Importance of partnerships

IICD managing director also spoke about IICD’s values and the importance of partnerships and some of the challenges IICD faces in 2012: To shape our future there are still many more questions that we will have to answer together: What do we want ( what are the outcomes)? What do we have ( what are the assets)? What will we do (how do we behave)? In 2012 we will together further clarify and formulate this future.”

Figuères’ full speech can be read and downloaded on IICD’s Scribd page and is also embedded here:

New years speech Caroline Figuères 2012

The market price information allows farmers to make better-informed decisions about selling their produce. Even on one market, prices could fluctuate, If farmers know about this, they can store their produce a little longer and sell it once the price goes up again, or they could go to another market, if they know that they can get more for their crops there. In addition, the increased transparency diminishes the huge profit margins of middlemen.

This programme is supported by the government of Santa Cruz in Bolivia and by IICD and the IICD-led Connect4Change consortium in the Netherlands. The program already reaches many farmers in the Santa Cruz region, but can now be extended no the markets of La Paz and El Alto, reaching 600 more farmers.

More information about the project in La Paz and El Alto and an opportunity to contribute to the project, can be found here: 

The radio station was set up by the National Agricultural Information Services together with IICD. The SMS platform will be accessed by NAIS agriculture information officers who are hosting farmer radio shows in various local languages and agricultural specialists and other identified stakeholders to give appropriate answers to the farmers’ questions. In an interview with IICD in April 2011, one of the radio hosts explained why this system will be useful for farmers. “Before, if farmers wanted to provide feedback, they had to have an extension worker fill out a form and send it to NAIS in Lusaka. With the new setup farmers can do it themselves.”

Farmers can send a text message to the number 3009, then type in their language (for instance EN for English or BE for Bemba) and their question. The system is currently only available for Airtel subscribers but will be available to all networks soon.

A challenge for the system is the high price of text messages. “The SMS costs K900 is on the higher side,” stated the Minister of Agriculture. “The ministry has made a request to the Zambia Information and Communication Technology Authority  (ZICTA) to help waiver this rate.”

-          a Finance Assistant

-          a Technical Adviser

-          a Cross Media Intern

The vacancy for the Cross Media internship closes on February 6th 2012, the vacancies for Technical Adviser and  Finance Assistant close on February 12^th. For more information about these vacancies, please go to: http://www.iicd.org/vacancies

IICD and Heifer signed an agreement with the aim to help implementing ICT solutions to inform farmers. At the two day workshop, participants presented other Peruvian organic (‘agroecological’) farming projects that IICD will assist. These projects would (for example) like to more easily share information about sustainable and productive community-based natural resource management, (organic) sheep and goat farming and how to sell Alpaca products on the Peruvian market.

To see a photo presentation about farmer Freddy and his experiences with organic farming, see our flickr page

As a TA, you:

• contribute to IICD's technical innovation process and contribute to improve the competences of local technical advisers and trainerrs
• coordinate technical activties with the Country managers in all assigned countries
• identify and establish an effective pool of local technical advisers and trainers that assist local partner organisations
• Advise, design, implement and update technical seminars together with local partners
• and much much more

For a full job description, please go to: http://www.iicd.org/about/vacancies/iicd-technical-adviser-job-description

Applicants much be based in the Netherlands and are required to possess a Dutch work permit. Vacancy closes February 12th, 2012.

At IICD our motto is that ICT for development should not be about technology, but about people. But that doesn’t mean technology is not important. That’s why we are asking for your written contribution.

What do we need from you:

- Surf some of the resources available during the CES for news and updates. You could for instance see updates on :

Techradar, Geekbeat TV, Mashable or CES’s own website

- Find: Find products that you think could be useful or will be useful in a development setting

- Write: Write down the name of the product and in maximum 200 words describe why and how this could be used (in for instance rural areas) and who will benefit from this (farmers/teachers/doctors etc.).

- Send: send your contribution to jjessurun(at)iicd.org

- Or: tweet your findings to @iicd (if you’re more of a 140 characters type of person)

That’s great, but what’s in it for me?

You will be credited an mentioned as a reporter in an article on our website  as our reporter on our social media channels and in, reaching thousands of people and the best reporter wins an IICD goodie bag and a mention in IICD’s brand new videocast.

Hope to hear from all of you soon. Cheers, IICD

Decreasing dependency on doctors thanks to mobile health

The mHealth summit is the world’s largest mobile health conference attended by representatives from both the profit and non-profit sector, such as Johnson & Johnson, Vodafone, the mHealth Alliance and various National Health Institutes from the United States. Speakers at the conference included the world’s leading physicians such as Dr. Eric Topol, who is a pioneer of the genomic and wireless digital innovative technologies. Topol forecasts a consumers revolution and says that mobile phones and mobile applications will be used more and more. “It enables consumers to become more informed,” he stated. Patients will become less dependent on doctors, he predicts. Topol also talked about the wireless future of medicine on TEDMed. See this video:

The challenge: financial sustainability

In developing countries there is much to gain too when it comes to applying mobile devices for prenatal screening or health prevention programmes. Despite the obvious potential of mobile health (for instance see the IICD-supported health child project in Uganda, where child mortality is reduced by providing mothers with health care information through mobile phones), it is here that there are still challenges to overcome: scalability and sustainability. Most mobile health projects struggle with the business model ensuring the likeliness of becoming financially sustainable and scalable. Up to date there are virtually no examples yet of successful, financially sustainable large-scale developing programmes with a mobile device component. The MAMA programme and Ghanaian MOTECH programme come close though.

Evidence is needed to prove in what settings applying mobile technology to health becomes beneficiary. Many organisations are working on the evidence of mobile health projects such as the World Health Organisation, the John Hopkins University and the international telecom providers platform GSMA. With evidence brought forward by these organisations and others such as IICD and if it becomes clearer what business model to apply, mobile health will surely play a great role in better healthcare in countries in the global south.

The partnership with 1Zero is a two-way exchange. Not only will developers of 1Zero be twin-developing the database with Ethiopian colleagues. Ethiopian developers will also visit the Netherlands to take part in trainings at 1Zero headquarters starting in 2012.

"Millions of farmers will benefit"

 “I am very proud of this partnership with 1Zero,”says IICD managing director Caroline Figuères. “This partnership brings 1Zero together with talented Ethiopian developers to create a database which will benefit millions of farmers. It is a good example of how a private sector company really puts its words into action when it comes to Corporate Social Responsability.”

Erik Philippa, managing director 1Zero: ”For our first lustrum we were looking for a special partnership. In which we can work together, to use our knowledge, energy and enthusiasm. We found it together with IICD in this project. Together with the Ethiopian developers, we can all move forward!”

A data company and an NGO meet

1Zero is a company specialised in managing, transforming and interpreting data from market research, management information systems and other data sources. From this data they produce (automated) reports, dashboards, portals and panel management systems.

IICD is a non-profit foundation that specialises in information and communication technology (ICT) as a tool for development.  IICD is active in Africa and Latin America where they bring about technical and social innovations that create and enhance development opportunities in education, governance, economic development, health and the environment.

Need to know more? Please visit our partnerships special at http://www.iicd.org/get-involved/partner-with-us

Follow us via: Twitter/Facebook/Logon4D. 

Also read stories about some of the work IICD does together with other private partners such as Inter Access: http://www.iicd.org/articles/inter-access-helps-ghanaian-ngo-improve-data-management

Happy holidays, bonne année 2012, feliz año nuevo, fijne feestdagen!

The Central Bureau on Fundraising (CBF) is an independent foundation which has been monitoring fundraising by charities since 1925. The CBF’s task is to promote trustworthy fundraising and expenditure by reviewing fundraising organizations and giving information and advice to government institutions and the public.

The publication can be found here: http://www.google.com/producer/editions/CAowgvsq/iicd and can also be found on Google current’s library.

Saving up to 1,5 hour travel time to charge a phone

Farmers use their mobile phones to look up crop price information so they see how much their crops are worth and when they can best sell it, but often do not have any way to charge their phones when they are in the field. They often have to walk for 1,5 hours to the nearest town and have to pay a shop to have their phones charged. The solar chargers offer a quick solution and are also cost-free to use. In 2009 there has already been a successful smal scale test with the solar chargers. 

This video shows how the project worked before the chargers arrived but with the cell phones already used: 

Future: working in health care

IICD and Cordaid continue to work with SEND Ghana in the Connect4Change consortium. With the successful implementation of a farmer project, the attention now shifts to health. SEND wil use netbooks to collect and share data to identify how to help poor people in rural Ghana benefit from Ghana’s National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). Local staff are trained to use the system. They in turn train field staff to collect information about participation in the scheme at health centres and institutions in over 40 districts. The same information is also used to lobby and advocate for better quality health care in these rural areas.

For more information, go to www.connect4change.nl.

The organizers’ approach to the conference was in contrast to the traditional attitude towards ICT4D, where initiatives and programmes are often segmented by specific sectors, which is unnatural from the perspective of members of the rural sector. Rather the conference sought to identify the issues most essential to the rural sector which can be addressed by the increasing convergence of technology and services. 

Featured in the conference were a number of plenary sessions, thematic tracks in education, health, agriculture and governance which were recurring everyday, several focus groups on issues such as gender and business models, as well as lively market showcasing projects and services. Organisations got the opportunity to share inspiring initiatives which have a large scale reach, such as the Young Africa Live programme by the Praekelt Foundation.

The conference was held from November 1 to 3 in Johannesburg. It brought together about 300 experts and practitioners in the field of ICT4D, from across Eastern and Southern Africa, providing the opportunity to interact and start a dialogue, which is an important step in the convergence of social development and technology in rural development.

For more information on SANGONet, visit their website.