Technology Salon

How to improve transparency, accountability and governance with new technologies

2011-12-08T19:26:12Z

Civil society has been working for years on participation, transparency, accountability and governance issues. Plenty of newer initiatives (small and large) look at new technologies as a core tool in this work. But are these groups talking and learning from each other?

What good practices exist for using new technologies to improve transparency, accountability and governance? What are some considerations and frameworks for thinking about the role of new technologies in this area of work? What needs consideration under this broad theme of good governance?

Tuesday's Technology Salon* in New York City focused on those issues, kicked off by our two discussants, Hapee de Groot from Hivos and Katrin Verclas from Mobile Active. Discussion ensued around the nuances of how, with whom, when, why, and in conjunction with what do new technologies play a role in transparency, accountability and good governance. Some of the key points brought up during the Salon:

Please join us for the next Technology Salon

What is "good governance?"

The overall term could be divided into a number of core aspects, and so the discussion is a big one and it's complicated. Aid transparency is only one small part of the overall topic of good governance.

The World Bank definition includes aspects of:

Participation of citizens in political processes, freedom of expression and association, free media
Political stability and absence of violence
Government effectiveness in the delivery of services
Regulatory quality, rule of law
Control of corruption

There's a need to look at governments and aid, but also to look at the private sector. Some commented that aid transparency is in vogue because donors can drive it but it's perhaps not as important as some of the other aspects and it's currently being overemphasized. There are plenty of projects using ICTs and mobiles in other areas of governance work.

More data doesn't equal more accountability.

Data does not equal participation. Can mobile phones and other ICTs or social media reduce corruption? Can they drive new forms of participation? Can they hold power accountable in some ways? Yes, but there is no conclusive evidence that the use of new technology to deliver data down from governments to people or up from people to governments improves governance or accountability. The field of tech and governance suffers from 'pilotitis' just like the field of ICT4D. Some participants felt that of course open data doesn't automatically equal accountability and it was never the idea to stop there. But at the same time, you can't have accountability without open data and transparency. Opening the data is just the first step in a long road of reaching accountability and better governance.

Efficient vs transformational.

Transactional efficiency within a system is one thing. Transformation is another. You can enhance an existing process from, say, writing on paper to calling on a landline to texting in information, thereby improving accuracy and speed. But there is something more which is the transformational side. What's most interesting perhaps are those ways that ICTs can completely alter processes and systems.

Again, there are a lot of promising examples but there is not much evidence of their impact at this point. One participant noted that current evidence seems to point toward the integration of mobiles (and other ICTs) into existing process as having a greater impact and quicker uptake within large, bureaucratic systems than disruptive use of new technologies.

But the question remains - Are the systems good systems or should/could ICTs transform them to something totally different and better or can ICTs help do away with poorly working systems entirely, replacing them with something completely new?

Is open data just a big show?

Some alluded to opaque transparency, where a government or another entity throws up a bunch of data and says "we are being open" but there is no realistic way to make sense of the data. Some felt that governments are signing onto open data pacts and partnerships as a fake show of transparency. These governments may say, "The data base is available. Go ahead and look at it."

But it costs a lot of money and high level skills to actually use the data. In addition, there is a need for regulatory frameworks and legislation around openness. Brazil was given as an example of a country that has joined the open government partnership, but as yet has no regulatory framework or freedom of information act, even though the country has a beautiful open government website. "Checks and balances are not inherent in the mobile phone. They need to be established in the legislation and then can be enhanced by mobile or other technology."

Open Data Hackathons can help turn data into information. The question of "what does open data actually mean?" came up also and the "cake test" was recommended as one way of defining "open".

Is open data an extractive process?

Some at the Salon cautioned that the buzz around Open Data could be a bit false in some ways, and may be hyped up by private companies who want to make money off of nice data visualizations that they can sell to big donors or governments. The question was raised about how much data actually gets back to those people who provide it so that they can use it for their own purposes?

The sense was that there's nothing wrong with private companies helping make sense of data per se, but one could ask what the community who provided the data actually gets out of this process. Is it an extractive data mining process? And how much are communities benefiting from the process? How much are they involved?

Mikel Maron wrote a great post yesterday on the link between open data and community empowerment - I highly recommend reading it for more on this.

Whose data?

A related issue that wasn't fully discussed at the Salon is: who does the information that is being "opened" actually belong to (in the case of household surveys, for example)? The government? The International NGO or multilateral agency who funds a project or research? The community? And what if a community doesn't want its data to be open to the world - is anyone asking? What kind of consent is being granted? What are the privacy issues? And what if the government doesn't want anyone to know the number of X people living in X place who fit X description? Whose decision is it to open data? What are the competing politics?

For example, what if an organization is working on an issue like HIV, cholera, violence or human trafficking. What if they want to crowd source information and publicly display it to work towards better transparency and improved service delivery, but the host government country denies the existence of the issue or situation?

In one case I heard recently, the NGO wanted to work with government on better tracking and reporting so that treatment/resources could be allocated and services provided, but when the government found out about the project, they wanted control over the information and approval rights. Government went so far in another case as to pressure the mobile service provider who was partnering with the organization, and the mobile service provider dropped out of the project.

These are good reminders that information is power and openness can be a big issue even in cases not initially identified as politically charged.

Privacy and security risks.

The ubiquity of data can pose huge privacy and security concerns for activists, civil society and emerging democracies and some at the Salon felt this aspect is not being effectively addressed. Can there really be anonymous mobile data? Does the push/drive for more data jeopardize the political ambitions of certain groups (civil society that may be disliked by certain governments)?

This can also be an issue for external donors supporting organizations in places like Syria or Iraq. Being open about local organizations that are receiving funding for democracy or governance work can cause problems (eg., they get shut down or people can be arrested or killed).

Can new ICTs weaken helpful traditional structures or systems?

Is new tech removing some middlemen who were an important part of culture or societal structure? Does it weaken some traditional structures that may actually be useful? The example of the US was given where a huge surge of people now engage directly with their congressperson via Twitter rather than via aggregation channels or other representatives. Can this actually paralyze political systems and make them less functional?

Some countered, saying that Twitter is somewhat of a fad and over time this massive number of interactions will settle down, and in addition, not everyone gets involved on every issue all the time. Things will sort themselves out. Some asked if politicians would become afraid (someone - help!! there is a study on this issue that I can't seem to locate) to make some of the secret deals that helped move agendas forward because they will be caught and so openness and transparency can actually paralyze them? In other words is it possible that transparency is not always a good thing in terms of government effectiveness?

The example of paying Afghan police directly by mobile phone was given. This initiative apparently ended up failing because it cut decision makers who benefited from bribes out of the loop. Decoupling payments from power is potentially transformational, but how to actually implement these projects when they disrupt so much?

Does new technology create parallel structures?

Are parallel structures good or bad? In an effort to bypass inefficient and/or unaccountable systems, in one case, private business owners started their own crime reporting and 911 system to respond and accompany victims to report to the police and follow up on incidents.

Questions were raised whether this privatization of government roles was taking justice into ones' own hands, forcing the government to be accountable, allowing it to shirk responsibilities, or providing a way for government to see an innovation and eventually take on a new and more effective system that had been tried and tested with private funds. This same issue can be seen with parallel emergency reporting systems and other similar uses of ICTs.

It may be too early in the game to know what the eventual outcomes of these efforts will be and what the long term impact will be on governance. Or it may be that parallel systems work in some contexts and not in others.

And...

The Salon could have gone for much longer but alas, we had to end. Dave Algoso covers some of the other ideas from the Salon in his post Technology for Transparency, Accountability and Governance, including how to approach and define the topic (top down vs bottom up? efficiency vs transformation?) and the importance of measuring impact.

Thanks to UNICEF and Chris Fabian for hosting the Salon. Thanks to Martin Tisne from the Transparency and Accountability Initiative for sparking the idea to choose this topic for the first Technology Salon in NYC, and thanks to Wayan Vota for inviting me to coordinate the series.

Mobile Money is Better than Cash at the Bottom of the Pyramid

2011-12-07T19:03:31Z

Open your wallet right now. Most likely, you have a debit card, a credit card, a health insurance card, and access to the massive financial infrastructure that these three cards represent.

The ability to store, save, use, and borrow money anywhere in almost limitless fashion, without worry about amount, theft, or even making change. Add in the freedom from a direct worry about health costs, and these three cards represent a level of financial freedom unknown to anyone in the developing world... today.

Mobile Money Revolution

Yet by tomorrow, there will be more people who have similar access to financial services, via electronic transactions on mobile phones. In fact, over the next five years there will be a mobile money revolution at the bottom of the pyramid as international financial institutions like VISA, Mastercard, and the like move in forcefully to service the next billion customers.

They see M-PESA transferring 20% of Kenya's GDP and the money that can be made offering mobile financial services to the BoP. But its not just payments and credit, there are also opportunities in many other types of financial services.

Here are two examples with insurance, which is usually the providence of in-person sales worldwide:

In Ghana, Tigo Family Care Insurance provides life insurance for prepaid subscribers and their family members in the event of a natural death.
In Kenya, the Syngenta Foundation's Agriculture Index Insurance Initiative uses mobile phones and weather stations to offer farmers affordable crop insurance.

Now we could go on, but listing examples of mobile money was not the focus of the Technology Salon on how mobile financial services are transforming the economics of international development. What really captured our attention was the realization that mobile phones are merely a conduit to the larger experience of electronic transactions, which include mobile money, but also the full gamut of wealth that is created, stored, and exchanged digitally.

Please join us for the next Technology Salon

Better than Cash

First let us agree that electronic payments systems (bank accounts, Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT), pre-paid cards, smart cards, mobile money) are a great benefit for everyone involved. Electronic payments systems:

Increase access to basic financial services, including savings, lending, and e-payments.
Reduce barriers to entry for fee-for-service business models
Reduce the risk of money theft and increase personal control over financial resources
Increase speed of payments both to and from consumers, businesses, and government
Improve transparency, mitigate corruption, and reduce leakages in the disbursement of government funds.

A great example of all five of these benefits is the ability to pay for municipal water and electricity services via mobile money in multiple African markets. By making payments electronically, both consumers and government have more accurate records, consumers are able to save for and manage payments, and service providers can expand services with a higher expectation of payment, and more timely payment, therefore serving more customers, more efficiently.

In their Better than Cash program, USAID's new Mobile Solutions Office seeks to expand electronic payment system use by governments, for utilities but also government payments in everything from conditional payments (welfare, healthcare, etc) for citizens, to payroll payments for government workers, to pension payments for retirees.

The net effect of this shift to electronic payments will be much more efficient government programs. Yet the Mobile Solutions team isn't stopping with other governments, its goal is to transform the way USAID does it's programming as well. With language already in RFP's to encourage implementing partners to use electronic payments in their work, USAID will be pushing a move from cash payments to electronic payments for all its beneficiaries.

Barriers to Adoption

Before we get too far around the hype cycle, there are issues that will retard the growth of mobile financial services and the larger electronic payment systems. First, policy makers may have a grasp of what works to encourage electronic payments and use mobile financial services first-hand, but they don't often know how to steer their countries from the theoretical to the practical.

Next, at the business level monopoly mobile operators may be just as hard to convince to innovate as a highly competitive mobile phone marketplace with multiple players. Neither situation lends itself to interoperability, which is key for large-scale electronic payment systems and the mobile financial services they support.

Finally, not everyone has a mobile phone. Yes, shocking but true. So simpler systems like scratch cards and offline intermediaries will co-exist with electronic payment systems for years to come. Better that we recognize and welcome them than limit any payment system to one hardware delivery mechanism, no matter its revolutionary benefits.

How Mobile Financial Services are Transforming the Economics of International Development

2011-11-22T21:30:42Z

Terms like mobile money, mPayments, and M-PESA are all the rage in International development these days, but what do they really mean for the national development of countries we attempt to help?

Menekse Gencer of mPay Connect will lead us in a discussion of mobile financial services, the full gamut of finance that is now taking place on mobile phones: mobile payments, mobile microfinance, and mobile banking.

She will showcase ways in which mobile financial services are (and will be) radically changing emerging economies, shifting the economic landscape in ways we are just now starting to see but as yet cannot fully understand. Here is one example of that shift:

mPay Connect research shows M-PESA saves 3 hours per day for every Kenyan subscriber in reduced shoe leather costs - the cost of walking money from place to place. If we multiply 3 hours per day, by 13.2 million subscribers, by 365 days, that's 14.4 BILLION hours saved per year. Add in the average wage per hour in Kenya, and the time savings start to make you gasp in savings shock.

Priya Jaisinghani of the Mobile Solutions Office at USAID wants to bring savings like that to both the host country governments that USAID works with and to the USAID system itself. She'll continue with Menekse's theme and bring the discussion home:

How can USAID and its implementing partners also leverage mobile financial services to increase the efficiency of foreign assistance? Two simple suggestion to start: contractors using mPayments to pay host country national staff and national pensions paying through mobiles.

Of course there are many more, and more ways in which mobile financial services are radically changing the world in which we work. Join your fellow Technology Salon professionals in a deep dive on the impact all of this will have at the next Salon:

Mobile Financial Services in USAID Programming
December Technology Salon
8:30 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.
Tuesday, December 6th, 2011
RTI International
701 13th Street NW, Suite 750
Washington, DC (map)

We'll have hot coffee and Krispe Kreme donuts for a morning rush, but seating is limited and the UN Foundation is in a secure building. So RSVP ASAP to be confirmed for attendance or you are on the waitlist.

How can New Technologies Enhance Transparency, Accountability, and Good Governance?

2011-11-22T21:25:02Z

In theory, making information open and available leads to more transparent decisions of governments, aid agencies, corporations and other such institutions because stakeholders at different levels push for accountability and better governance. That is why civil society actors have been working on transparency, accountability and good governance for years. Now new actors on the scene are developing technology tools and applications for use in this area.

From efforts such as Huduma, Twaweza,Cuidemos el Voto, CGNet Swara, Fix My Street, Sunlight Foundation, World Bank's Open Data, the Open Government Partnershipand the International Aid Transparency Initiative(IATI), and a wide range of others; new technology and social media are playing an important role in making information more accessible, holding leaders and decision makers accountable, and mobilizing citizens to participate and have their say.

But are these groups talking to each other? How do grassroots initiatives shape and feed into larger scale efforts and vice versa? What can existing efforts learn from these new entrants? What lessons and good practices learned over the years, should be upheld? Or discarded? What technology tools best support work in this area? What are the risks and challenges? Where there are gaps and opportunities? And what are the best approaches for donors and key decision makers in the field?

We'll have two lead discussants start the conversation on these issues:

Hapee de Groot from Hivos will talk about several initiatives that support openness and transparency along with engaged participatory citizen action and politics, including the work of some Hivos' partners, the Transparency and Accountability Initiative(TAI), IATI and open standards, and the Hivos/Omidyar collaboration through the ATTI fund.
Katrin Verclas from Mobile Active will share highlights from the upcoming report mDemocracy: Power in the People's Hands. The report assesses the state of the field of mobile technology, good governance, democracy, and accountability, including aspects of human rights, elections and electoral processes, government services to citizen, and citizen action and advocacy. Copies of the report will be available to participants.

Please join your Technology Salon colleagues at our first (of many) Technology Salons in New York City organized by Linda Raftree of Plan International USA:

Transparency and New Technology
November Technology Salon
9 a.m. - 10:30 a.m.
Tuesday, November 29th, 2011
UNICEF House
3 UN Plaza East 44th Street
(between 1st and 2nd Avenue, south side of the street)
New York City, NY

We'll have hot coffee and donuts for a morning rush, but seating is limited and the UNICEF House is in a secure building. So RSVP ASAP to be confirmed for attendance or you are on the waitlist.

For those attending, please arrive 15 minutes early to clear security and be sure to bring photo ID. You will be escorted to the meeting room.

Libraries: the Dirty but Effective Word in Public Access to ICT

2011-11-15T18:00:25Z

Is this the library the future of public access ICT after cybercafes and telecenters?

Back when Bill Gates was young, he had multiple opportunities to geek out - he had access to computers at home and at school - but he would sneak out of his house to go the library. Why? Because he loved the wealth of knowledge, curated and guided by libraries.

With that background, it's easy to see why the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has a strong focus on libraries. And that many communities have a library and it's seen as a knowledge repository already, makes it also easy to see why the Gates Foundation has added public access to ICT as a tenant of their library support. ICT-enabled libraries can provide guided access to the wealth of information that computers and the Internet can bring to young minds.

"Library" as a dirty word

Yet, let's be honest - what comes to mind when you read the word "library" or "librarian"? Long nights spent in the library as a youth, with an ever-present librarian quick to squelch any study-break frivolity. Not as a 21st Century guide to personal life-long knowledge or greater community development. This is true around the world, as EIFL found:

Most people in six African countries believe public libraries have the potential to contribute to community development in important areas such as health, employment and agriculture. However, libraries are small and under-resourced, and most people associate them with traditional book lending and reference services rather than innovation and technology.

In fact, say the word "library" in international development or technology circles and instantly half the room is bored or tunes out.

Libraries are the most effective public access to ICT

Communities need access to the benefits and services only found online but the ICT infrastructure is often prohibitively expense for individuals to buy for themselves. Mobile phones, while ubiquitous, do not provide for any meaningful depth of information acquisition - certainly not when compared to a computer. So we are looking at computer labs where the costs are best aggregated over entire communities.

As we all know, telecenters are not sustainable without donor funding, and local governments are loathe to add yet another infrastructure support demand onto their shrinking budgets.

Enter the library. Of all the public access to ICT models discussed at the Future of Public Access to Information Technology Salon, it was the library, or similar government-supported information infrastructure, that is the most viable, sustainable, and compelling model.

Governments already understand the need for libraries and their role in supporting them as a government-funded service. Adding ICT to the library model is a small marginal cost with great community development potential - even when the model doesn't look like a library at all.

Library Parks - a new public access model

Enter the Parques Biblioteca or "Library Parks" of Medellin, Colombia. There, libraries are the anchor for multiple municipal knowledge and community building services (public park, library, information center, cultural center, and entrepreneurship incubator) to bring a concentrated development impact to the city's poor areas.

ICT access is a central resource that supports these activities, but not the only one. In addition, there is an acknowledged role for the librarian as a knowledge guide with technology. Colombians, just like others around the world (including "digital natives"), may not have the greatest media literacy. The librarian is seen (and trained) to be a modern knowledge guide, conversant in books and bytes, to help users navigate the still wild online world.

Do libraries need better marketing?

But if libraries are to be more than book repositories, should we start calling them something else besides a "library"? Could there be a need to re-brand the library as a "community knowledge center" or "life-long learning center" to show they are for more than just students studying? Or maybe "media centers" or "knowledge factories" to show they are more than just a collection of books? And can librarians move beyond being "martyrs to knowledge" and be more the learning facilitators we also hope teachers to be in 21st Century schools?

Knowledge is power and therefore libraries should be the cool thing in international development and technology circles. The still-open question is how can we get from the dim mental image of the past to the dynamic reality of the future?

What is the Future of Public Access to Information in the Mobile Phone Era?

2011-11-07T19:30:36Z

Access to information has been part of the development discussion since the Internet arrived. Previously, many saw community telecenters as the way to bring technology to the developing world. Yet telecenters are not sustainable without donor funding and the concept of public access hasn't kept pace with advancing technology.

The global penetration of mobile phones calls into question the need for public Internet access at all. Until you realize that mobile devices are limited in functionality and there is more development information than is convenient for a phone screen - such as government open data and transparency initiatives.

So the question remains: how can people participate? It is time to reconsider the question of public access. What works today? What makes most sense for the future?

We will explore the need for public access to information as a part of development and new approaches to provide it with two thought leaders on the subject:

Sandra Fried, a program officer in the Global Libraries program of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Catalina Escobar, director of Makaia, which is involved in the Digital Medellin project.

Please join your Technology Salon™ colleagues for this conversation at the next Technology Salon in Washington, DC:

What is the Future of Public Access to Information?
November Technology Salon
8:30 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.
Wednesday, November 9th, 2011
UN Foundation
1800 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC

Fail Faire DC 2011 - a celebration of failure

2011-09-20T13:35:50Z

Fail Faire DC 2011 is a celebration of failure. We will have great speakers with fun, fast, Ignite-style presentations of their professional failures. Audience participation is not only encouraged, it is mandatory! We are all peers and none of us is perfect. Expect much laughter as we navel-gaze at where we have all gone wrong in ICT and international development.

Yet we will LEARN from failure. Failure is no reason to be ashamed, and there is great value in examining our mistakes. So while we encourage irreverence and humor, we will be improving our profession too.

We will have light refreshments to lubricate the conversation and there will be an after-party to continue the celebration. However, an RSVP is mandatory for attendance and space is limited, so sign up today!

Fail Faire DC 2011 will happen on October 13th at the World Bank.Those that RSVP will be sent the specific room location just before the event.

Fail Faire DC 2011 is brought to you by theWorld Bank, Development Gateway, and Inveneo.

Agenda:

6:00pm: Welcome and drinks
6:30pm: #FAIL-Slam
7:30pm: Open Discussion
8:00pm: Mingling, learning, networking, more drinks

Featured Speakers (so far)

Dr. Tessie San Martin, CEO, Plan International USA
The World Bank on their 70% ICT4D failure rate
Ian Schuler, Internet Freedom Programs, U.S. Department of State
You? Apply today!

Remember, you must RSVP to attend.

iPads in Agriculture: Glitz Toys or ICT4Ag Business Tool?

2011-09-19T15:42:04Z

This month's Technology Salon ICT4Ag - Enriching rural coffee farmers via iPads raised a couple of eyebrows from the outset. How can Exprima Media and Sustainable Harvest realistically improve rural coffee farming via iPads?

Initially, it struck me as another attempt to use the latest and greatest technology to tackle longstanding challenges within the value chain, rather than making use of simple and often effective locally generated tech as we have seen with M-Pessa and other innovations.

But there's more to this project than merely exporting a glitzy trend to coffee farmers and suppliers in far-flung places. Two features appeal to me most: a) the range and utility of the apps; and b) the business model.

Relationship Information Tracking System App

Exprima Media and Sustainable Harvest partnered to develop a suite of traceability and efficiency tools called a Relationship Information Tracking System (RITS apps). The RITS Producer app promises to rapidly improve the operations of coffee co-ops. It functions as a set of supply chain management tools designed to record and track who produced specific quantities of coffee, how they produced it, how it is milled and where it ends up.

This is transformational because logistics is one of the more intractable challenges in the value chain. These traceability functions will enable better quality control because farmers who need to improve production practices can be pinpointed and aided.

The suite of apps also tackles the need for improved training opportunities for coffee farmers and co-op personnel. The RITS Ed app delivers instructional content in video format. Video is a great educational tool because it eliminates the risk of lessons being lost in translation. This exposure to best practices in agronomy, organic compost production, financial literacy among other topics, is likely to improve the quality and quantity of crop yields. To top this off, there's the RITS Matrix app which simplifies and walks coffee farmers through the often complex organic certification process.

The RITS app design highlights the value of an anthropological approach to ICT4D. The apps were specifically fashioned for cross-cultural use (varied languages, cultural and industry imperatives considered).

Furthermore, the iPad was chosen because its the most intuitive and rugged platform to get the big benefits of computing (automation, info sharing) in the hands of farmers. The simplicity of the user interface also enhance usability by those with limited computer literacy, thereby reducing the need for heavy investment of scare resources (money and time) in training.

RITS App Business Model

However, it is the business model that appeals to me most. According to the project pioneers, "iPads are not expensive toys, they are a business tool". The iPads are expected to pay for themselves in increased co-op productivity (supply chain management and higher quality coffee).

The project doesn't aim to get an iPad in the hands of every coffee farmer. In fact, the aim is to place it within existing infrastructure. For instance, equipping cooperatives and extension centers, which will enable greater support for farmer training, advisory services, cooperative planning and management.

Though still a centralized model, this approach tackles the seminal issue of affordability. While the cost of an iPad might be onerous for an individual coffee farmer, a co-op would fare better: Two bags of coffee weighing roughly 300 pounds, contributed by a large group, is equivalent to the cost of an iPad.

But the issue of cost goes deeper. App creation, especially on the iPad, is still expensive. The suite of RITS apps boasts a price tag of several hundred thousand--far too expensive for the co-ops to afford. Sustainable Harvest is looking to subsidy from its partners (software developers, coffee buyers etc) to combat this.

ICT4Ag - Enriching rural coffee farmers via iPads

2011-09-02T12:40:31Z

We all lust for iPhones, iPads, and the like, and yearn for the day the developing world can use the same cool gadgets we geek on. But did you realize that iPads could be used in remote areas today? That rural coffee farmers in Mexico, Peru, and Tanzania are enriching themselves and their communities through an enterprise iPad app.

At the September Technology Salon, we will hear from Corey Pressman of Experimamedia and David Griswold of Sustainable Harvest on how they developed iPad apps to help coffee growers become more efficient, reliable, and quality-focused.

Corey will talk about delivering multilingual coffee agronomy, food security, and coffee business information to app-enabled coffee farmers around the globe. David will detail the impact technology like iPads and iPhones have on Sustainable Harvest's coffee supply chain - from the farmer to the final consumer - and on the company's triple bottom line.

Here is a sneak peek video of the iPad app to get you excited.

Please join them and your peers to share insights on how ICT is increasing agricultural outcomes at the next Technology Salon™:

ICT4Ag: Enriching rural coffee farmers via iPads
September Technology Salon
8:30 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.
Thursday, September 15th, 2011
UN Foundation Conference Room
1800 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036 (map)

We'll have hot coffee and Krispe Kreme donuts for a morning rush, but seating is limited and the Development Gateway is in a secure building. So RSVP ASAP to be confirmed for attendance or you are on the waitlist.

How can social capital expand ICT4D?

2011-08-11T18:19:43Z

A new form of capitalism is arising that recognizes our ability to direct the power and efficiency of market systems toward social impact, leading to a more balanced set of "returns". This social capital market is real and growing, and has real impact on emerging economies.

But does it impact ICT4D? How can technology companies leverage social capital for greater impact? And can NGO's and nonprofits that focus on technology also benefit from the flow of capital towards social good?

Join Kevin Jones, Co-Founder of the SoCap Conference and Good Capital, as he shares insights on the opportunities, challenges and prospects for social capital to advance technology interventions in the developing world.

How can social capital expand ICT4D?
August Technology Salon
8:30a.m. - 10:00 a.m.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
mission*social Conference Room
972 Mission Street, 5th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94103 (map)

We'll have espresso and donuts for a morning rush, but be sure to RSVP ASAP, as we only have room for 15 people, then there will be a waitlist.

We should break Monitoring apart from Evaluation

2011-08-01T16:46:59Z

One of the sad truths that emerged at the Technology Salon on ICTs and M&E was that failure in development is rarely about the project performance, but about winning the next contract. This means that monitoring and evaluation is less about tracking and improving progress towards social change and more about weaving an advertising pitch.

This is not for a lack of frameworks, tools, mapping measurements against a theory of change, or even the need for more real-time data in development. It is about incentives. What is incentivized at the macro level is getting big numbers on the board and nice clean upwardly-trending graph lines. Micro-level incentives for filing reports to fill out the monitoring side of things focus on report filing as a requirement for salary payments or other basic carrot/stick-driven models. Neither of these actually encourage accurate, honest data, yet only with that accurate data can we remotely hope to tweak models and make improvements.

So, let's break monitoring apart from evaluation.

Monitoring can be real time and deeply embedded into the activities of a project, reducing the need to waste program staff time on reporting (and removing the need to figure out incentive programs). Any project with an ICT4D component should be light years ahead on this, building in complex logging to their work as a default. These logs should themselves be as open as is possible, but at least to the funding and or parent organizations and/or relevant government agencies. Remove the fudging of numbers and reduce the reporting time from weeks or months to as often as there is Internet connectivity (which, admittedly, still might be weeks or months in some situations).

More complex monitoring situations may require additional work outside of logging - qualitative interviews, metrics that don't pass through the technology components of the systems, and so on. But I would argue that the body of data that does or could be tracked alone would provide powerful proxy indicators of usage, impact, trends and anomalies. Projects like Instedd and the UN Global Pulse - even Google's Flu Trends find ways to take raw data and compile them into actionable knowledge.

Evaluation then becomes two different things. Part of evaluation is a constant, ongoing process -- not something tacked on at the end. Constant attention to the real-time monitoring data, allowing some ongoing adjustments to test methods to improve the project - which is incentivized itself by the ongoing monitoring being more visible.

The wholistic evaluation of the project is no longer something that is a last-minute task to frame the project in the best light. Rather, it is a synthesis of the trends, adjustments, and real-time evaluations that have already taken place. It becomes a document discussing the learnings from the project, and can celebrate both failures and successes together, and it frees the document from being an endless set of tables to being able to highlight qualitative impact stories. Evaluation reports might actually be read.

All of this, of course, should be as open as responsibly possible. Obviously the monitoring data may need extensive cleansing for privacy, but imagine if as a sector, development could learn from itself in a rapid, evolutionary process instead of in slow arduous cycles of every organization learning what works in the current trendy topics on their own.

So, how do we start breaking this apart?

This post was originally published as Monitoring and Evaluation is broken. Let's really break it.

How to build effective ICT tools for quality M&E?

2011-07-28T13:22:58Z

Last month, the M&E for ICT4D Technology Salon noted that we lacked quality tools to measure outcomes. We all intuitively know that ICT could be the basis for great M&E tools, but what about taking that feeling into action?

The Development Gateway develops web-based platforms that make aid and development efforts more effective. After introducing the AidData initiative and the Aid Management Program that provide access to development finance and project information, they are now looking at what ICT can offer in the area of monitoring and evaluation.

In this month's Technology Salon, we will hear from Stephen Davenport on his efforts with the Development Gateway to develop a M&E tool and data collection system that could be used by donors, the NGO community, and even the Government of Malawi, as an additional module to programs like Aid Data or as a stand-alone product.

Join Steve and your technology and development colleagues at the Development Gateway offices for this deep dive into ICT tools for M&E:

Effective ICT tools for quality M&E
August Technology Salon
8:30 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Development Gateway
1889 F Street, NW, 2nd Floor<-- note address
Washington, DC 20006 (map)

ICT4D Does Not Have an M&E Culture. So How Do We Break Oscar Night Syndrome?

2011-07-27T12:37:25Z

No one ever fails in ICT4D. Isn't that amazing! Technologies come and go quickly - bye, bye PDA's, Windows Vista, and soon Nokia - yet in ICT4D, each project has impact and we never fail. We just have lessons learned. In fact, can you name a single technology program that has publicly stated that it failed?

This is Oscar Night Syndrome, the need to always look good, and ICT4D is deep in denial with it. At the Best Practices in Measurement and Evaluation Technology Salon we dove into the need for monitoring and evaluation in ICT4D and the tools that can help us do that. What did we find?

ICT4D does not have an M&E culture

Now ICT projects do not exist in a vacuum. Many funders have indicators they expect a project to impact, and they often require some level of M&E. But often this evaluation is an after thought at best, where inputs (number of trainings) and outputs (number of trained people) are counted but there isn't any qualitative analysis (how did the attendees mindset change after the training).

Add to this the need to show results to the donor, their minimum tolerance for failure or anything else that could be seen as waste, and the current climate of "accountability" in political circles, and be it the foolish organization that doesn't turn in a shiny result complete with great storylines and images.

Just think about all the lessons (re) learned in every project, listed deep in a report, while the picture of a woman smiling with a mobile phone is on the cover and everything is rosy in the press release.

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How can we change that?

Our great focus at the Salon was how to change the current M&E climate in ICT4D. How to better monitor, measure, and evaluate the projects we work on to improve our outcomes and our profession. We identified four areas where could improve M&E in ICT4D.

1. Quasi-Experiments

In health, randomized control trials (RCT), are used extensively for impact evaluation. Technically called "experiments" RCT's have a few limitations - they are expensive, take a while, and can only test one hypothesis. A better option for the developing world context, and with ICT especially, are "quasi-experiments".

Quasi-experiments are exactly like experiments (or RCTs) but without random assignment to control groups - it's almost the same but more feasible and possibly more ethical. Quasi-experiments can also incorporate the rapid change in technology ecosystems.

Regardless of the experimentation level, there is no excuse for us not continuously measuring outcomes - now and for years after the project ends. How else can we really know the impact of our work unless we track it beyond the 1-3 year grant cycle?

2. Qualitative Analysis

Everyone loves numbers, yet often the best results are qualitative - changes in beneficiary perceptions that cannot be defined by numerics. How can we bring these tangible yet "fuzzy" results into ICT4D M&E? In person interviews, observations, focus groups, and the like performed in country are the best. Qualitative results can also be used in the formative stages of project design to guide future actions and form the basis of the statistical quantitative monitoring.

One way to cheaply collect direct qualitative results is to monitor social networks like Twitter and Facebook to see what your beneficiaries are saying about the project. Just be sure that you remember user bias. The users of Facebook and Twitter tend to be the elite in the developing world. Nothing can replace the face-to-face.

3. Common Standards

In developing this Salon, I thought M&E stood for "measurement and evaluation" when it actually is "monitoring and evaluation" which is just one example of the need for a common language for M&E. From there, we can dive deep into different measurements that ICT affords - from click rates or retweets - yet we need to remember that we should be targeting the non-technology audience and they should understand our terms.

Even better than common language would be a common ICT4D M&E framework. Something along the lines of NPOKI, a health-centric performance management system shared among different health organizations. This multi-organizational M&E framework allows for an apples-to-apples comparison of project effectiveness that transcends specific projects or even organizations.

4. Implementation Evaluations

Yes, your project may have great outcomes, but was your implementation of that project the best it could be? What about measuring ICT implementations - the very act of deploying a project? We are missing out on great opportunities to learn how we can do our jobs better and improve the ICT4D profession as a whole by not engaging in implementation evaluations, be they formal reviews or at least internal reviews. I know I would like to know how I compare with my peers in ICT deployment. Am I faster, better, cheaper, or do I just talk a good game?

World Vision has a company-wide programme management information system that tracks common indicators in both project delivery and outcomes, helping the organization pinpoint good practices and effective programming. Nethope is also investigating a consortium-wide M&E systems to help organizations better allocate internal resources.

Creating Space for Failure

While these are four tools we can use to build an M&E culture, we must change the mindset of ICT4D practitioners if we expect any of these tools to really be used. One way to do that is to have regular meetings where we can talk about what works and doesn't - which is the Technology Salon. Another way is a Fail Faire - a positive celebration of failure.

So coming this fall will be a second Fail Faire in Washington DC, building on last year's event and other internal Faires. If you wanna be one of the cool kids who helps organize it, be sure to email me today!

Together we can change this Oscar Night Syndrome and create a real monitoring and evaluation culture in the information and communication technologies for development community.

What Are Best Practices in Measurement and Evaluation of ICT Projects?

2011-07-11T15:26:26Z

Everyone talks about measurement and evaluation (M&E) like it matters. Yet, few of us do it well or even at all with ICT projects. So why should we measure and evaluate? How can we go about it? And what are the industry best practices, applied to the uniqueness of ICT?

Our goal is to explore research design and data collection methods that are applicable to ICT within practical field realities like time, money, politics, and ethics, and emerge with efficient M&E tools and processes we can use in ICT proposals and projects. To get us there, we'll have two esteemed experts leading us in a discussion around M&E and ICT in our next Technology Salon:

Raul Roman is a specialist in research methods and evaluation approaches in developing country contexts, an Adjunct Professor of International Development at SAIS-Johns Hopkins, and co-founder of UBELONG
Neeran Saraf consults on impact and monitoring and evaluation systems and knowledge management for the likes of the World Bank and a number of international NGOs.

Please join Raul and Neeran in a vibrant conversation with your peers at a new Technology Salon location:

Best Practices in ICT M&E
July Technology Salon
8:30 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
UN Foundation - M Street
1615 M Street NW, 7th Floor - note address change
Washington DC, 20036 (map)

How USAID could learn - and grow - from failure

2011-06-22T18:50:35Z

I am Charles Kenny, and I spent part of yesterday at a United Nations Foundation meeting with Dr Maura O'Neill, Chief Innovation Officer at USAID.

There was a lot of discussion of development applications using mobile phones (m-development) and how to do them better - things like interoperability and collecting models in an 'm-app marketplace.' And there was the usual back-and-forth between those who wanted to see more transformative projects where IT reformed whole agencies and ministries and those who thought that way madness (or at least obscene overruns) lay.

But I thought the most interesting discussion was around learning from experience - particularly in an area where technology is evolving rapidly, so a robust evaluation may not be completed before the project itself looks as dated as an integrated rural development scheme or a structural adjustment loan. The randomized trial result suggesting limited evidence of educational spillovers from a distribution program of Nintendo 64's might not carry too much weight for those wanting to hand out Wiis as part of a youth fitness program.

One way to speed learning is to encourage project managers and implementers themselves to highlight if things seem to be going particularly well or badly early on in the process. Think of it as the development equivalent of stopping the medical trial because the product so obviously doesn't work -or works so well it would be immoral to deny the control group such a valuable treatment.

Things are rarely so clear cut successes in development as they can be in medical trials, but we really didn't have to wait around too long to declare m-finance in Kenya a rip-roaring wonder, for example. On the side of failure, the problem is a little different - it might be complicated to get managers and implementers to come forward and admit so rapidly that their project is a waste of time and resources. And more than one person at the meeting suggested it is just too risky in general to say you've failed. Dark things were muttered about 'the current climate' (stormy with a 70 percent chance of budget cuts?).

The good news is that USAID doesn't look like it is shying (further) away from risk. The new Development Innovation Ventures program is designed to mimic a venture capital model to identify, test and scale solutions to development challenges. The model stages funding - so projects that don't work out at the identification or test stage won't get more money to roll out.

The meeting also discussed the possibility of a USAID FailFaire - or even Fail Summit - that would encourage people to come out in the open and say what didn't work and why. If the authorizing environment could allow, another change to encourage early exit from bad projects would be to let project managers keep some or all of the remaining budget resources from a self-declared failed project to spend on something else in the same sector and country that might actually work.

But what about 'the current climate'? First off, I'm not convinced that even the Agency's most committed supporters would be surprised that some USAID projects are duds. And they don't need a FailFaire to find examples (Google "USAID Project Failure" if you have any doubts). Second, if USAID projects never failed, that would suggest the Agency was being obscenely, counterproductively, risk-averse in a field where risk (political, administrative, economic, climate) is everywhere.

Any portfolio of investments has some bad apples - as long as it has some stars as well, that's OK. Does every enterprise supported by the Small Business Administration grant turn into a Starbucks or a Facebook? Of course not - and lots fail, miserably. But when it turns out that the market in Topeka for Che Guevara Beanie Baby knock-offs was more limited than the financial plan projected, and the business folds, the SBA moves on. USAID should do the same thing - and not be afraid of telling Congress that's the approach.

This post was originaly published as Next USAID Innovation: Learning from Failure