Policy-relevant findings

1. Policy-relevant findings Presentation to IDRC Board of Governors Kani Lanka Hotel 22 January 2009

2. Our mission To improve the lives of the people of the emerging Asia-Pacific by facilitating their use of ICTs and related infrastructures; by catalyzing the reform of laws, policies and regulations to enable those uses through the conduct of policy-relevant research, training and advocacy with emphasis on building in-situ expertise

3. Teleuse@BOP3:Policy-relevant findings Ayesha Zainudeen Research Manager & Demand-Side Specialist, LIRNEasia

4. Study info • Objective: To understand how BOP interacts with ICTs (mostly phones) to better inform policy • Large surveys of ‘BOP’ conducted in 2005, 2006, 2008 • Almost 20,000 face to face interviews in 6 countries since 2005 • Bangladesh (2008) • Pakistan • India • Sri Lanka • Philippines • Thailand

5. Houshold characteristics Monthly household income (USD)

6. Household access to communication technologies Phone Computer

7. Recent use of the phone to make/receive calls Used a phone in the last 3 months Used a phone in the last week

8. Growth in phone ownership since 2006 survey • BOP mostly own mobile phones (brand new, prepaid), except in Sri Lanka • Those below 35 years of age more often own phones • Men more often own phones in South Asia than women

9. Our predictions vsactual growth ?

10. Urban-rural divide in ownership: 2006 vs 2008 1.4 urban owners for every rural owner

11. What the BOP does with phones • Pakistani women rely most often on other peoples’ phones (neighbor or male household member); Pakistani men have their own phones • Almost all Bangladeshi mobile owners use ‘missed calls’ (beeps); “missed call” games? • Some Filipinos don’t make any calls from their phones; 100% SMS/texting

12. Usage Text messaging (SMS) Less popular than missed calls (except Philippines) More so among younger, urban mobile owners Men in Pakistan, Women in Thailand Missed calls (beeps) • Used across the board (except Thailand) • Urban, rural • Men, women • More popular among younger mobile owners • Internet • Little use • mostly among younger urban dwellers, more often males in Pakistan and Sri Lanka • Awareness still poor , especially among females, rural and older respondents

13. Dissemination • Media coverage in 80+ articles • 47+ presentations to various audiences (policy makers, regulators, industry, media, etc) • 2006-07 • Sri Lankan telecom operators (Oct 07) • Indian Universal Service Fund Office (Mar 07) • Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (Jun 07) • Telenor Research & Innovation Asia Pacific (Mar 08) • 2008-10 • Cellular Operators Association of India (Feb 09) • …

14. Stripping out regressive and discriminatory elements from a mobile-only tax Rohan Samarajiva Chair and CEO, LIRNEasia

15. Anatomy of a regressive tax Range of Prepaid ARPUs Relative winners Losers

16. From the Hansard, September 6, 2007 Translation: We will be pleased if Hon. Minister removes the regressive tax of LKR 50 as pointed out by Prof. Rohan Samarajiva, Dr. Harsha de Silva of LIRNEasia and UNP Members. We also request not to increase the mobile subscriber levy to 10%. This tax will have an adverse effect on the common man.

17. September 3, 2008 “I do not accuse the government of being that foolish. They are not killing the goose; their behavior is more like that of trying to milk the goose for more eggs. The end result, however, will be a stressed goose yielding less eggs than it otherwise would have”

18. It is time for the Ministers of Investment Promotion, Posts and Telecom and related subjects to reeducate the people at Treasury who have forgotten what they were taught in their Public Finance courses. True wisdom lies in making government smaller and more efficient. Until then, desisting from service, technology and group-specific taxes and regressive taxes will do.

19. November 6, 2008

20. Benchmarking and regulatory performance Helani Galpaya Chief Operating Officer & Indicators Specialist, LIRNEasia

21. Opportunity: South Asia Broadband Conference, Sep ‘07. Research picked up by AFP

22. AFP story picked up in multiple media outlets, including some in PK “ PAKISTANIS PAY MOST IN SOUTH ASIA TO ACCESS IINTERNET” “...according to Colombo-based LIRNEasia, a regional telecom think-tank” AFP Dawn

23. Gets regulator’s attention AND response ..and so on. Multiple emails/conversations back and forth about methodology, prices

24. 6 months later… Price Drop: 64%

25. NRA web site rankings 2005: PK on top

26. PTA mentions in 2006 annual report “…international recognitions given to the country in the field of telecom include the GSMA Government Leadership Award 2006, …, and LIRNEasia Best Website of the Regulator Award”

27. TRE survey results also presented in PK (Jun ‘07). Results in 27 different news items for LIRNEasia

28. Repeated benchmarking  continued engagement. E.g. 2008 NRA website rankings, PK best in south Asia. Picked up by the Financial Express Financial Express, 18 June 2008

29. Ongoing engagement: 2008 year-end message by new PTA Chairman

30. From spot to forward markets in Agriculture: An example of catalytic effects of IDRC funded research Harsha de Silva Lead Economist, LIRNEasia

31. Our original research • Pre-IDRC • Work started at Dambulla in 2003 • IDRC enter the picture in 2007 • Beyond IDRC, beyond Dambulla

32. Spot market volatility at Dambullano price dissemination

33. Price collectionusing simple ICT tools

34. Disseminating pricesbig display boards across market

35. Farmer empowermentsession history and going price Lowest price and time Highest price and time Last traded price, time and stall number

36. Bigger problem not solvedcontinued longer term volatility

37. Our original research • Pre-IDRC • Work started at Dambulla in 2003 • IDRC enter the picture in 2007 • How can we reduce this volatility? • Will ICT help? • Approached from an economics stand point • Beyond IDRC, beyond Dambulla

38. We broke down the value chaininnovation in transaction cost work

39. …and showed the criticality of informationcost of information at decision is very high

40. We catalyzed thinkingin two directions • One • Reducing transaction costs [information search costs] along the [limited] value chain, with ICT • The other • Creating forward markets; linking the growing decision with selling decision, with ICT

41. Our original research • Pre-IDRC • Work started at Dambulla in 2003 • IDRC enter the picture in 2007 • How can we reduce this volatility? • Will ICT help? • Approached from an economics stand point • Beyond IDRC, beyond Dambulla

42. infoDev proposes to EUhelping reduce transaction costs

43. FARA disseminates in Africawith e-agriculture.org; CGIAR, FAO, GTZ; reduce transaction costs

44. Agriculture at Gates Foundationwith GTC developing tech strategy to reduce transaction costs

45. CORE; conflict resolution in LKcreating forward markets to link regions

46. Tenet at IIT Madrascollaboration to develop forward markets • Extending our work to Tenet to help create forward markets in Tamilnadu, India • Economics focus [from tech centric] • Linking small scale farmers with forward exchanges via ICT

47. Way forward • LIRNEasia, using IDRC funding, is catalyzing world-wide thinking on improving efficiency in rural agriculture markets using simple and affordable communication technology • Need to sustain efforts to generate further evidence and push policymakers to change thinking based on such evidence.  It is a challenge but, there is hope!

48. Capacity Building as Research Sujata Gamage Lead Scientist, LIRNEasia (Knowledge to Innovation Program)

49. In building capacity for telecom reform, we have developed a research stream that extends LIRNEasia’s definition of infrastructure to include knowledge

50. CPRsouth as a capacity building exercise