Information and Communication Technologies for Poverty Reduction and Rural Development

1. Roger Harris Associates Information and Communication Technologies for Poverty Reduction and Rural Development 1. Principles, Practice and Policies. Roger W. Harris PhD Roger Harris Associates Hong Kong China Agricultural University 2010

2. The Lecturer • PhD in Information Systems • Began researching rural ICTs for poverty reduction in 1997 • Working as a consultant since 2001: • Policy advice • Programme design and implementation • Evaluations • Research • Work for an NGO using ICTs for rural development • Rural telecentre • Community radio Malaysia Nepal Vietnam Philippines China Sri-Lanka Lao PDR Cambodia India Thailand Taiwan Indonesia Papua New Guinea Mongolia Bangladesh Hong Kong Singapore roger.harris@rogharris.org http://www.rogharris.org

3. Rural Telecentres in India

4. Agenda • Principles • Global poverty • Information and poverty • Some Concepts • The digital divide • ICTs in China • Practice • Internet • Mobile telephones • Community radio • Others • Policies • Global initiatives • National responses • Design approach • Lessons learned Principles Practice Policies

5. Principles • Principles • Global poverty • Information and poverty • Some Concepts • The digital divide • ICTs in China • Practice • Internet • Mobile telephones • Community radio • Others • Policies • Global initiatives • National responses • Design approach • Lessons learned

6. Population living under US$1.25 per day • China and India host more poor people than the entire population of Africa. • Around three quarters of the world's 1.3 billion poor people live in middle-income countries. • China’s poverty rate fell from 85% to 15.9%, or by over 600 million people • Much of the poverty reduction in the last couple of decades almost exclusively comes from China • China accounts for nearly all the world’s reduction in poverty. Numbers are in millions http://www-958.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/manyeyes/visualizations/poverty-indicators

7. What helps move people out of poverty? • Education • Employment • Enterprise development • Credit • Public services • Health care • Better agriculture • Information ….about all the above, …….and the Technology to deliver it.

8. Some Concepts • Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) • To handle information and aid communication, including computer and network hardware and software and the merging (convergence) of telephone networks with computer networks. • The Information Society • In which information is significant for economic, political, and cultural activity. • New Media • The interactivity of computers and communications technology. • The Internet • “Arguably mankind's greatest invention.”  • The Digital Divide • The gap between those with access to digital technology, and those without. • E-Inclusion • Bringing the benefit of ICTs to all segments of the population; irrespective of education, poverty, age, gender, disability , ethnicity, and remoteness. • Universal Service • The provision of telecommunication services to every resident of a country including those in low income, rural, and high cost areas.

9. Global ICT Development 2000-2010

10. Global ICTs - 2008 Internet Users Mobile and Fixed Line Telephone Subscribers http://www-958.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/manyeyes/visualizations/mobile-and-fixed-line-telephone-su

11. The Digital Divide: Telephones and the Internet Number of phone subscriptions per 100 people In 2009, an estimated 26% of the world’s population (or 1.7 billion people) were using the Internet. In developed countries the percentage remains much higher than in the developing world where four out of five people are still excluded from the benefits of being online. Number of internet users per 100 people

12. Mobiles • Mobile cellular subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, 2010. In developed countries, the mobile market is reaching saturation with 116 subscriptions per 100 inhabitants . The developing world is increasing its share of mobile subscriptions from 53% of total subscriptions at the end of 2005 to 73% at the end of 2010. In the developing world, mobile cellular penetration rates will reach 68% at the end of 2010 - mainly driven by the Asia and Pacific region. India and China alone are expected to add over 300 million mobile subscriptions in 2010. In Africa, penetration rates will reach an estimated 41% at the end of 2010 (compared to 76% globally) leaving a significant potential for growth. % 2009/2010 Growth Rate % CIS Europe Africa The Americas Arab States Asia & Pacific

13. The Digital Divide: Households with TV, Computers & Internet While Internet penetration in developed countries reached 64 per cent at the end of 2009, in developing countries it reached only 18 per cent (and only 14 per cent if China is excluded). In Estonia, France, Finland, and Greece, Internet access has been made a human right Developed Countries Developing Countries

14. ICTs in China: Exports US$ Billion - 2008 Manufacturing of ICT goods has created around25.5 million jobs for migrant workers. They have contributed to reducing poverty in rural areas through an estimated $18 billion of remittances. 30,000 companies in Shenzhen shipped 145 million mobile phone units in 2009 (13% of all phones sold in the world)

15. ICTs in China: Usage Compared to USA - 2008 China accounts for one-third of Internet users in the developing world. With more than 420 million Internet users, China is the largest Internet market in the world. More Chinese (87 %) see the Internet as a fundamental human right than do Americans (76 %). More than half of fixed broadband subscribers in the developing world are in China.

16. Practice • Principles • Global poverty • Information and poverty • Some Concepts • The digital divide • ICTs in China • Practice • Internet • Mobile telephones • Community radio • Others • Policies • Global initiatives • National responses • Design approach • Lessons learned

17. Telecentre Diffusion in Asia Telecentres • Telecentres provide shared access to ICTs for the purpose of community development and poverty reduction • 11,160 telecentres in 16 countries in Asia (UNESCAP) • 2,000 new telecentres established in India every year since 2001 • Multiple models of ownership and operation • Patchy impact • Sustainability problems • National programmes

18. Category Examples Source Delivery Generic Information E-government, agricultural extension, distance education, e-commerce, e-health, news, weather, etc. Government and national/regional institutions. Institutional partnerships. ICT-focused Services E-mail, voice over IP, chat, internet searches, word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, ICT training, printing, photocopying, scanning, newsletters etc. Local telecentre owners, operators and staff. Creative and client-centric entrepreneurial activity at the telecentre. Development Programs HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns, micro-and small enterprise development support, skills training, micro-credit support, etc. National/regional development initiatives. Pro-active marketing of telecentres among NGOs, and INGOs. Locally-based Information Local laws, poverty reduction schemes, local NGO activities, yellow pages, job placement services, classified advertisements, market prices, etc. Local activists, NGOs, community-based organizations, government offices, social entrepreneurs, volunteers, schools, etc. Community outreach, community mobilisation, Infomobilisation. Telecentre Information Services

19. Mobile Telephones • SMS Triples in 3 Years • More than half the world's population now pay to use a mobile phone • Developing countries account for about two-thirds of the total mobile phones in use. SMS services Voice applications Web applications Social exchanges Emergencies Informal networks Business transactions Weather updates Market prices

20. Mobile Phones • mHealth • Medical and public health practice supported by mobile devices • Tamil Nadu Health Watch allows health workers, even in remote areas, to immediately report disease incidence data to health officials • mLearning • Learning with portable technologies • Graduate students at King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology, North Bangkok, used mobile phones to participate in tests, and more than 90 per cent of the participants owned the mobile phones themselves • mFinance • Mobile phones to facilitate banking activities; deposits, withdrawals, payments, transfers. • GCASH Philippines, turns a cellphone into an electronic wallet, for money transfers, shopping and transferring money between cellphones • mAgriculture • Fishing boats in Kerala using offshore mobile phones to coordinate sales with traders • mGovernment • Delivery of government services and applications on mobile phones and other portable devices using a wireless infrastructure. • Income Tax Department of India - SMA to verify banks have uploaded tax deposits • Crisis Management • RapidSMS enables mass-scale mobile data collection, messaging, and workflow management via SMS • deployed by UNICEF to track the distribution of Plumpynut during a hunger crisis in Ethiopia • Conservation • Wild-life tracking, remote environmental sensing • Advocacy/citizen mobilisation/social coordination • FrontlineSMS for text messaging to large groups

21. CommunityRadio • Popular device, especially for local information • 56% of farmer households in Vietnam have a radio • Combined with telecentres = radio browsing • Rapid diffusion of development information to remote areas • Channel for interactive communication, dialogue and debate on rural development issues. • A tool for cultural expression, local language use, entertainment. • A platform for democratic expression of opinions, needs and aspirations of rural communities  Radios per 1,000 people 1400 1200 1000 800 600 400 200 Low income Middle income High income East Asia & Latin America Middle East & South Asia Sub-Saharan Europe Africa N. Africa Pacific

22. Others • Television • Almost ubiquitous in Asia • Main form of information and entertainment • Not used much for development, but notable exceptions are farmer information services in China and Vietnam • Loudspeakers • Important in some contexts; China, Vietnam, India • Especially combined with other technologies; radio, internet. • China Ministry of Agriculture TV channel. TV Sets (% of households) 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Africa Asia Latin America Global

23. Policies • Principles • Global poverty • Information and poverty • Some Concepts • The digital divide • ICTs in China • Practice • Internet • Mobile telephones • Community radio • Others • Policies • Global initiatives • National responses • Design approach • Lessons learned

24. Global Initiatives • World Summit on the Information Society and the MDGs • Two WSIS UN conferences on the information society; Geneva 2003 and Tunis 2005. • Calls upon countries to establish national targets as part of national ICT strategies: • Connect villages , education institutions, scientific and research centres public libraries, cultural centres, museums, post offices archives health centres, hospitals, local and central government departments and establish websites and e-mail addresses • To adapt all school curricula to meet the challenges of the information society • To ensure that all of the world’s population have access to television and radio services • To encourage the development of content • To ensure that more than half the world’s inhabitants have access to ICTs within their reach. • Plan of Action for using ICTs to achieve the Millennium Development Goals; • Promote ICTs for development • Build infrastructure • Provide access to information and knowledge • Build capacity • Foster an enabling environment • Implement ICT Applications: • E-government • E-business • E-learning • E-health • E-employment • E-environment • E-agriculture • E-science

25. National Responses • ICT policies linked to poverty reduction • e-Government • Enabling laws • Telecommunications deregulation • Universal services • Education • Infrastructure • Internet backbones • Telecentre programmes • India, Malaysia, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand, Nepal, Sri Lanka… e-Sri Lanka To promote: The use of ICTs to enhance growth, employment, and equity through affordable access to means of information and communication; Access to and use o f public information and services on-line by citizens and businesses; and Competitiveness of the private sector, particularly of knowledge industries and SMEs.

26. Against that background Design Approach • ICTs will not turn bad development into good development, but they can make good development better. Begin with an awareness of the potential and limitations of ICTs for development and poverty reduction Define the development strategy Where development is going and why Define the information strategy What information is needed Define the technology strategy How the information can be delivered Define the sustainability strategy How the service can be sustained, extended Define the evaluation strategy How the outcomes can be identified

27. Lessons Learned • Empowerment is not an automatic consequence of access, programmes need to go beyond access • ICTs alone are insufficient, requires effective pro-poor policies for public service provision • Institutional reforms are required for making effective use of ICTs • Technical skills are necessary to complement poverty reduction efforts • Capacity building is necessary at all levels • Honest evaluations are necessary for evidence-based policy making and programme design • In rural settings the technological infrastructure is always a challenge, but that task is relatively simple compared to establishing the information infrastructure. • Whilst ICTs provide opportunities for development, desirable outcomes always arise from the actions of people.

28. Roger Harris Associates Thankyou Roger W. Harris PhD Roger Harris Associates Hong Kong