A delegation of the project "Capacity Building through ICT (CBICT)" supported by the European Space Agency (ESA) visited the Teleradiology project in Mali for a week late January. The delegation included François Laureys, IICD’s Country Manager for Mali and from the Dutch Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) – Information and Communication Technology, Jenny de Boer and myself, Nicolas Chevrollier.

The goal of the CBICT project is to define and validate a reference model for capacity building projects using satellite communications. The Teleradiology project in Mali has been selected for assessment of the reference model. The goal of the visit was to receive feedback from members of the project on the model and to further develop it by visiting several sites of the project throughout Mali. The delegation visited Bamako, Mopti, Segou, Djenne and Tombouctou and was accompanied by Mohamed Sangare, the coordinator of the Teleradiology project.

The general impressions of the Teleradiology project were extremely positive. The project makes a difference in a country where radiologists are a scarce resource, and Mali is an extremely welcoming country with a "douceur de vivre" that made the mission a true pleasure from start to finish. To get connected to the Internet is an issue in Mali and in this large country with harsh environment (such as the desert area), the use of satellite
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Back at the IICD office, it is now time to evaluate my first trip to Zambia. As the new officer for the Capacity Development Programme in Zambia I had two objectives: have a general face to face introduction with most of IICD’s project partners and also have some practical insights of the main challenges identified since I came on board.

Going to Zambia for the first time means switching from your daily office work into a more human approach, where names and roles within organisations become real people with actual needs to address. Suddenly, the project proposals you have read until now on paper and couldn't talk are now able to tell you their achievements and future steps.

I spent the first week of my trip in Lusaka. The tight agenda started early in the morning every day. Breakfast at 7:30 AM and jump into the taxi to the first meeting. On the way to the partner office, my colleague Olaf Erz and I discussed the main points of the meeting so we both knew what to expect. Once arrived, the introductions took place and discussions were initiated. My role is to, once the project is started, follow the project partners’ needs in terms of capacity building and assist them in the best way possible to realise their plans. Depending on the project goals, we use different methodologies so our partners get empowered with appropriate technical skills: technical update seminars, on-the-job training or train-the-trainer workshops are different approaches used within IICD. When the project uses tailored ICT tools that have to be developed, a partnership with other local organisations is used so the capacity is built on and for the country.

Although most of the locations I went to were in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia, I also traveled to the Western province to meet with the project staff of
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As the Managing Director of IICD, I participated in the end of January in the World Bank’s “ICT Sector Week: Enabling Development” in Washington. This event was organised by the World Bank’s Global Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Department for the Bank’s staff and the staff of the International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group.

The purpose of the week was to engage IFC and WB staff, senior industry executives, and sector experts in discussion how to leverage ICT to scale up the development impact of the ICF and WB operations. 

Strategy sessions were held on increasing the reach and impact of services in public sector management, education, health, agriculture and rural development.

IICD was involved as speaker in the ICT for Health session and contributed to the panel discussion of the agriculture and rural development session. I also presented IICD in the ICT for Education session.

Find below my personal findings on the Health and Education sessions.

Working towards innovative health services delivery

The workshop on health was very interesting and included participants with lots of experience and key positions. After a well-received presentation the participants discussed: What is e-health? What long term commitment do we need from the bank? What is the role of, amongst others, health insurance and privacy of data?

A much respected female senior advisor of the World Bank suggested that the World Bank thinks about new ways to deliver health services in developing countries. She pointed out that the WB should not be willing to finance projects that are just replicating what was done in the past in the ‘North’. From this point of view she considered that there was a
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