Zunia.org

ELLA SPOTLIGHT ON ORGANISATIONS: Extractive Industries and Land Use

Wed, 22 May 2013 15:00:22 -0500

This selection highlights some of the key organisations who are doing work around extractive industries and land issues, covering a variety of themes ranging from land use planning and environmental impacts, to community and indigenous peoples participation in decision making and promotion of land rights.

How Effective Is the World Bank at Targeting Sub-National Poverty in Africa? A Foray into the Murky World of Geo-Coded Data

Wed, 22 May 2013 10:30:37 -0500

How efficiently is aid allocated to reduce poverty? This question was explored over a decade ago in a paper by the economists Paul Collier and David Dollar. Their definition of a poverty-efficient allocation included, among other elements, the simple maxim that to maximize poverty reduction, aid should be given to countries with large amounts of poverty. When actual allocations were analyzed, it was shown that donor agencies paid heed to this rule. (Donors did less well at giving aid to countries with good policies, which, the authors argued, resulted in poverty-inefficient allocations overall.)

As part of its Mapping for Results initiative, the World Bank has geo-coded its entire project portfolio of 2,900 active projects across 30,400 sub-national locations in 144 countries. Meanwhile, IFPRIs Harvest Choice initiative has gathered together sub-national poverty data (using the international poverty line of $1.25 a day) from recent household surveys in 24 sub-Saharan African countries to draw detailed poverty maps covering half the continent. Both datasets contain, at a minimum, information at the first-order administrative level, meaning the province, state and governorate.

Right to Internet: Bringing Information to the Citizens

Wed, 22 May 2013 09:58:16 -0500

The best way to characterise human rights is to identify the outcomes that we are trying to ensure. These include critical freedoms like freedom of speech and freedom of access to information - and those are not necessarily bound to any particular technology at any particular time. Citizens must always check that they arent getting incomplete or biased data. Open Data are almost always data that should surely be open, and that almost never contain any personal information.

Right now, India is considered one of the most active Asian countries in the Open Data arena, which also signed an Open Government partnership with the USA in November 2010. In 2011 the Indian Government announced plans for a new law to fight corruption among public servants and politicians. Anti-corruption websites (including ones in local dialects) like Indiaagainstcorruption.org, already existed, including one, Ipaidabribe.com.

Following the same pattern of openness, the Mumbai civic body plans to upload most of its 80 million documents on its website to counter charges of lack of transparency leveled against it by campaigners that citizens and civic activists complain about. Soon, Mumbai citizens and activists wont need to file a right to information (RTI) request to access civic data.

Ghana receives $13.9b Chinese aid in 10 years

Wed, 22 May 2013 09:54:07 -0500

Chinese investment and development aid to Ghana totaled $13.96 billion between 2000 and 2011, a new compilation of data has shown.

According to global research firm Open Data for International Development (AidData), Ghana received the money between 2001 and 2011 and these were official aid.

Ghana, therefore, becomes the second biggest receiver of Chinese aid in West Africa after Nigeria which had $16.43 billion, according to the data released in April 2013.

Chinese aid to Ghana was also over $3 billion more than the whole of East Africa which had about $11 billion. The countrys aid from the Asian country was also bigger than what South Africa received from China which was $3.03 billion during the ten-year period.

A digital route to revive our neglected libraries

Wed, 22 May 2013 09:48:16 -0500

There are 28 state-level libraries in India with 80% coverage. In the districts, the coverage is 76% with 461 libraries. But in the talukas and villages, the coverage drops drastically to 12.5% (501 libraries) and 4.9% (28,820 libraries), respectively. Most of these government libraries are ailing and are either dysfunctional or on the verge of closure. To top it all, most librarians are meagrely paid, if they get their salaries at all.

Chaturbhuj Mishra, the 60-year-old librarian, has not been paid his shamefully meagre salary of Rs.700 a month for the past seven years. But, even such a state of affairs has not prevented the Bettiah library to become a hub of activity. More than 1,500 youngsters visit the library everyday, inspired by their librarian Guruji.

There is a unique trend in this library campus, which was started in 1984 by Mishra. In response to some college students seeking guidance, he formed a small group comprising 30-40 students and guided them in their studies, resulting in great success. It became such a trend that without even involving him, graduates started making groups of 25-40 students. Each group has a name, a group leader, attendance sheet, monitoring system, performance test mechanism and, most importantly, a democratic value system. The monthly membership fee for each group is Rs.50. There are 50 such groups totalling 1,500 members preparing for various job-oriented competitive exams.

Needs-based targeting or favoritism? The regional allocation of multilateral aid within recipient countries

Wed, 22 May 2013 09:38:29 -0500

The regional allocation of aid within recipient countries has been largely ignored in the aid allocation literature. We use geocoded data on the location of aid projects financed by the World Bank and the African Development Bank within a sample of 27 recipient countries to assess the claim of donors that their aid targets needy population segments. We also assess whether political leaders in these countries direct aid funds to their home region, irrespective of regional needs. We do not find that the multilateral aid institutions take regional needs into account. Instead, favoritism appears to play an important role for location choices, in particular for physical infrastructure projects.

The "Fix-Rate" Citizens Can Make a Difference

Wed, 22 May 2013 09:32:57 -0500

Over the past decade there has been great interest in the power of citizens to transform society. Engaged citizens are seen as essential in fighting corruption, promoting transparency and accountability, strengthening governance and improving development outcomes. Yet, the evidence base linking citizen action to improved results is often questioned. Yesterday saw an interesting panel discussion on citizens role in tackling corruption held at the ODI, London.

Integrity Actions Fredrik Galtung launched his working paper on the Fix-Rate a key metric for measuring the impact of our Community Integrity Building approach (CIB). Our work involves supporting citizens and local government to work together to build their skills, monitor, formulate and implement practical solutions to improve development projects so that citizens in developing countries get better public services and infrastructure.

Ultimately, in order to understand how and why citizens make a difference, we need to understand progress factors and how to resolve collective action problems. We can do that through granular analysis, locally-driven solutions, and investment in tools such as DevelopmentCheck that capture the problem, 'fix' and process of change.

This week in Open Data and Citizen Engagement: The LBD of Open Data

Wed, 22 May 2013 09:21:21 -0500

As the ability to collect big data gets easier and easier, Marc Bellemares point that big data is good for forecasting, but not good for finding causal relationship, is an important one to keep in mind. What you want to be able to do with the data should define how it is collected.

A recent interview with the Jedi master of data visualization Hans Rosling highlighted how much attention data can get once someone dresses it up and gives it some oomph; which actually merges nicely into an idea brought up on the eGov AU blog. The thought was that a poorly designed open government website is not as open as a well-designed one.

You could say a well-designed opengov website is the little black dress that flatters, bringing attention and curiosity, while the poorly designed one is the frumpy sweater that allows the wearer to hide what they dont want noticed in the heavy folds. If the data is hard to look at and therefore hard to find, its not really as open is it?

Reviewing the evidence: How well does the European Development Fund perform?

Wed, 22 May 2013 09:10:44 -0500

This paper reviews the European Development Fund's (EDF) performance in recent evaluations and assessments. It considers the main criteria typically used to assess the performance of the EDF and reviews the existing evidence against three critiques.

The European Union (EU) is in the process of concluding a complex and contentious negotiation about its future seven-year budget, the Multi-Annual Financial Framework (MFF) for 2014-2020. In parallel, the EU is negotiating the budget for the European Development Fund (EDF), which covers the same period. The EDF is the EUs main instrument for delivering development aid to the 78 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries under the ACPEU Cotonou Partnership Agreement.

The Agreement is the worlds largest and most advanced financial and political contractual framework for NorthSouth cooperation. Although the EDF is not part of the EU budget itself, the negotiations around the level of funding it receives are an important part of the broader debate and the outcome will be decided in conjunction with the MFF.

However, development aid has historically been considered a low political priority in the negotiations. And the development budget has suffered disproportionately from lower EU resource ceilings. Competing agendas include the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and structural funds. The EDF, in particular, with the main focus of its spending in sub-Saharan Africa, is at risk, with a proposed cut of around 11%.

Reviewing the evidence: How well does the European Development Fund perform?

Wed, 22 May 2013 08:54:42 -0500

MY World Survey first results half a million citizens tell the United Nations their priorities

Wed, 22 May 2013 08:47:01 -0500

Over 560,000 citizens from 194 countries have already voted for the issues that would make the most difference to their lives, providing, for the first time ever, real-time and real-world intelligence on what people think about the biggest challenges facing them and their families.

MY World, the United Nations global survey for a better world (www.myworld2015.org) is a groundbreaking initiative inviting citizens to virtually take their seat at the UN and participate in the global conversation on the next development agenda by voting in an option-based survey.

From Rwanda to Philippines and Mexico City to Amman and Madrid; across schools, mosques, offices and refugee camps, citizens have been turning out in their hundreds of thousands to vote and help define a better world for all.

The future of European Union aid in middle-income countries. The case of South Africa

Wed, 22 May 2013 08:36:56 -0500

This ODI Working Paper focuses the debate on the European Unions (EU) new proposed policy approach to middle-income countries (MICs) differentiation at the case study level, through an analysis of South Africa.

Shifting global patterns of wealth, poverty, trade, and geopolitical power are constructing new opportunities and challenges for development actors. The development landscape has always been characterised by change, but what is new is the role of MICs in development cooperation:

as countries with development needs and the majority of the worlds poor people;

as recipients of aid, loans and other concessional benefits;

as important anchors for regional and global development;

as donors; and

as strategic partners for development or otherwise.

As a result of these shifts, some donors have changed their aid allocation models, concessional benefits and ways of working with MICs. The controversy around, and diverging perspectives on the debates on aid in MICs indicate that many development actors are struggling to redefine and shape their work and relationships with MICs. It also indicates that the internal and external context shaping development actors has changed significantly and warrants a revision, if not a change, in policy approach.

Measuring the Real Size of the World Economy: The Framework, Methodology, and Results of the International Comparison Program

Wed, 22 May 2013 08:31:45 -0500

This book is the most comprehensive accounting ever presented by the International Comparison Program (ICP) of the theory and methods underlying the estimation of purchasing power parities (PPPs). PPPs reveal the relative sizes of economies by converting their gross domestic products and related measurements into a common currency, thereby enabling comparisons based on economic and statistical theory. By disclosing the theory, concepts, and methods underlying the estimates, this book increases the transparency of the ICP process. Greater transparency allows researchers, users of PPPs, and those involved in implementation of the program to better understand the strengths, limitations, and assumptions underlying its results is book also provides a forward-looking view of methodological developments with an eye toward improving the quality of future comparisons.

The ICP is now the largest and most complex statistical program in the world. In 2005 it included 100 countries and economies, working in parallel with the 46 countries in the Eurostat-Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) PPP program. Measuring the Real Size of the World Economy was prepared by the ICP Global Office in the World Bank, with contributions from the leading international experts in the fields of economics and statistics on international comparisons.

A Different Kind of Diversity: The Changing Face of Engineering Education

Wed, 22 May 2013 08:15:16 -0500

In the U.S. and abroad, calls abound for attracting students to engineering in high school, for providing incentives to students to complete their engineering degrees, and for increasing funding for engineering programs. Why? The argument is simple: we face unprecedented global challenges and opportunities, from the need for clean water and clean energy to fighting cyber terrorism. These challenges demand new ideas, and one obvious approach is simply to increase volume. After all:

More engineers = More innovation

In some sense, this equation is hard to dispute. But it misses an equally powerful (not to mention morally necessary) possibility:

More diverse engineers = More innovation

In other words, responding to the economic, social, and environmental challenges of the coming century will take more than increased number of engineers. It will require a more diverse population of engineers.

David Goldberg and Mark Somerville, The Huffington Post: The Blog,08/24/2012

Logframer

Wed, 22 May 2013 07:34:28 -0500

Logframer 1.0 is a free project management application for projects based on the logical framework method. Logframer was designed with NGO projects for development and humanitarian assistance in mind, but can also be used for other kinds of projects in other sectors. The basic idea behind Logframer is to provide aid actors such as NGOs, non-profit organisations, donor agencies and so on with a simple, versatile and free tool that makes designing projects an easier task (and more fun). Logframer allows you to better integrate all information needed for a well-designed project, and helps you to improve the quality of your project proposals.

Monitoring & Evaluation Solutions

Wed, 22 May 2013 07:25:57 -0500

AfricanPot.org provides this introduction to monitoring and evaluation solutions. Many links are provided to the reader to encourage more reading on specific topics.

A thought about quantitative evidence

Wed, 22 May 2013 07:19:50 -0500

Evaluation professionals seem to emphasize quantitative evidence over qualitative. It is more important to get evidence that contributes to the kind of understanding that will lead to decisions that improve the situation, than to get evidence that satisfies the aesthetics of evaluation professionals.

Trillions of Dollars in Oil, Gas and Mining Revenue Still Shrouded in Secrecy

Wed, 22 May 2013 06:40:59 -0500

Secrecy still prevails in how natural resources are managed, and this conspires against economic development. The lives of over a billion citizens could be transformed if their governments managed their oil, gas and minerals in a more open, accountable manner. This emerges from the Resource Governance Index, which my organization, Revenue Watch Institute, released recently.

The Index measures the transparency and accountability in the oil, gas and mining sector of 58 countries. Together these nations produce 85 percent of the world's oil, 90 percent of diamonds and 80 percent of copper, generating trillions of dollars annually. The in-depth analysis finds that over 80 percent of the countries fail to meet satisfactory standards in how their natural resources are governed. In these nations, opacity, corruption and weak processes keep citizens from fully benefiting from their countries' resource wealth, revealing a significant 'governance deficit.'

There is hope, however. Some countries prove it is possible to lift the veil of secrecy and meet higher standards of transparency and accountability. Eleven out of the 58 countries received satisfactory scores overall, including emerging economies in Latin America. By shedding light on reforming states as well as lessons and solutions, we can reject the tired notion of the deterministic 'resource curse.'

Can an 'open' government site be open if it is poorly designed?

Wed, 22 May 2013 06:34:45 -0500

For some technically orientated people design can be an afterthought. Their focus is on making a system or machine work as it should, able to take in data and spit out information correctly and quickly.

For these people, design is a 'nice to have' added towards the end of the process, with sites and systems made 'pretty' to appease the communications and marketing people, but is otherwise non-functional.

I've participated in many IT-led 'design' processes, where the focus was on how entities within the system should interact with each other, and the testing focused on 'user-acceptance' - which basically is designed to answer the question 'do the system's features work as intended?'.

In these processes there was little or no consideration regarding the visual appeal of the solution, whether the terminology was understandable to the audience, the search results expected or the navigation logical for non-experts and non-programmers. At best there was some commitment to making the site accessible - however this often meant 'bare bones' lists of text on a white background, rather than using alternative methods to provide a pleasurable experience for all users.

Of course it is essential that websites and system respond quickly and as intended. However if users don't find them appealing, intelligible or intuitive, they will use them unwillingly, if at all.

Facebook used to mobilize capital for road to connect Indian States

Wed, 22 May 2013 06:29:51 -0500

The story of construction of a 100-km road that would link Manipur with Nagaland and Assam. The untiring efforts of a family and the worldwide reach of social networking paved a rocky road to pitch the basic needs of food, education and livelihood in Manipurs Tousem subdivision in Tamenglong district. Armstrong Pame and his family raised funds through a Facebook group, which has now crossed the 7,000-member mark.

The Facebook group and the website of the project, http://thegreatindianroad.in/, list the progress, amounts contributed and the names of the contributors.

Armstrong Pame, a 2005 graduate from St Stephens College in Delhi and the sub-divisional magistrate of Tamenglong, his home district, and the first IAS officer from the Zeme tribe, has, of his own volition, begun the construction of a 100-km road that would link Manipur with Nagaland and Assam. Incidentally, the Centre had sanctioned Rs 101 crore in 1982 for the construction of this road, but for some unknown reason the project never took off.

The opening of the 100-km Peoples Road in February has earned Armstrong Pame the sobriquet The Harbinger of Change in Manipur.

Russia Retracts Commitment with Transparency, Leaves Open Government Partnership

Wed, 22 May 2013 06:22:57 -0500

"Inevitably, there will be questions about what we are each prepared to sign up to," said British Prime Minister David Cameron in January 13, in his letter to fellow G8 leaders. Four months later, Russia has made clear it clear what it wasn't willing to sing onto: the Open Government Partnership (OGP). The most recent update on Russia is that the Kremlin will be pursuing "open government" on its own terms.

Russia has withdrawn the letter of intent that it submitted on April 2012 in Brazil, at the first annual meeting of the Open Government Partnership.

If the dominant binary of the 21st century is between open and closed, Russia looks more interested in opting toward more controllable, technocratic options that involve discretionary data releases instead of an independent judiciary or freedom of assembly or the press.

SEA Change webinar recording online Monitoring and evaluation Q&A session with the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI)

Wed, 22 May 2013 02:36:04 -0500

This closed webinar session titled "Monitoring and evaluation Q&A session with the Sustainable Development Policy Institute" was developed in collaboration with the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), Islamabad Pakistan, and took place on 16 May 2013.

This webinar was a closed session, because we developed and used it to see how SEA Change could make use of webinars as training tool for M&E practitioners, going beyond the current topical presentation and Q&A-format. Upon request we developed a special monitoring and evaluation session in which 15 specific M&E questions were further looked at and discussed:

Why do we need Monitoring & Evaluation?
What are the fundamentals of Monitoring & Evaluation?
What are the main points to focus on during Monitoring & Evaluation?
Which skills do we need to be a good M&E professional?
What are modern ways/methods of Monitoring & Evaluation?
Which types of questions do we need to ask in a survey while Monitoring & Evaluating?
What is the most useful M&E technique for humanitarian projects?
What is the most useful M&E technique for research projects?
What are the fundamentals of Monitoring & Evaluation in ICT Projects?
What is the role of ICT in Monitoring & Evaluation?
How to design a logical and systematic monitoring and evaluation system?
How to gather (question continues)
and analyze (question continues)
qualitative and quantitative information, and (question continues)
communicate M&E evidence effectively?

In the webinar recording we try to give an answer to those questions, though equally satisfying alternative answers surely exist. Click here to access the webinar recording: http://www.seachangecop.org/node/1972

The webinar presentation slides also provide an overview of resources related to all of the above questions and their answers. The presentation slides can be accessed through the following link: http://www.seachangecop.org/node/1973

USAID Video: Water Matters

Tue, 21 May 2013 12:13:09 -0500

Nearly 800 million people lack dependable access to clean water and 2.5 billion lack access to improved sanitation, putting billions at risk of disease. Across the globe, USAID is thinking creatively, empowering women, supporting community-led innovations, and creating sustainable lasting change. Because USAID knows that water matters.

IFC invests $50 million to Help Expand Access to Finance to SMEs in Peru

Tue, 21 May 2013 11:35:02 -0500

IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, today announced a $50 million investment, which will help Banco Interamericano de Finanzas (BanBif) double the number of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) it serves in Peru by 2017.

EBRD and UniCredit will provide loans and leasing finance to Serbian SME's

Tue, 21 May 2013 11:31:20 -0500

The EBRD is strengthening the private sector in Serbia by providing loans and leasing finance to small and medium-sized enterprises through local subsidiaries of UniCredit. The Bank will extend a loan of 30 million loan to UniCredit Bank Serbia for on-lending to private SMEs and up to 15 million to UniCredit Leasing Serbia d.o.o. especially to strengthen equipment leasing.

Union Bank partners GIZ to assist SME development in Sri Lanka

Tue, 21 May 2013 11:17:56 -0500

Director / Chief Executive Officer of Union Bank, Anil Amarasuriya stated, as we work towards our vision of becoming the preferred Bank for SMEs in the country, implementing and adopting programmes that complement our SME nexus is our primary focus. This partnership with GIZ to support small and medium businesses will help to further strengthen our position in the SME banking sphere.

Evidence on Demand Topic Guide: Agriculture and Growth

Tue, 21 May 2013 11:12:08 -0500

The Evidence on Demand team is excited to announce the release of its first ever Topic Guide. Entitled Agriculture and Growth, it marks the start of a series of Topic Guides designed to support the professional development of DFID advisers and other development professionals.*

Agriculture and pro-poor growth

The purpose of this Guide is to stimulate thinking about pro-poor growthin which agriculture is expected to play a major role. Agriculture and Growth outlines the supporting evidence for growth based on small-farm agriculturea sector that has the potential to accelerate poverty reduction whilst stimulating non-farm economic activity. The main issues and arguments are illustrated through a variety of case studies from: Thailand; Ethiopia; Rwanda; and Kenya.

High profile author

Agriculture and Growth was written for Evidence on Demand by Emeritus Professor Frank Ellis. Professor Ellisof the University of East Angliahas spent 40 years researching, writing and teaching on rural development, agricultural policy, livelihoods and social protection.

Free download

To download your free copy of Agriculture and Growth, click here >>>, then click on the PDF icon.

*The second Topic Guideon climate change adaptationis due to published early next month.

Innovations for Citizen Engagement in Fragile States

Tue, 21 May 2013 11:01:31 -0500

This presentation by Soren Gigler (on May 08, 2013) provides an overview about several cases showing how innovations in ICTs can be leveraged to improve the delivery of public services to poor communities. Under which conditions can technologies be transformational in fragile states? What are the opportunities and critical challenges in particular in the context of fragile states? The presentation was part of the session on Using Innovative Approaches for Enhancing Citizen Engagement in Fragile States on May 1, 2013 during the World Bank Group Fragility Forum 2013

ELLA BRIEF: Focus Cities Programme: Multi-stakeholder Participation in City Governance

Tue, 21 May 2013 10:49:46 -0500

Cities are challenged by a variety of environmental problems, most of which are associated with failures in the way urban growth is planned and managed. The International Development Research Centre (IDRC) set up the Focus Cities Research Initiative to address these urban management challenges. It was unusual in that it supported both research and action, and used multi-stakeholder teams to employ action-research and work in partnership with local government and civil society to identify solutions to environmental problems affecting urban dwellers, to implement them and to monitor the results. This brief focuses on the three Latin American Focus Cities (FC) initiatives: Lima, Peru; Cochabamba, Bolivia; and Moreno, Argentina.

Small enterprise impact investing - Exploring the Missing Middle beyond microfinance

Tue, 21 May 2013 10:39:40 -0500

This Symbiotics publication written by the CEO Roland Dominic looks at specific needs of SMEs (mostly MSEs actually) and the various vehicles to fund them (MFIs upscaling, banks downscaling and SME funds).

GSDRC Helpdesk Research Report: Conflict and development in Sudan: Key research institutions

Tue, 21 May 2013 10:29:51 -0500

There are a limited number of UK-based research institutes that include a focus on conflict and development in Sudan. Experts indicate that the Rift Valley Institute (RVI) is the main organisation involved in Sudanese research. Other research institutes that incorporate Sudan or South Sudan in their programming include: the Royal African Society; the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House); ODI; Justice Africa; and the Institute of Development Studies.

Some of the more prominent and widely cited research on Sudanese issues comes from organisations outside of the UK. Therefore, this report also identifies relevant non-UK research bodies such as the Sudd Institute in Juba and the Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI) in Bergen, Norway.

FrontlineSMS and Oro Verde: Market Price information via SMS in Colombia

Tue, 21 May 2013 10:27:11 -0500

The Oro Verde Program, a social enterprise committed to supporting mining communities in Colombia shares a case study on the impact market prices via SMS have had on ensuring miners have access to current Gold prices.This pilot has demonstrated the potential of SMS in improving the way market prices are communicated to miners; both interms of efficiency, and the utility of the information shared. This case study details how the Oro VerdeProgram set their Price SMS service up, and shares the key learning from the experience.

Harnessing All Resources To End Poverty

Tue, 21 May 2013 07:24:40 -0500

The world has changed dramatically since 2000 when the Millennium Development Goals were agreed. The goal to halve extreme poverty was realised ahead of schedule and there is growing consensus that the end of poverty is achievable within a generation. Developing countries now have access to a larger and more diverse range of resources than ever before and, as the world sets priorities through the post-2015 framework, we need to consider how different resource flows public and private, national and international can support the financing of these goals.

This working paper aims to kick-start this debate, to ask how international resource flows can support ending poverty. We present an analysis of flows to different countries, their characteristics, distribution and some of the problems with the data. Comparisons are made with the location of extreme poverty and we project trends in domestic resources and demographics to 2030. The analysis raises a number of important issues:

- Developing countries can broadly be divided into two groups: those with growing domestic (state) resources, and those that will face continued domestic resource constraints (these countries are primarily in sub-Saharan Africa and many are fragile states)

- International aid will continue to play a critical role in ending poverty but in different ways in different contexts

- There is significant potential to yield substantial additional resources for ending poverty through harnessing remittances and FDI (especially natural resource FDI)and curbing outflows of illicit finance.

The Power of Social Networks to Drive Mobile Money Adoption

Tue, 21 May 2013 06:34:46 -0500

This study identifies and explores the key drivers of mobile money (MM) adoption by comparing data from three African countries. It uses innovative analytics and data mining techniques. It processes findings from a data set of 7 billion transactions performed by more than 10 million mobile phone users over 7 months.

The study reveals two key variables that indicate a higher propensity to adopt MM. The first variable is the social network and social interactions of the mobile user. Individuals with five MM connections are over 3.5 times more likely to adopt MM than individuals with only one MM connection. The second key variable is the users telecom usage profile. Adopters tend to call twice as much as non adopters, send twice as many SMS, rely more on electronic recharges than scratch cards for airtime credit, and use more data than non adopters.

Civil Society and Civic Engagement in the Arab States Region

Tue, 21 May 2013 06:28:46 -0500

The peoples movement that spread across North Africa and other parts of the Arab world in 2011 expressed a growing demand for government accountability, especially by the younger generation. It resulted in political transitions or reforms in half a dozen countries, affecting the lives of over 100 million people. In spite of significant gains, many countries still face pressing problems - civil unrest, rising unemployment, weak institutional capacities and challenges in ensuring fair elections and constitutional processes. All these underline the important need for cooperative and transparent state - citizen relations to achieve a viable and peaceful transition.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) launched a new strategy for working in these countries, one that is geared towards engaging a diversity of stakeholders, from the Government to community-based organizations. Civil society organizations (CSOs) are crucial partners for UNDP in the Arab States region in bringing about concrete, sustainable and nationally-owned change at all levels of society.

FrontlineSMS and Oro Verde: Market Price information via SMS in Colombia

Tue, 21 May 2013 06:22:48 -0500

The Oro Verde Program is a social enterprise committed to supporting mining communities in Colombia; helping support use of sustainable mining techniques and access to fair prices. The Oro Verde Program has been using FrontlineSMS software for sending and receiving text messages, in order to provide an accessible market price information system to the communities they support. This service has been piloted to show its potential to improve the way that market prices are communicated to miners; both in terms of efficiency, and the utility of the information shared. This case study details how the Oro Verde Program set their Price SMS service up, and shares the key learning from the experience.

Immersion, Service, and Civic Engagement in South Africa

Tue, 21 May 2013 06:20:59 -0500

The purpose of this paper is to explore the ways in which study abroad, immersion, and service can be combined in a way that is most beneficial for the students and the local communities where the students visit. To examine this issue, I focus on a few specific questions: What is the purpose of a study abroad experience? What is cultural immersion and is it an important goal for study abroad programs? What are the advantages and disadvantages of establishing a 'community service' project as part of a study abroad experience? As will become clear, even if there is agreement on the purposes and goals of study abroad, cultural immersion, and service learning, it is imperative that students, teachers, and administrators think critically about how to implement such programs if we are to provide meaningful study abroad and community service opportunities to our students.

Lowering barriers to adoption isnt just one approach its critical to real scale

Tue, 21 May 2013 06:15:48 -0500

Critics of ICT for development (although this post applies at least as well to ICT in any field, including business) are keen to see technologies moving beyond endless pilots to rolling out at real scale.

Organizations have to shift from whatever technology or communications channel was in use before, to that plus SMS, or maybe just SMS. This is complex enough, requiring users to think through what is different about SMS than their previous solution there may be privacy and data integrity concerns, there may be budgeting differences, staffing may need to change. We spend a lot of time talking with users and clients about these issues. Examples of actions that may arise from this type of change would be a new data protection policy, staff being issued additional phones for use just for work, or monitoring of a control group to ensure that use of SMS is not skewing data collection.

We need to design systems that deliver what different people need at their own level. Adoption of technology will be easier if it uses appropriately accessible hardware, affordable or cost-effective and easy to maintain; if the interface is simple to use and easy to pick up; and if control and use of the platform rests at the level of the problem it seeks to solve.

Civic Engagement of Youth in the Middle East and North Africa

Tue, 21 May 2013 06:10:41 -0500

In the wake of the Arab Awakening, Mercy Corps and other agencies are grappling with the question: How can the recent surge of self-assertion and of political activism by Arab youth be harnessed to promote more participatory governance and equitable development within the region? To help answer this question, Mercy Corps recently undertook research into what works to promote youth civic engagement in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and what benefits can be expected for the youth who participate, and their broader societies. The study provides strong evidence on what changes to Arab youth's political voice, social capital, propensity towards political violence, and employability are likely to result from increasing their levels of civic engagement.

The results show that few of these changes are automatic. Rather youth civic engagement initiatives must make deliberate efforts to influence them. To address youth marginalization, programs must reach youth from rural areas, young women, and at-risk youth whose voices are the most underrepresented in public debates and decisions. To strengthen young peoples social and civic values, programs need to support sustained involvement of youth in civic groups and actions, as one-off participation has little effect. And for civic engagement programs to impact young peoples economic opportunities, they must include deliberate activities geared towards preparing youth for the job market.

AFP, China Daily Coverage of AidData/CGD Study of Chinese Development Finance to Africa

Tue, 21 May 2013 04:25:29 -0500

Over the last several weeks, there has been a fair amount of media coverage related to AidData's publication of a new database of Chinese development finance to Africa (available at china.aiddata.org) and a new working paper from AidData and CGD staff and faculty affiliates. Some media outlets have characterized our findings more accurately than others. Agence France-Presse (AFP) ran an article article entitled China Ranks Second to US in Money to Africa and did a reasonably good job of ensuring that readers understood the distinction between "official finance" and "official development assistance". However, other media outlets were not quite so careful and conflated our estimates of official finance with "aid". Other news agencies slurred the crucial distinction between official commitments and the actual provision of resources.

Lest there be any confusion, our CGD working paper indicates that we were only able to classify roughly $13 billion in development finance activities that seemed to fall in line with the OECD's definition of "official development assistance" (ODA) commitments. On an average annual basis, that is roughly $1.1 billion per year, which is significantly less ODA than the US commits to Africa each year. However, we also track (a) flows from the Chinese government to Africa that fall closely in line with the OECD's "other official flows" (OOF) definition, and (b) official flows from China to Africa for which we have insufficient information to make an ODA or OOF designation "Vague Official". If you sum all ODA-like, OOF-like, and Vague Official commitments from the Chinese government to Africa over the twelve year study period, you arrive at an estimate of $75.4 billion in reported official finance commitments.

To its credit, China Daily made an admirable attempt to explain these categorical distinctions to their readers. They were also correct to note that the publication of our database does not represent an attempt to reveal government secrets. AidData has a strong track record of working with governments and inter-governmental organizations to help make their development finance data more accessible and actionable. Our objective is simply to generate more granular and comprehensive Chinese development finance data using systematic, transparent, and replicable methods. We are motivated by the conviction that open data will improve our collective understanding of the distribution and impact of Chinese development finance.

Why Open Data Matters: G-8 and African Nations Increase Open Data for Food Security

Tue, 21 May 2013 04:17:01 -0500

Jimmy Wambua, a social justice worker and young entrepreneur in Nairobi, Kenya, saw a problem. In a country where smallholder farmers grow the food that feeds the Kenyan people, crop yields were not reaching their full potential and growers were not getting a fair price. Decisions about what crops to plant and when were made on speculation and instinct, and farmers sold their crops based on prices offered by middlemen and traders. A solution seemed evident: increase access and sharing of information that already exists and is public, but is not in-use by the farmers. Jimmy joined the M-Farm organization that set up a text-message based mobile phone application for farmers to gain a better price by accessing market price for their crops- rather than relying on the word of the buyer- and provide a platform for farmers to sell their goods online. USAID contributed to the work of M-Farm- not through a grant or loan or other financial capital- but with information capital. With the release of an open data set from the Famine Early Warning System (FEWSNet) M-Farm now has access to ten years of historic data about market prices of crops, which show trends in crop price fluctuation, and enables better decision making on which crops to plant to yield the highest income.

M-Farms story was just one of dozens that took the stage April 29 & 30 at the G-8 International Open Agriculture Data Conference and showcased innovative organizations that use open data to support global food security. Dr. Howard-Yana Shapiro of Mars Global shared progress on mapping the genomes of over 100 crops that are vital to food security, but are overlooked because they are not commercially viable. Palantir Technologies and Grameen Foundation displayed their open data app that they developed at USAIDs Hack for Hunger,which uses community knowledge worker-collected data and Palantir analytics to build a crop-specific food security early warning system for farmers in Uganda.

Electronic governance, premise for implementation of electronic democracy

Tue, 21 May 2013 04:12:09 -0500

Living in a rapidly changing society, where information travels with great speed and its upgrade is essential, we decided to approach certain aspects of e-democracy, as a dynamic way of citizen participation, using new Information and Communications Technologies. The theme chosen for this research, Electronic governance, premise for implementation of electronic democracy, is a part of Electronic Administration field and identifies the meanings of implementing e-government and e-democracy, the necessity and effects of putting them into practice and the conditions to be fulfilled for the development of electronic services and fostering citizen participation in their use.

E-governance as well as e-democracy has a clear contribution in making social progress, thanks to capitalize the most important irreversible resource, the time for achievement of the main administrative operations. The overall objective of the research aims to establish the relationship between governance and electronic democracy. From this perspective, this paper will contain: analyzing the importance of both e-governance and e-democracy, risks and benefits for each one, clarifying the need and implications underlying the implementation of electronic systems and explain the conditions to be met by citizens in order to benefit from these services. To achieve the objectives set, will be dominant the analyzing method of the social phenomena in their evolution. They will also combine harmoniously with practical examples in various member states of the European Union.

Mobiles for Social & Behaviour Change in India

Tue, 21 May 2013 04:06:07 -0500

The consultation paper (draft) presents the key areas of emphasis in the growing mobile for development space in India. The purpose is to understand the scope and magnitude of the expanding mobile domain as it is lately linked essentially to advance development and governance objectives and seen as the most democratic technology medium to offer scope to deliver service needs anytime, anywhere. The Paper content has been derived from existing research and field inputs. The paper is intended to assist consultation (Mobiles for Social and Behavior Change) stakeholders to get an overview of issues, scope and relevance in mobile thrust to support development efforts of the government and private players including bilateral agencies and civil society bodies.

A review of 13 practices for this paper indicates the most common sectors for focus are education, health, socio-economic development, and disaster management well within the central focus of MDGs. There is evidence that stakeholders are interested and expressed keenness in using mobiles as service and solution providers, yet there remain vital challenges towards sustaining the pilots and scaling them. The pilot initiatives have highlighted two essential points. One, mobiles have emerged as effective mechanism to derive project impacts in information dissemination, project monitoring / tracking, training of frontline workers and interpersonal communication practices. Second, mobile projects calls for inclusive agenda among stakeholders in multi-stakeholder partnership mode.

Civic Engagement in the Digital Age

Tue, 21 May 2013 03:35:34 -0500

Social networking sites have grown more important in recent years as a venue for political involvement, learning, and debate. Overall, 39% of all American adults took part in some sort of political activity on a social networking site during the 2012 campaign.

This means that more Americans are now politically active on social networking sites (SNS) than used them at all as recently as the 2008 election campaign. At that point, 26% of the population used a social networking site of any kind.

The growth in several specific behaviors between 2008 and 2012 illustrates the increasing importance of SNS as places where citizens can connect with political causes and issues:

In 2012, 17% of all adults posted links to political stories or articles on social networking sites, and 19% posted other types of political content. That is a six-fold increase from the 3% of adults who posted political stories or links on these sites in 2008.

In 2012, 12% of all adults followed or friended a political candidate or other political figure on a social networking site, and 12% belonged to a group on a social networking site involved in advancing a political or social issue. That is a four-fold increase from the 3% of adults who took part in these behaviors in 2008.

A website that help Indians save electricity bill

Tue, 21 May 2013 03:24:24 -0500

Abhishek Jain has come a long way since he left a high-profile job in Deloitte to help Indians save electricity at home. His online initiative, bijlibachao.com, not only helps analyse electricity bills but also calculates how a consumer can save money by choosing the right colour for a room and correctly placing appliances.

An electricity bill is a confusing entity. If the bill is Rs. 2,000 - 3,000, lets go pay it, but how it gets to Rs. 2,000 - 3,000 no one knows, and one just goes and pays the bill. The whole idea is to help them understand why the amount has gone up and help reduce it, said 31-year-old Jain, an alumnus of Indian Institute of Technology and founder of the website.

Appliances such as refrigerators can save electricity if appropriately placed in the house, according to him. It is a well-known fact that refrigerators release heat, but if it is not given ample place, it will not cool properly, affecting its efficiency. Stuffing it with warm food uses up a lot of electricity, risking its efficiency. Such tips are on the website for viewers to read.

Latest ACP-EU updates: donors conference for Mali, EU Council on Agriculture and Fisheries, and Brussels Briefing

Tue, 21 May 2013 03:17:06 -0500

The international donors conference for Mali, the conclusions of the last EU Council on Agriculture and Fisheries, and the last Brussels Briefing "Linking food, geography and people" - these are the main topics of the last CTA Brussels newsletter. Discover it here: http://bit.ly/13HnmwB