Zunia.org

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

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

Nepal: Country Partnership Strategy 2010-2012 Final Review Validation

Tue, 21 May 2013 00:51:45 -0500

This report validates the findings of the country partnership strategy (CPS) final review, assess the quality of the self-evaluation and identify lessons and recommendations to improve the design and implementation of the upcoming CPS, as well as the quality and accountability of future self-evaluations.

Code for America

Mon, 20 May 2013 18:19:01 -0500

Code for America seeks to help governments in the United States to work better for everyone utilizing the people and the power of the web. Through its Fellowship, Accelerator, and Brigade, it seeks to build a network of cities, citizens, community groups, and startups, all equally committed to reimagining government for the 21st century.

Code for America is a non-profit, and a new kind of organization. Its team is made up of web geeks, city experts, and technology industry leaders. Its staff is building a network of civic leaders and organizations who believe there is a better way of doing things and want to make a difference.

While currently Code for America does not seem to work with developing countries, it might be an interesting model to follow in those developing countries with comparable communities of experts.

Good Things Grown in Scaled Packages: Africa's Agricultural Challenge in Historical Context

Mon, 20 May 2013 16:26:39 -0500

"In recent years agriculture has experienced a renaissance of attention among economists and policymakers, especially those focused on sub-Saharan Africa. This heightened attention has been driven partly by research insights, partly by policy initiatives, and partly by a recognition that governments and major international development institutions had been neglecting the issue for many years. It has also been motivated by emerging trends in particular countries like Malawi, which implemented an ambitious small-holder subsidy program starting in 2005 and subsequently registered its first two consecutive years with average cereal yields above two tons per hectare in 2009 and 2010, according to recent Word Bank data.

"One indicator of the renaissance is a sizeable increase in official development assistance (ODA) directed towards agriculture. ODA for agriculture was consistently in the range of $4 billion to $5 billion for the decade before 2006. Since then, it has experienced a significant jump, reaching more than $8 billion in 2010. Concurrently average African cereal yields per hectare experienced a slight uptick, rising above 1.3 tons per hectare for the first time in 2009, after oscillating in the range of 0.9-1.2 t/ha for more than thirty years since 1975. It remains to be seen whether these yield increases reflect the beginnings of structural change.

"Africas average yields still remain much lower than those in any other region. Although Africas total factor productivity in agriculture is estimated to have increased in recent decades its food production per capita remains essentially unchanged since 1960. Continued stagnation implies fast-growing costs in terms of lives affected, as the regions population is slated to surpass one billion people by 2017 and approach two billion by 2050, according to the U.N. population divisions medium projections. A number of recent papers have underscored the major role of agriculture in reducing poverty and accelerating economic growth, so the stagnant trends have important macroeconomic implications. Esther Duflo and colleagues have also investigated questions related to farmer choices around the key input of fertilizer, motivated significantly by arguments surrounding the role of subsidies."

John McArthur, The Brookings Institution, May 2013

Mastering the SME banking risk management frontier by Mandeep Vohra, Head of SME Banking Risk Africa, Middle East and Pakistan at Standard Chartered Bank

Mon, 20 May 2013 13:01:28 -0500

Mandeep Vohra from Standard Chartered Bank outlines the various risk management approaches for banking SMEs and the need to have a distinct team of SME Risk specialist.This presentation was given during a conference jointly organized by The Arab Monetary Fund and IFC on Building a High Performance Small Medium Enterprise Business in the Arab World on 7-8 May 2013 in Dubai, UAE.

Equal access participatory monitoring and evaluation toolkit

Mon, 20 May 2013 12:33:43 -0500

This toolkit aims to help communication for development (C4D) organisations to demonstrate the impacts and outcomes of their initiatives, listen to their listeners, continuously learn, and feed this learning back into the organisation and its practices. It is a key outcome of the Assessing Communication for Social Change (AC4SC) project, which was a successful collaboration between Equal Access Nepal, Equal Access International, Queensland University of Technology and the University of Adelaide, Australia.

The toolkit is guided by the principles of the Communication for Social Change approach to C4D and participatory monitoring and evaluation (PM&E). It is based on recent ideas about effective evaluation and evaluation capacity development and learnings from the AC4SC project. This toolkit aims to help C4D organisations to become learning organisations that regularly critically reflect on their work.

Either the whole toolkit, or individual modules can be used. The toolkit encourages you to include as many people and stakeholders in your monitoring and evaluation work as possible. Its methods are largely qualitative, because through qualitative approaches you often learn something new and unexpected and gather rich insights into the subtle processes involved in social change. However, it encourages you to use a range of methods, including those that provide useful quantitative data.

Mobile phones unleash farmers in Uganda

Mon, 20 May 2013 12:30:01 -0500

A powerful new mobile platform combining agriculture information and financial services specifically designed for smallholder farmers is going live in Uganda, helping farmers plow even more value from each acre. Based on AgriLife, a cloud-based platform, the platform will be accessible via mobile phone and provide two key, interconnected services: data collection and analysis about farmers production capability and history. It will also be an integration point for financial institutions, mobile network operators, produce buyers, and their agents to more efficiently provide much-needed services to distant, rural farmers.

The data analysis will drive the growth of services and products that benefit smallholder farmers based on a better understanding of their production capability. The more high-quality, comprehensive data that can be collected, the more valuable an asset it becomes, as service providers can better understand farmers needs and tailor their offerings - like crop insurance, input payments, and savings accounts.

Overcoming Constraints to SME Development in MENA Countries and Enhancing Access to Finance

Mon, 20 May 2013 11:55:00 -0500

The role of the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector cannot be over emphasized in terms of its contribution to GDP and employment generation, particularly in emerging economies. Studies indicate that formal SMEs contribute up to 45 percent of employment and up to 33 percent of GDP in developing economies (IFC: Scaling-Up SME Access to Financial Services in the Developing World 2010). These numbers are significantly higher when taking into account the estimated contributions of SMEs operating in the informal sector.

Author: Qamar Saleem, Senior SME Banking Specialist MENA, IFC

iHub Researchs Uchaguzi Monitoring & Evaluation Brief

Mon, 20 May 2013 11:53:03 -0500

During Kenyas 2013 General Election, Uchaguzi Kenya 2013, a joint initiative between SODNET, Ushahidi, CRECO, and Hivos (with support from CIDA), was used to help increase transparency and accountability through active citizen participation in the electoral cycle. Uchaguzi was coordinated through an ICT platform, which enabled Kenyans to keep an eye on the vote and provided avenues through which they could report, with any technology available to them, any incidences significant to the election.

Concurrent with the Uchaguzi deployment, iHub Research assessed how well Uchaguzi achieved its mission. The research will identify the strengths and weaknesses in the deployment and aims to create a toolkit of lessons learned that can be used by future ICT Election Watch deployments.

This brief is the first of 2 reports and is a first look at the Uchaguzi KE 2013 process. In June 2013, iHub Research will be publishing an in-depth report detailing the successes and challenges of the platform, especially around the key areas of technology, partnerships, publicity and outreach, and personnel.

Citizen Election reporting in Kenya was a breakthrough in online-offline collaboration

Mon, 20 May 2013 11:49:23 -0500

The Kenyan elections were more than a month ago, but a debate continues in the crisis mapping community about whether the various technologies deployed to track and respond to outbreaks of violence were a confused and possibly dangerous mess, or a successful contribution to what was ultimately a peaceful (if disputed) process.

DO WE REALLY NEED ALL OF THOSE PROJECTS??? Do we really need 3 maps, 7 phone numbers, and several web-forms? Is that really such a crazy bad idea to have one coordinated number/web-form that could then have in the back-end multiple responders and organizations working together? Anahi Ayala

The criticism goes on to describe this duplication as irresponsible and dangerous, especially supposing that the submitted information has no real response mechanism. While its true that having multiple public numbers for submitting information about one election is not ideal, I believe that behind the scenes was a much more encouraging process that has only just begun.

The Umpteenth Blog on using SMS Feedback in ProjectsNow with Support!

Mon, 20 May 2013 11:35:13 -0500

With shiny apps hogging the mobile spotlight these days, one could be forgiven for forgetting about SMS (Short Message Service or text messaging). When equipping a project to receive and respond to complaints, its important to remember that all modes of communication contain tradeoffs that exclude different types of people depending on the type of message they have. Face to face prevents true anonymity. Mail is slow. Phone calls can become expensive. And just to prove that the nice folks at Frontline didnt seek to brainwash the class, SMS is no magic bullet either! It cant be used directly by those unable to read or write and its difficult for the elderly and disabled to type on a phone.

SMS feedback has unique aspects which make it worthy of inclusion into any grievance redress mechanism and I encourage you to consider adding it to your project. And in case youre worried about the technical details, the set-up isnt hard. You probably dont need a consultant. Youll need to buy the right hardware, sure, but DRP can help with that. The really hard part is using that feedback to effectively resolve complaints, drive decisions and improve results. Fortunately, were happy to help with that too.

IFC SME Banking Conference 2013: Building a high performance SME business in the MENA region

Mon, 20 May 2013 11:35:03 -0500

The topic of this 2013 conference, Building a high performing SME business, is of critical importance for the MENA region. SMEs need access to banking services to create jobs and support economic growth, but only 20 percent of them have access to credit, and the SME funding gap in the region is estimated at $160 billion. Banks and policy makers in the region are aware of these opportunities and are developing new strategies to support SMEs. The AMF and the IFC are working together to support these important efforts.The conference gathered around 250 bankers and international SME experts from more than 20 countries to share experiences on best practice SME banking.

Paper - Overcoming constraints for SME development in MENA countries and increasing access to finance

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Session 1: CEO Perspectives - Making SME Banking a Strategic Priority
With rapidly eroding growth opportunities in retail and corporate banking, Banks are increasingly looking for avenues to build a competitive and sustainable SME business. This session will discuss CEO strategy to scale up SME Banking operations.

Moderator: Aftab Ahmed, Director, IFC EMENA Financial Markets
Raheel Ahmed, Regional Head of Consumer Banking, Standard Chartered Bank
Atif Bajwa, CEO, Al Falah Bank, Pakistan
Fadel El Halaissi, Delegate General Manager, BMCE Bank, Morocco
Bernd van Linder, Managing Director and CEO, Saudi Hollandi Bank

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Session 2: Opportunities and Changing Landscape in SME Banking in MENA
With a funding gap for MENA SME estimated at USD 170 billion, Financial Institutions in the regions are launching new SME banking initiatives. This session will focus on the business case for sustainable SME banking in MENA, latest innovations and global best practices in SME banking, and the importance of financial infrastructure to increase outreach.

Moderator: James Gohary, Regional Manager, Financial Markets and
Private Equity Funds-MENA, IFC
Mutsa Chironga, Associate Principal, McKinsey & Company
Hafid Oubrik, Financial Sector Specialist, Arab Monetary Fund
Matthew Gamser, Head, SME Finance Forum, IFC

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Session 3: Regional Initiatives and Role of Regulators in SME Banking Development
The MENA region is witnessing various regional initiatives to improve SMEs access to finance. In addition, regulators are playing an important role to improve the enabling environment for SME banking. This session will discuss best practice policies to promote SME banking.

Moderator: Yisr Barnieh, Arab Monetary Fund, Chief of Financial Markets Division
AbdulKarim AlArhabi, Secretary General, SMEs Facility, Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development
May Abulnaga, Head, Regulations Department, Central Bank of Egypt
Ashraf Khan, Executive Director, State Bank of Pakistan
Badr El Din Ibrahim, Director, Central Bank of Sudan

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Session 4: Mastering the SME Banking Risk Management Frontier
SME Banking is often viewed as a high risk market segment. However, SME Banking business can yield attractive returns, one of the best, on risk adjusted return basis. This session will discuss the ways banks must adopt differentiated risk management techniques, innovate approaches of assessing the credit risk involved, and use technology and analytics to dynamically manage portfolio risks.

Moderator: Cameron Evans, Principal Risk Management Specialist, IFC
Lawrence Antioch, Managing Director-Group Risk, DBS Bank Singapore
Mandeep Vohra, Head of SME Risk, Middle East, Pakistan and Africa, Standard Chartered Bank
Oscar Madeddu, Principal Financial Specialist, IFC

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Session 5: Maximizing SME revenues - through Strategic Customer Management
Profitably serving the SME sector requires not just a deep understanding of the best segments to serve, but also of the financial needs and revenue drivers for each customer segment. This session will provide insights on how banks have radically increased revenues through developing customized propositions at targeted segments.

Moderator: Xavier Reille, Manager, Financial Sector Advisory Services, IFC MENA
Andrew McCartney, Global Product Specialist, IFC MENA
Christian Wessels, Partner, Roland Berger Strategy Consultants
Turgut Boz, SME Banking Assistant General Manager, TEB Turkey

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Session 6: Women in Business - Leveraging Segment Opportunities
Despite being an emerging & profitable business segment, most banks do not have a differentiated value proposition for serving Women in Business. This session will discuss how to use market research to develop a segment strategy and develop an attractive value proposition for women entrepreneurs.

Moderator: Qamar Saleem, Senior SME Banking Specialist, IFC MENA
Larke Riemer, Director, Womens Markets, Westpac Bank, Australia
Tania Moussallem, Head of Strategic Development, BLC, Lebanon
Hanan Saab, Founder and Managing Director, Pharmamed, Lebanon
Patience Marime-Ball, Principal Investment Officer, IFC, Washington DC

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Session 7: Making a difference with SME Islamic Banking
Islamic banking has enjoyed a double digit growth over the past 10 years providing new opportunities for SME finance. This session will address the opportunities and challenges of serving SME customers with Islamic banking products.

Moderator: Kaiser Naseem, Program Manager, IFC MENA
Ashar M. Nazim, Islamic Financial Services, Ernst & Young Bahrain
Tariq Hameed, Senior Vice President, Capitas Group
Neil Miller, Global Head of Islamic Finance, Linklaters
Mubashar Khokhar, Management Consultants Islamic Advisory, Israa Capital

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Session 8: Integrating Alternative Channels into SME Banking Value Proposition
Cost to serve SMEs, which are in most circumstances widely dispersed, nonhomogeneous in nature and offering smaller revenue wallet, poses a significant challenge to banks. This session will discuss how to leverage new delivery channels to lower operating costs, build internal efficiencies and maintain customer satisfaction levels.

Moderator: Margarete Biallas, Global Product Leader, Retail Payment Institutions & Innovation, IFC
Scott Stefanski, Maana Mobile
Teresita Tan, President, BPI Globe BankKO, Philippines
Rohit Arora, Chief Executive Officer, Biz2Credit
Milkah Chebii, Head of Retail Banking Channels & Operations, Kenya Commercial Bank

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Session 9: Using SME Advisory Services as a Competitive Advantage
Leading SME banks have developed successful SME advisory programs to differentiate their value proposition and better manage risks. This session explores experiences of banks that have implemented such strategies, the challenges faced and the benefits reaped of this differentiated approach.

Moderator: Sylvia Zulu, Manager, Sustainable Business Advisory, IFC MENA
Michel Botzung, Principal Operations Officer, IFC
Steven A. Tambunting, Vice President and Board Director, Planters Bank, Philippines
Regina Bundang, General Manager, Regalo Service & Redwood Internet, Philippines
Saad N. Mouasher, Senior Deputy CEO, Jordan Ahli Bank, Jordan

Market for feature phone apps is low-tech goldmine

Mon, 20 May 2013 11:29:07 -0500

In the West, you might deploy a bus tracking app on your smartphone to inform you when that errant bus will arrive. But in India the mobile infrastructure is less developed. Even if it were available, many people don't have smartphones to take advantage of such apps. Feature phones, which perhaps boast basic forms of GPS, camera, MP3 player and some kind of internet access, as well as the ability to run simple apps, have become increasingly popular in the developing world. They occupy the middle ground between basic phones that simply make, and receive calls and text messages, and smartphones.

Research firm Gartner estimates worldwide feature phone sales totalled 264.4 million units in the fourth quarter of 2012, easily outstripping smartphone sales of 207.7 million. Such massive markets, because of the nature and sophistication of the target devices, would appear in theory to be quick and easy to exploit. There are a couple of tough issues for those offering apps and other services through feature phones. The first is getting people to realise they exist. Then companies need to work out how to actually get them onto the phone.

In South Africa, Organizers Combine Old and New Media to Take on Corruption

Mon, 20 May 2013 11:26:20 -0500

According to Transparency Internationals Corruption Perception Index 2012, South Africa received a score of 4.4 out of 10, with 10 being the least corrupt and 0 the most. The Corruption Watch team, many of whom are former journalists, has been keen to leverage their contacts in traditional media outlets as well. With limited budgets, this outreach is more challenging for the NGO, yet necessary in order to reach the South African public. The team has worked with local television, radio, and print news on exposes on corruption as well as general coverage. In 2013, for example, they negotiated the inclusion of their 19-page anniversary report in Johannesburgs The City Press, which is the company's third-largest newspaper with an average of 2.5 million readers per day.

The publicity and awareness campaigns of Corruption Watch have been particularly effective in shining a light on corruption due to their multifaceted media approach. As an NGO with limited resources, their team has leveraged social media as an inexpensive and effective means of communicating with the next generation. The team itself publishes its own material to the site, about 30 new articles each month, including new media visuals like infographics and other creative media representations of corruption in South Africa, their progress, and their greatest challenges.

The No More Tjo-Tjo campaign, challenged the pervasiveness of the solicitation of traffic bribes. By issuing Know Your Rights cards to motorists, by tracking data on traffic police corruption, and by outlining a plan of action for the Johannesburg police, Corruption Watch dove into this prevalent issue in South African society in early 2012, and in just 8 months, they exposed thatone in four motorists were solicited for a bribe in 2010 alone. These efforts, coupled with an expansive media outreach campaign, garnered an impressive amount of press coverage, forcing city officials to respond.

ELLA BRIEF: Community Participation in IFI-Funded Development Projects: Latin Americas Experience

Mon, 20 May 2013 11:12:58 -0500

Major development projects involving infrastructure or extractive industries - both in Latin America and other regions - tend to be financed, either partially or totally, by international financial institutions (IFIs). Given that these types of large-scale projects could have adverse effects on local communities livelihoods, cultural heritage and environment, IFIs have established mechanisms to guarantee that the projects they fund meet international environmental and social standards. Though not perfect, such mechanisms do at least allow organised citizens to access project information and to demand concrete ways to get engaged in project decision making. Using a successful case from Mexico, this Brief reflects on the role of informed citizen participation as a crucial factor facilitating accountability within development projects with international funding.

DESIGNING EVALUATIONS:

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:16:54 -0500

This publication supersedes PEMD-10.1.4, Designing Evaluations, May 1, 1991. GAO assists congressional decision makers in their deliberations by furnishing them with analytical information on issues and options. Many diverse methodologies are needed to develop sound and timely answers to the questions the Congress asks. To provide GAO evaluators with basic information about the more commonly used methodologies, GAOs policy guidance includes documents such as methodology transfer papers and technical guides.

This methodology transfer paper addresses the logic of program evaluation designs. It introduces key issues in planning evaluation studies of federal programs to best meet decision makers needs while accounting for the constraints evaluators face. It describes different types of evaluations for answering varied questions about program performance, the process of designing evaluation studies, and key issues to consider toward ensuring overall study quality.

To improve federal program effectiveness, accountability and service delivery, the Congress enacted the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA), establishing a statutory framework for performance management and accountability, including the requirement that federal agencies set goals and report annually on progress towards those goals and program evaluation findings. In response to this and related management reforms, federal agencies have increased their attention to conducting program evaluations. The GPRA Modernization Act of 2010 raised the visibility of performance information by requiring quarterly reviews of progress towards agency and governmentwide priority goals. Designing Evaluations is a guide to successfully completing evaluation design tasks. It should help GAO evaluatorsand others interested in assessing federal programs and policiesplan useful evaluations and become educated consumers of evaluations.

Designing Evaluations is one of a series of papers whose purpose is to provide guides to various aspects of audit and evaluation methodology and indicate where more detailed information is available. It is based on GAO studies and policy documents and program evaluation literature. To ensure the guides competence and usefulness, drafts were reviewed by selected GAO, federal and state agency evaluators, and evaluation authors and practitioners from professional consulting firms. This paper updates a 1991 version issued by GAOs prior Program Evaluation and Methodology Division. It supersedes that earlier version and incorporates changes in federal program evaluation and performance measurement since GPRA was implemented.

UNDP Handbook on Planning, Monitoring and Evaluating for Development Results

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:12:09 -0500

This Handbook on Planning, Monitoring and Evaluating for Development Results is an updated edition of the 2002 edition of Handbook on Monitoring and Evaluation for Results1. It seeks to address new directions in planning, monitoring and evaluation in the context of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) corporate strategic plan, the requirements of the UNDP evaluation policy approved by the Executive Board in 2006 and the United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG) Standards for Evaluation in the UN System2. The updated Handbook also incorporates information recommended by key users of the Handbook during various workshops held by UNDP units.

The guiding framework of UNDP for planning, monitoring and evaluation is provided in the Programme and Operations Policy and Procedure (POPP)3 , the evaluation policy , and the UNEG Standards for Evaluation in the UN System. The POPP and evaluation policy4 aim to provide guidance to UNDP management and staff on key functions and mechanisms through which the results and principles enshrined in the overarching programmatic documents of UNDP, including the strategic plan, are to be achieved. They reflect the intentions of the Executive Board and also inform UNDP stakeholders of how UNDP conducts its work.

These documents provide the prescriptive content on what needs to be done, by whom and by when. This Handbook complements this content by providing UNDP programme units with guidance on how to and practical tools to strengthen results-oriented planning, monitoring and evaluation in UNDP.

Research Excellence Framework

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:03:54 -0500

The UK's Research Excellence Framework (REF) is the new system for assessing the quality of research in UK higher education institutions (HEIs). It will replace theResearch Assessment Exercise(RAE) and will be completed in 2014.

The REF will be undertaken by the four UK higher education funding bodies. The exercise will be managed by the REF team based at HEFCE and overseen by the REF Steering Group, consisting of representatives of the four funding bodies.

The primary purpose of the REF is to produce assessment outcomes for each submission made by institutions:

The funding bodies intend to use the assessment outcomes to inform the selective allocation of their research funding to HEIs, with effect from 2015-16.
The assessment provides accountability for public investment in research and produces evidence of the benefits of this investment.
The assessment outcomes provide benchmarking information and establish reputational yardsticks.

The REF is a process of expert review. HEIs will be invited to make submissions in36units of assessment.Submissions will be assessed by an expert sub-panel for each unit of assessment, working under the guidance of four main panels.Sub-panels will apply a set of genericassessment criteria and level definitions, to produce an overall quality profile for each submission.

Big Data from Cheap Phones

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:00:39 -0500

Caroline Buckee, a Harvard epidemiologist, is using detailed data on population movements - gleaned from mobile phones - to build precise new tools for fighting the spread of malaria. Buckees most recent study, published last year in Science and based on records from 15 million Kenyan phones, is a result of a collaboration with her husband, Nathan Eagle, who has been working to make sense of cell-phone data for more than a decade.

That demonstration suggests how such data might be harnessed to build tools that health-care workers, governments, and others can use to detect and monitor epidemics, manage disasters, and optimize transportation systems. Already, similar efforts are being directed toward goals as varied as understanding commuting patterns around Paris and managing festival crowds in Belgium. But mining phone records could be particularly useful in poor regions, where theres often little or no other data-gathering infrastructure.

Last year the World Economic Forum - the group of leading industry, academic, and political figures who converge annually at Davos, Switzerland - issued a call for governments, development organizations, and companies to develop data analysis tools to improve the lives of people in the poor world.

DFID Working Paper 38. Broadening the range of designs and methods for impact evaluations.

Mon, 20 May 2013 09:57:56 -0500

Summary:

This report brings together the findings and conclusions of a study on Impact Evaluation (IE) commissioned by DFID. It comprises an executive summary and 7 chapters:

Introducing the study

Defining impact evaluation

Choosing designs and methods

Evaluation questions and evaluation designs

Programme attributes and designs

Quality assurance

Conclusions and next steps

Each of the main chapters has a main message box at the beginning that highlights the key points in that chapter. The final chapter draws together 10 study conclusions and briefly outlines some proposed follow ups to the study.

Challenges for Community Radio in India's Rural Development

Mon, 20 May 2013 09:56:23 -0500

Indias 12th Five Year Plan (2012-2017) talks of challenges emanating from the economys transition to a higher growth path, the structural changes that come with it and the expectations it generates. These parameters are more critical for an estimated 833 million people in India who continue to live in rural areas and a very large proportion of whom, both men and women, are either wholly or significantly still dependent for their livelihood on farm as well as non-farm activities.

A grant of license to set up a community radio station is processed approximately in ten months in the Ministries of Information & Broadcasting and Telecommunications. Advertising or announcements relating to socio-economic development, local events, local businesses, services and employment opportunities are allowed for a maximum duration of 5 minutes per hour of broadcast in a day (minimum two hours of broadcasting). The current number of such community radio stations in the country, of which a majority are housed in urban university campuses, is just 141.

Building on the experience and learning during the Eleventh Plan Period, it would be extremely worthwhile to analyse the extent and impact of coverage by operational community radio stations of vulnerable sections of society such as scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, minorities, women and especially children. Thus, the fourth governance challenge would be to identify regions and themes where extra energies need to be devoted to motivate non profit civil society applicants to establish community radio stations.

Research to Action

Mon, 20 May 2013 09:42:55 -0500

Research to Action (R2A) is an initiative catering for the strategic and practical needs of people trying to improve the way social, economic and environmental development research is communicated and utilised.

Its stated mission is "to guide and support effective research engagement and communication. The result of which can 'help give research a chance' to inform decision-making processes, bring about social change and have impact. We believe that if research is made more interesting, accessible and relevant to policymakers and practitioners, it will be more likely be utilised."

The staff of Research to Action has structured the site and populated it with material that its members think will be immediately useful to people who would like to be more strategic and effective in their research communication and engagement.

R2A is produced by a small editorial team, led by CommsConsult. The staff welcomes suggestions for and contributions to the site.

If you have any queries about this site please contact Andrew Clappison [andrew@commsconsult.org] or another member of the CommsConsult team [info@commsconsult.org]

Who Stole My Cow? Open Data and Praedial Larceny

Mon, 20 May 2013 04:41:15 -0500

Praedial larceny the theft of agricultural produce and livestock - is widely acknowledged as a major threat to agricultural production and food security in developing countries. It robs legitimate producers, stifles incentives for farming entrepreneurs and adversely affects the poor. In Jamaica, this scourge deprives farmers of more than JA$5 billion (US$52 million) each year. At its core, praedial larceny thrives on information asymmetries that limit coordination between stakeholders, such as farmers, law enforcement, and buyers of produce. The free flow and accessibility of information about registered farmers, their production, incidences of theft and linkages between production and market are all a part of the information ecosystem that is needed to combat this challenge.

While the value of data is derived from its usage, the principle of openness is founded on access and participation. Having more relevant and timely access to data for not only policy makers and data scientists, but also farmers, innovators and other intermediaries, will help to create the solutions needed to prevent threats to food security.

one thing is clear: open government data in agriculture will be critical to breaking down the silos that typically create governance bottlenecks. This requires focusing not aggregate macro datasets, but instead opening small, service level indicators, originating from any development partner, that can provide just in time data to inform decision making. Early program prototypes include employment opportunities as data collectors for at-risk youth, and mobile farmer ID verification for law enforcement and buyers of produce.

The Problem with Our Data Obsession

Mon, 20 May 2013 04:29:49 -0500

In his trenchant new book,To Save Everything Click Here,Evgeny Morozov, a writer forSlateand The New Republic,uses the Eightmaps episode to support his claim that Internet-centrism is warping our view of whats truly important. Transparency is ascending at the expense of other values, Morozov suggests, mainly because it is so cheap and easy to use the Internet to distribute data that might someday prove useful. And because were so often told that the Internet has liberated us from the controls that gatekeepers had on information, rethinking the availability of information seems retrograde - and the tendency toward openness gathers even more force.

Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig haseloquently describedwhy having more data about politicians is more likely to mislead people into cynicism than to make politics better. But Lessig seems resigned to the inevitability of such data-gathering projects in the age of the Internet.

The most chilling potential problem is that the data we use to guide ourselves can be incomplete or overly reductionist. Many crimes go unreported, which could fool predictive policing software into thinking a neighborhood is safe. Cops on the beat, however, might be able to tell when things dont seem quite right there and keep an eye out. Morozov fears a future in which such intuitive knowledge about how to deploy resources is overruled by algorithms that can work only with hard data and cant, of course, account for the data they dont have.

Mobile Privacy Disclosures: Building Trust Through Transparency

Mon, 20 May 2013 04:20:43 -0500

In the fourth quarter of 2012, consumers worldwide bought approximately 217 million smartphones, which weigh about four ounces and fit in the palm of the hand. Consumers derive enormous benefits from these devices, which are used to make audio and video phone calls, buy movie tickets, check traffic on the regular commute, browse a digital library while waiting for an appointment, and connect with friends for spontaneous get-togethers.

The mobile ecosystem has changed in other ways, too. The complexity of the ecosystem raises 21st century concerns: When people use their mobile devices, they are sharing information about their daily lives with a multitude of players. How many companies are privy to this information? How often do they access such content and how do they use it or share it? What do consumers understand about who is getting their information and how they are using it?

ICT4Ag 2013 Conference, Plug & Play Day, Kigali, Rwanda, 4 November, 2013: Call for Innovations Opens!

Mon, 20 May 2013 02:55:35 -0500

As a precursor to the ICT4Ag conference being coorganised by CTA, MINAGRI and partner organisations in Kigali, Rwanda, the Plug and Play Day (November 4, 2013) offers participants a valuable and very practical insight into the latest technological developments in the field of ICT for agriculture.

Proposals are being solicited from the general public for apps/tools/solutions developers and techies, who may be interested in demonstrating or teaching others how to use these technologies for agricultural development.

If interested in submitting a proposal for the Plug & Play Day, please follow the link below where you will find the full details and the form for submission of your proposal.

ICT4Ag 2013 Conference, Kigali, Rwanda 4-8 November, 2013: Call for Content Opens!

Mon, 20 May 2013 02:22:09 -0500

Co-hosted by CTA and MINAGRI, and supported by an impressive array of international organisations working in the fields of ICTs and agriculture, this conference taking place in Kigali, Rwanda on 4-8 November 2013, offers participants the opportunity to discover exciting opportunities and cutting edge technologies.

Proposals are being solicited from interested resource persons under a broad range of session topics within the field of ICTs and agriculture. If interested in submitting a content proposal for the ICT4Ag 2013 conference, please follow the link below where you will find the full details and the form for submission of your proposal.

comparison of socio-economic characteristics of ethnic minority vis-a-vis main stream population: New survey evidence from Vietnam

Sun, 19 May 2013 20:56:29 -0500

The ethnic minority people are known to be poor in general, low in education and perform less compared to the main stream population in Vietnam. There is however less evidence backed by field data to compare the overall standards of ethnic minority people and the main stream people. This note based on survey data gathered from 420 households (75% minority and 25 % main stream) corroborates that minority households in general perform poorly compared to main stream population is. Out of the 11 socio-economic variables populated in this survey, it is revealed that ethnic minority people have performed less in 7 while their achievement is higher than the main stream in two variables namely, ownership of income-generating assets and schooling rate. The ownership of household assets by ethnic minority and main stream households show a mixed pattern where a higher number of ethnic minority households owned water storage jars and sewing machines compared to the main stream households.

"Socio-Capitalism" Is This the new order world wants?

Sun, 19 May 2013 08:45:28 -0500

Socio Capitalism is an economic structure which privileges Communities, Individuals, Capitalists and Governments involve together to achieve Economic Goal. Thus Growth Share reaches entire population. Socio Capitalism is a system where capitalist invests and gets due reward. Its role is to invest but functions by communities and its people to promote the project and shared by all involved, encourages involved having equal interest in the growth. Governments role does not merely sticking to running public sectors rather priority is protecting societys interest and social order, obligates thorough watch on financiers and society functioning, market economy and have upper hand on both categories. As socialism and capitalism both together attached to economic order, their endeavour is to make project successful. Unlike socialism socio capitalism encourages energetic challenging behaviour among involved citizens, communities, and investors as incentives and disincentives involved. And unlike capitalism, the objective is profit with social consciousness.

As each individual is a contributor to the objective, would prefer the success to survive. Share of the result shared with all involved according to their capacity. This objective promotes success economy. System helps sliding poverty level down.

System facilitates population to involve in economic and social sectors to build a powerful stable economy. Reluctance of Capitalists investment in agro and rural based industries escaped rural growth causing heavy migration to cities.
Educational Institutions and Societies: Socio Capitalism is a community initiation to explore its resources to benefit people. So educate and train is priority to identify sectors for economic growth. New system encourages introducing new research based education system to identify new resources and sources helping employment generation.
Environment and Society: Communities initiation towards identifying usage of natural and cultural resources to attract tourism and so-on is promotion to environmental importance. Environment- cultural related and small sector opportunities to soar employment opportunities in neighbourhoods.
Health and medical care and societies: Entrance of capitalism in Health and Medical sectors have soared manifold the cost of treatment and medicines reaching beyond ordinary citizens capacity. In Socio Capitalism system each neighbourhood to have health care units with qualified doctors and nurses. Financed by institutions or Government and governed by communities, thus would transform present system to social compatibility.
Layoffs Job cuts contract worker and Capitalism: Job cuts (DWnews) is easy privileged systems of capitalism to hire and fire when want. On the other hand under Socio Capitalism each involved is share holder. An eligible person hired is an asset to the company thus on hire, shares offered at subsidised value. That may be as easy payable or bank finance recommended by the company credibility. These shares are only transferrable during way out or retirement. Unlike socialism pattern workers are equally responsible for functioning.
In fact individuals investing in stock exchange are more or less unproductive as earnings not directed to companies rather exchanged between seller and buyer of shares. In socio capitalism people are encouraged to invest in projects rather than speculative stock exchanges. Careful Government regulation assures secured investments.
The objective of the society shifts to humanity and human needs. Social security and social order is priority as all are linked to each other.
Political and administration systems would have different philosophy to match social needs. Money and vote wouldnt be the criteria rather performance and experience in respective fields would invite candidates to enrol for competition.
Large private sectors too are obliged and have flavour of socio capitalism in regard to employment, production and marketing.

A website that helps save your electricity bill

Sun, 19 May 2013 03:00:55 -0500

The Global Fund should take transparency to another level

Sun, 19 May 2013 02:58:00 -0500

Global Fund transparency, as it is practised today, is more of a barrier to journalists and in-country activists than anything else: intimidating piles of reports filled with obscure language, countless files and downloadable materials that reassure technocrats in donor capitals but that dont say much about the reality of what happens to the funds when they hit the ground. Understanding, processing and making use of this information requires learning about technical jargon, Global Fund internal processes, and the roles and responsibilities of different local partners. One needs to be familiar with web searching techniques and data processing methods, and to have some basic communication skills to translate often indigestible data into a plain, common language that non-technical audiences can understand.

Last, but not least, trying to make the powerful accountable in countries with no such tradition is a risky game for the few activists and concerned citizens who dare to do so. With the rise of the Open Government and Open Data movements in Africa and elsewhere, people may fear less for their lives than they used to, but threats and intimidation are still very much a daily reality for local watchdogs.

This leads to a strange paradox. As I heard recently: That is almost the flip side of transparency. Its very easy to use transparency if actually you want to drown people in information. I know its a tactic for lawyers: just give too much information to people, and it will be difficult for them to really figure out what is important. Certainly, the Global Fund did not create this complexity consciously and voluntarily, but the result is the same: mountains of data and files that have the effect of shielding grantees and the Funds bureaucracy from too much scrutiny.

Bill Gates: Teachers need real feedback

Sun, 19 May 2013 02:54:57 -0500

Until recently, many teachers only got one word of feedback a year: satisfactory. And with no feedback, no coaching, theres just no way to improve. Bill Gates suggests that even great teachers can get better with smart feedback -- and lays out a program from his foundation to bring it to every classroom.

A passionate techie and a shrewd businessman, Bill Gates changed the world once, while leading Microsoft to dizzying success. Now he's set to do it again with his own style of philanthropy and passion for innovation.

Second-Generation Americans: A Portrait of the Adult Children of Immigrants

Sun, 19 May 2013 02:52:51 -0500

Second-generation Americans - the 20 million adult U.S.-born children of immigrants - are substantially better off than immigrants themselves on key measures of socioeconomic attainment, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data. They have higher incomes; more are college graduates and homeowners; and fewer live in poverty. In all of these measures, their characteristics resemble those of the full U.S. adult population.

Hispanics and Asian Americans make up about seven-in-ten of todays adult immigrants and about half of todays adult second generation. Pew Research surveys find that the second generations of both groups are much more likely than the immigrants to speak English; to have friends and spouses outside their ethnic or racial group, to say their group gets along well with others, and to think of themselves as a typical American.

Adults in the second generation are doing better than those in the first generation in median household income ($58,000 versus $46,000); college degrees (36% versus 29%); and homeownership (64% versus 51%). They are less likely to be in poverty (11% versus 18%) and less likely to have not finished high school (10% versus 28%). Most of these favorable comparisons hold up not just in the aggregate but also within each racial/ethnic subgroup (e.g., second-generation Hispanics do better than first-generation Hispanics; second-generation whites do better than first-generation whites, and so on).

Research Uptake: A guide for DFID-funded research programmes

Sun, 19 May 2013 02:49:19 -0500

DFID funds research in order to contribute to its overarching goal of poverty reduction. We fund some research which aims to produce new products or technologies which directly improve the lives of poor people. Other research produces knowledge and will only have an impact if it is understood and used to inform decisions. Research uptake includes all the activities that facilitate and contribute to the use of research evidence by policy-makers, practitioners and other development actors.

This guidance note aims to support DFID-funded research programmes as they develop and implement their research uptake strategy. Research programmes which are part-funded by DFID should consult with their DFID programme manager to determine which part(s) apply to them.

Civic Engagement in the Digital Age

Sun, 19 May 2013 02:46:34 -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: