the African Uptimist

Uganda's District Net Initiative--Thinking big, starting small

While researching ICT4D this morning, i came across 7 interesting ICT4D projects in Africa listed on the website of iConnect Online:

One of the most remarkable is Uganda's District Net initiative, began in 2002 to address "a need for transparent governance in the Ministry of Local Government.” The full story of the project, covering the organizational aspects, impact assessment and lessons learned can be found at iConnect Online.  And the most important lessons learned? “Think big but begin small.  Piloting is the way!”

For those who might not be aware, iConnect Online is an initiative of the International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD). It focuses on the application of knowledge and Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for sustainable development.  In my view, they are right on the mark when they argue here that:

Finding other people and institutions and interacting with them, face to face or by e-mail, is one of the most powerful tools to improve development.   Beyond web sites, portals, databases, and other 'discovery' applications, the Internet can be used to foster discussion, dialogue, collaboration, and two-way communication...

iConnect seems to be walking this talk.  They provide a simple yet practical tool for facilitating interaction and learning: a simple calendar (screen shot below) that informs and implicitly invites participating in a series of knowledge-sharing events.

What might be even better is to include other ICT4D events besides those sponsored by IICD on a single calendar. This would be a huge undertaking for any one organization, but certainly possible  if done in a participatory way that allows anyone with a planned activity to simply include it on the same calendar.

For example google calendar has an option that allows a calendar of events to be made public and also allows updates by anyone with keyword access.

If you know of such an open calendar of ICT4D events already existing, please send me the link!

Thakadu's News Map--Thoughts arising

i like Thakadu's News Map, featured on White African a few days ago.  Basically, it is a Google Maps and Yahoo News mashup that captures current news stories by country in terms of "the easiest common denominator - geography" to use Erik's neat characterization.  Here is a screen shot:

It's easy to visualize other useful mash-ups making use of similar mapping tools and layout.  For example, one could easily replace the list of news items shown above by a list of development projects to get a new mash-up that allows a user to view projects per country or region within a country.  Donors, governments, NGOs and researchers could use such a resource. Thanks for planting the thought, Thakadu!

Congratulations to the Afrobarometer Team

As Africa Day--May 25--draws to a close, may we use the occassion to congratulate Afrobarometer for their interesting surveys of what Africans think about the continent's conditions and prospects.  For those who might not be aware, Afrobarometer is, in their own words:

...an independent, non-partisan survey research project conducted by the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana); the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (Idasa); and Michigan State University (MSU). Implemented through a network of national research partners, Afrobarometer surveys measure the social, economic and political atmosphere in societies in transition in West, East and Southern Africa. Because it asks a standard set of questions, countries can be systematically compared and trends tracked over time.

Recent findings from Afrobarometer surveys covering 70,000 people in 18 countries show that:

• Popular support for the principle of democracy is down slightly, but remains high.
• Satisfaction with democracy, however, is declining sharply, driven especially by rapid declines in Nigeria, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
• Africans remain strongly committed to elections, and in most countries, rate the quality of their elections quite highly, though Nigeria, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe are significant exceptions.
• The public is gradually growing more comfortable with multiparty competition, as they overcome their fears that it will cause division and confusion.
• The quality of representation is very low; a majority of Africans rarely or never see their elected representatives once the election has been won.

The following individuals deserve special mention for their contributions to this important work: Dr. E. Gyimah-Boadi and Edem Selormey of CDD-Ghana; Dr. Robert Mattes and Dr. Annie Chikwanha of Idasa; Robert Sentamu and Francis Kibirige of Wilsken Agencies (Uganda); and Dr. Michael Bratton and Dr. Carolyn Logan of MSU.

They do acknowledge that their results are not fully representative of Africa as a whole, and that the selection of countries is biased towards the continent’s most open societies.  Nevertheless,  the Afrobarometer is probably the most reliable instrument we currently have for illuminating contemporary African opinions about issues affecting their lives.

Google and Sida help development planners Gapmind their business

At a recent meeting, one participant asked me what the level of television usage was in Ghana.  I didn't have a good estimate at hand, but offered 'anecdotal' evidence suggesting that at least 60 percent of all urban households have access to TV.  Moments like that make me look forward to the day when a great tool like Google Gapminder is not only commonplace, but also more comprehensive.  In its current form, the Gapminder puts development indicators at your fingertips, and enables you to visualize them using a dynamic scatterplotting system where each bubble represents a country, as illustrated here

The position of each bubble is determined by the indicators on the axes. The size of the bubble represents the population of the country. The available indicators include: carbon dioxide emissions, child mortality, economic growth, internet users per 1000 people, military budget, phone users per 1000 people, urban population. The list is likely to expand as more data sources are added over the coming months.  Gapfinder was originally developed with funding from the Swedish International Development co-operation Agency, Sida in collaboration with the United Nations Statistic Division.  Their goal is to promote free access to searchable public data, and you can find various animations of different types of data here.

Once upon a time with the best: reflections on a recent 'brain drain' debate on Ghanaweb. Part 2.

Surfing back to the debate on Ghanaweb, i monitored a stream of ideas emanating from the direction of Atsu Amegashie.  He was vigorously arguing that Ghanaian universities could make up for deficits arising from the 'brain drain' by implementing a simple "visiting professor" programme.  In such a scheme, interested Ghanaian professors who are currently teaching in North American would visit Ghana for a few weeks each year to deliver teaching and research services in the participating institutions.   "Most diasporan professors in North America," he wrote,

...do not teach in the summer. At least, those at research universities do not. Our universities can create a database of such professors...a network of Ghanaian diasporan professors who will teach in Ghana periodically. I am aware that the World Bank is working on a similar idea. Indeed, this is exactly what Israeli/Jewish professors in the USA do. The leading Jewish/Israeli economics professors in the elite USA universities are partially affiliated with Tel Aviv and Hebrew Universities in Israel. This has made these two universities one of the best in the world. A recent ranking of economics departments in Europe placed Tel Aviv University at # 1 ahead of the London school of economics. Note that there are only 5 universities in Israel. These Israeli universities achieved this remarkable feat, in part, by tapping the fine brains of their citizens and other Jews in the diaspora.

With "education 2.0" on my mind, I seconded Atsu's suggestion, adding that those professors who participated in such "partial-affiliate" programes need not confine their contributions to the traditional delivery of lectures in classrooms.  While still abroad, they could augment the resources available to local universities by putting relevant course material on line, just like the folks over at MIT have done with their OpenCourseWare.  With the right tools and some innovative improvisation, they could even hold interactive lecture sessions in real time with students.  Where internet access is not available or is unreliable, professors in the diaspora could organize the systematic selection, retrieval, copying (on CDs, USB flash drives…) and shipment of opencouseware back home where they can be assessed offline by students and lecturers alike. By helping in these ways to bring both their own and other world-class teaching materials into African classrooms, our professors who currently live and teach abroad would be delivering much needed educational services all year round, instead of the summer months only. When all is said and well done, Africa's brain drain may indeed be a blessing in disguise--in a Web 2.0 universe, at least.

Once upon a time with the best: reflections on a recent 'brain drain' debate on Ghanaweb.

Internet matters, especially Web 2.0, have been on my mind a lot lately. The 2.0 part of the meme scares me sometimes; a self-replicating something (some call it a hype) running across the interdisciplinary landscapes of the mind, latching on to long-held concepts, trying to transform established meanings--"development 2.0," "education 2.0," "government 2.0," "enterprise 2.0," "finance 2.0"...! It was while in this Web 2.0-induced state of mind that I stumbled accross a debate on Ghanaweb recently, concerning the brain drain of doctors away from Ghana. It had been triggered by a series of brilliant feature articles authored by Professor Atsu Amegashie of the University of Guelph, Canada.         

It all happened in a cool atmosphere largely free of the insults, hot airs and sundry emotional perturbations that bedevil too many forums. Cruising through message after sensible message felt like an escape from the sticky mugginess of a hot day into the dappled ambiance beneath an indulgent mango tree. Lots of low-hanging intellectual fruits hung within easy reach of my eager fingers, the click of my faithful mouse...

This post elaborates a bit more on some of the ideas that came up during the debate, but from a more general African perspective. It attempts to capture the salient portions of the discussion in a way that, hopefully, makes up in African taste, what they might lose in Ghanaian flavor.

You must know by now that the main reason behind the age-old exodus of African experts is the desire for a 'better life' abroad. We have been indoctrinated into the belief that the pasture is green and the honey abundant at any place but home. Volumes have been written about the problem. Most of them are irrelevant, often missing the head of the nail (ouch), and hardly getting to the roots of the phenomenon: faith in a material Canaan to which many are called but few are chosen. The urge to escape is so powerful that trying to stop it by appealing to patriotism, or by resorting to some draconian measure, would be as pointless as commanding the winds and waves to stop surging—as one Ghanaian king tried to do on the beach more than a century ago. So what to do now?

From my initial perch on the sidelines of the debate, I noticed an attractively adorned idea scrolling by on my screen, and grabbed it with a click before it could vanish. It was a juicy concept for turning the brain drain to our advantage, saying: encourage African professionals living abroad to enter partial affiliations with local organizations in their countries of origin. African professors and researchers based in North American universities, for example, would spend the summer vacation periods delivering teaching and research support to universities in Africa to which they are affiliated. In a flash, this idea quickly gathered an enchanted throng of satellite comments and thoughtful remarks. In the ensuing exchange, several people urged—rightly—that the model be extended to other professional fields besides professors and doctors.

Then Atsu dangled before us a link to an earlier article on the same topic.  Clicking on it, I was teleported at digital speed to a fascinating piece by Robert Mensah-Biney in 2004. Mensah-Biney had done a thought-provoking job of showing how professionals in the diaspora could be mobilized for national reconstruction and development. He used entertaining analogies from the world of football to score his points. “If” he asked his readers, “it makes sense for the Ghanaian football (soccer) team to invite Ghanaian professional soccer players [based in] Europe to play for Ghana during the world cup tournament, I do not understand why it does not make sense to invite Ghanaian professional engineers, architects, economists, accountants, medical doctors, scientists, educationists, in the Diaspora (Europe, USA, Canada, Japan, Australia etc.) to come to Ghana as consultants and advisors on development projects in Ghana.” [To be continued]

Mapping with Wayfaring

The map below was created using wayfaring, one of the new "Web 2.0" mapping tools.  Clicking on the map opens a larger version in a new window with a listing of partner organizations who collaborate with us (the REED Team at UNEP) on:

• African Rural Energy Enterprise Development (AREED); and
• eCommerce and Renewable Energy (eCARE-Ghana)

Click on any one of the 'waypoints' and up pops a box with more information--number of enterprises and total amounts invested as at December 2005.  Nifty, hey?  Over the next few days, we will try out other features, such as uploading photos and videos capturing project activities in each of the countries.

10 minutes at the Development Gateway

AiDA--Accessible Information on Development Activities--on the Development Gateway is the largest online, searchable directory of development projects and activities worldwide.  It offers "a quick overview of who is doing what in international development, where they are doing it, and with what funds. Information is harvested from major bilateral donors, multilateral development banks, and UN agencies. The directory is searchable by country, sector or donor." Projects in several African countries are listed. My quick search for energy projects in Ghana, yielded two items:

• Akosombo Retrofit (with EU funding of US$5,357,342); and
• Trade and Investment Gateway Project (with IDA funding of US$101,000,000)

AiDA could enhance its value considerably if visitors are allowed to submit additional projects that may be missing from their database, or to edit the existing information.  That way, smaller (but no lesss important) projects like AREED--African Rural Energy Enterprises Development--could be included.  The Knowledge Finder page on the Commonwealth of Learning (CoL) website, for instance, has a feature like that which allows visitors to submit new sites.  AiDA might want to adopt a similar approach.

For the eCARE project team, size no longer matters when it comes to sharing files

Sending and receiving large files had been a pain for years, till I discovered Pando last week and used it to send a large file to other members of the eCARE project team. A new and free file sharing software, Pando harnesses the distribution efficiencies of BitTorrent and the reliability of central servers, allowing users to share pictures, video and other notoriously voluminous files (up to 1GB) easily.

Welcome to the African Uptimist: the intersection of society and the Internet for development in peace

The African Uptimist invites you on a journey of exploration through the diverse ecologies of creativity that are bursting forth on the Internet. We shall delve into the exciting worlds of social networking sites, blogs and vlogs (blogospheres and vlogospheres), Really Simple Syndication (RSS), podcasts, always-on Internet, and many, many more. We will be assessing how these technologies and ideas are impacting (or may impact) the lives of individuals and communities in the public or private sector. We will also document our experience in applying some of these technologies in the context of real life projects in Africa.  Much as the African Uptimist appreciates the importance of a 'problem-orientation' in traditional development thinking and practice, it prefers to balance this view by emphasizing: what is working in Africa; what “even better” might look like; and what actions may be taken to get there. Your feedback and comments are very welcome.