nearly 11 million11 million children die before their fifthfifth birthday.
•• ““ItIt’’s not their faults not their fault””
What helps move people out of poverty?• Education• Employment• Enterprise development• Credit• Public services• Health care• Better agriculture• Information….about all the above,…….and the Technology to deliver it.
The Digital Divide
DefinitionsThe Digital Divide• The term digital divide refers to the gap between those
with regular, effective access to digital and information technology, and those without such access.
E-Inclusion• e-Inclusion refers to the effective participation of
individuals and communities in all dimensions of knowledge-based societies and economies through their use of ICTs.
• Addresses the underlying socio-economic problems that are highlighted by the the digital divide
• In Asia, references to the digital divide still dominate discussions and the concept of e-inclusion has yet to take hold.
The Global Digital Divide
54.1
41.49
3.07
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
High Income Countries
Middle IncomeCountries
Low Income Countries
Main Line Telephones per 100 population
77.1472.67
4.13
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Mobile cellular subscribers per 100 population
High Income Countries
Middle IncomeCountries
Low Income Countries
52.52
23.73
2.38
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Internet Users per 100 population.
High Income Countries
Middle IncomeCountries
Low Income Countries
57.22
16.29
1.13
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
PCs Per 100 population.
High Income Countries
Middle IncomeCountries
Low Income Countries
Household access to ICTs % of BOP households
TV Phone Radio Computer
Bangladesh Pakistan India Sri Lanka Philippines Thailand
5241
130
68
39
24
1
77
3
5038
28
8064
4
646350 52
1
75 70
6
• Telephones have overtaken radios in Bangladesh, Pakistan and India• India is the only country in the world to send and receive missed calls,
used by 84% of users to minimize communication expenditures .
ICTs - Access
ICTs consist of:…
• Computers• The internet• Telephones• Televisions• Radios• Loudspeakers• And…
– PDAs, iPods, GPSs, etc…
Internet Access in Asia• The number of internet subscribers in
Asia amounts to around 8% of Asia’s population
• Over 60% in some countries, less than 5% in others
• Telecentres provide shared access to ICTs for the purpose of community development and poverty reduction
• 11,160 telecentres in 16 countries in Asia
• 2,000 new telecentres established in India every year since 2001
Telecentre Diffusion in Asia
Mobile Telephones• SMS services• Voice applications• Web applications• Social exchanges• Emergencies• Informal networks• Business transactions• Weather updates• Market prices
102030405060708090
100
Developingeconomies
Africa Asia
LatinAmerica
SE Europeand CIS
Developedeconomies
World
Mobile Subscribers per 100 Population
2002 2006
• More than half the world's population now pay to use a mobile phone
• Developing countries accounting for about two-thirds of the mobile phones in use.
Televisions• Almost ubiquitous in Asia• Main form of information
and entertainment• Not used much for
development• Notable exceptions;
farmer information in China and Vietnam
01020304050607080
Africa Asia Latin America
Global
TV Sets (% of households)
TVs (% of households)
(Community) Radio• Popular, especially for local information• Combined with telecentres = radio browsing• Rapid diffusion of development information to remote areas• Channel for interactive communication, dialogue and debate on
rural development issues.• A tool for cultural expression, local language use,
entertainment.• A platform for democratic expression of opinions, needs and
aspirations of rural communities• 56% of farmer households in Vietnam have a radio
0200400600800
100012001400
Low income
Middle income
High income
East Asia &Pacific
Latin America
Middle East &N. Africa
South Asia
Sub-SaharanAfrica
Europe
Radios per 1,000 people
Loudspeakers
• Important in some contexts; China, Vietnam, India
• Especially combined with other technologies; radio, internet.
Examples
M S Swaminathan Research Foundation, Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry, India
• 12 networked “Knowledge Centres”
• Trained Village Knowledge Workers
• Local language• Promote government schemes• Micro-enterprises• Sea conditions• Agricultural support• Market information• Veterinary support• Computer-aided learning• Nutrition and health awareness• Rural yellow pages• Local newsletter
E-Bario Telecentre, Sarawak, Malaysia
Bario
Bario• Remote, isolated• Fly-in only• Starved of information• Poor communications• Indigenous, minority culture• Dwindling population
E-Bario• Telecentre with satellite
Internet and solar power• Project began in 1998 by
Universiti Malaysia Sarawak• Now owned by the community• Contributing to local
development; culture, tourism and trade
• Won multiple awards.• Implementing Community
Radio
Radio Sagarmatha• The first independent radio in
Nepal• Community based public radio
broadcasting to the Kathmandu Valley since 1977
• Live and streaming audio to the internet
• Broadcasting for twelve hours a day
• Regular programming on good governance, gender, women's issues, environment and other public matters.
• Music and cultural programming include folk music, weekly live classic recitals, contemporary music as well as regular programs on the visual and oral arts.
Television• China Ministry of Agriculture has its own TV
broadcast channel for farmers.• Can Tho University, Vietnam runs regular farmers
workshops with extension agents that are broadcast every week.
– "Doctor Farmer" - Prof. Vo-Tong Xuan "Television has been wonderful as a medium for education. The period 1978 to 1981 was crucial to our plan to increase rice production. We used television to spread the word about the new technology in high-yielding rice cultivation among farmers and agricultural extension workers and even government offices in the province, district, and villages. Television is available all over the southern part of Viet Nam. Even poor farmers can go in the evening over to the house of a neighbour with a television. Television is better than radio because the farmers can see for themselves."
Beijing Rural Distance Education System
Mobile Phones • mHealth
– Medical and public health practice supported by mobile devices – Tamil Nadu Health Watch allows health workers, even in remote areas, to immediately
report disease incidence data to health officials• mLearning
– Learning with portable technologies– Graduate students at King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology, North Bangkok, used mobile
phones to participate in tests, and more than 90 per cent of the participants owned the mobile phones themselves
• mFinance– Mobile phones to facilitate banking activities; deposits, withdrawals, payments, transfers.– GCASH Philippines, turns a cellphone into an electronic wallet, for money transfers,
shopping and transferring money between cellphones• mAgriculture
– Fishing boats in Kerala using offshore mobile phones to coordinate sales with traders• mGovernment
– Delivery of government services and applications on mobile phones and other portable devices using a wireless infrastructure.
– Income Tax Department of India - SMA to verify banks have uploaded tax deposits• Crisis Management
– RapidSMS enables mass-scale mobile data collection, messaging, and workflow management via SMS
– deployed by UNICEF to track the distribution of Plumpynut during a hunger crisis in Ethiopia • Conservation
– Wild-life tracking, remote environmental sensing• Advocacy/citizen mobilisation/social coordination
– FrontlineSMS for text messaging to large groups
Some Issues in ICTs for Poverty Reduction
Define the development strategy
Define the information strategy
Define the technology strategy
Define the sustainability strategy
Define the evaluation strategy
Begin with an awareness of the potential and limitations of ICTs for development and poverty reduction
Against that background
Where development is going and why
What information is needed
How the information can be delivered
How the service can be sustained,
extended
How the outcomes can be identified
Design Approach
Telecentre Sustainability• Sustainability usually means the ability
to generate revenue to cover operational costs
• Market-based approaches fail the poorest
• The more a telecentre is required to generate revenues, the less emphasis it will place on supporting development and the more it will place on revenue-generating services
• But without incentives for generating some revenue, telecentres will continue to depend on subsidies
• Necessary to strike a careful balance between subsidy and revenue
• Universal service funds can support telecentres, the same way other public services are supported, which are often enjoyed by the rich
Who pays? – Multiple models• Government
– Malaysia: two schemes under two ministries– Vietnam: ‘Culture Points’ under Ministry of Info & Comms
• Universal Service Funds– Subsidy schemes: Malaysia ‘Kedai.com’, libraries– Least cost auctions: Nepal
• Private sector– New entrants: Sri Lanka, with decreasing subsidies– Corporations: ITC India – e-Choupal
• Civil Society– NGOs– CBOs– Research institutions
Mobile vs. ComputersComputersMobile
Positive
Negative
•Affordable by BOP•Low power use•Approaching ubiquity•Grass-roots driven applications
•Endless innovation with function•Low cost internet access•Nearly free to operate•FOSS keeps costs down •Many to many
•Walled garden; cost of entry•Limited functionality•Difficult to modify•Metered use•Centralised systems - vulnerable to disasters and government control•Hub and spoke
•Unaffordable domestically•Telecentres have limited reach and sustainability issues
False Dichotomy: Convergence of applications and services which interoperate seamlessly over mobile networks and the Internet
Teaching and Research“to change the system”
Understanding the Principles• ICTs alone are insufficient• Effective pro-poor policies for
public service provision• Institutional reforms for making
effective use of ICTs• Programmes that go beyond
access• Technical skills that complement
poverty reduction efforts• Capacity building at all levels• Honest evaluations for evidence-
based policy making and programme design
Teaching ICT4D – Multi-Disciplinary• Information Systems
– What can be done with computers and the internet and how to get the most from the technology
• Computer Science– How the technology works.
• Development Studies– The causes of poverty and efforts to alleviate it.
• Communication– How the media, including new media, promotes social change
• Economics– Social businesses and ICTs
Researching ICT4D• Impact and evaluation
– Technology appropriation– Unexpected but desirable outcomes– Gender differentiation
• Sustainability– Types of sustainability– Who pays?
• Replication– Conditions required for successful replication
• Technology diffusion– E-inclusion for vulnerable groups– Regulatory reform
Thank you
Roger Harris Associates
Roger W. Harris PhDRoger Harris Associates
Hong Kong