Leveraging ICT for Rural Livelihoods ( Experiences from the field)

1. Leveraging ICT for Rural Livelihoods (Experiences from the field) Krishna Pidatala Jan 29, 2009

2. Livelihoods Approaches – key findings • People’s Sector – Recognition that poor people are an important segment of society who can be treated as a Sector • Pro-poor institutions – Building and/or fostering pro-poor institutions is the first step to ensure that a sustainable platform for ensuring results in the alleviation of poverty. • Commitment & Long term perspective – Giving the space and consciously allowing institutions and structures to grow and flourish. • Focus on Economic Empowerment– Focus on economic empowerment and social capital will follow. Strategy is to empower poor people through savings and loans and NOT grants. • Building upon people’s knowledge – Poor people are resource poor not knowledge poor. • Convergence– Convergence of government policies, financial and market linkages, private sector partnerships etc. • Essential inputs – financial resources, labor and INFORMATION

3. THE PEOPLE SECTOR – what is it? Hypothesis: The supply side (both public and private) cannot be made more efficient in helping the poor unless it’s in the context of an organized demand side Principle: Help communities help themselves to address • Government failures • Market failures Rationale: Poor people have a huge untapped potential • For public sector - Largest voting bank and client for services • For private sector - Largest potential market for products and services

4. THE PEOPLE SECTOR - strategy Strategy: • Gaining Voice • Reaching Scale How: 1. The software: Build institutions OF the poor (vs. institutions FOR the poor) • Organization, social capital, capacity building • Irrespective of whether it is for public or private goods 2.The hardware: Put assets in the hands of poor people • providing opportunities for income generation • Income will strengthen the “voice”

5. Social Mobilization Framework for Project Interventions • Livelihoods • Skill building • Food Security • Assetization and Income Generation • Access to financial services • Fair terms of trade • Participatory targeting • Social and economic capital • Generating voice and scale Investment in self-sustaining institutions and federations of the poor • Role of PMU • Mobilization, capacity building • Bank Linkage • Partnerships • Innovation in rural livelihoods • Entitlements & Accountability • Access to information • Accountability of services • Participation in local government

6. The Software(graduation model) Franchising Retailing Community enterprises Producer Companies Banking Savings & Loans Coops Marketing services Commodity Cooperatives Federation of User Groups Different levels of associative tiers Resource-based Irrigation, Watershed, forestry Affinity-based Savings and Loans Activity-based Assets/marketing

7. Developing an Architecture for Investors to Invest at the Bottom of the Pyramid • Institution Building: Supporting, strengthening and federating self managed grassroots institutions of the poor • Financial Capital and Livelihood Credit Planning:Establishing access to savings, assets, credit and other market linkages for livelihood improvement. • Human Capital : Building Capacity and providing skill development to the develop functional Skills Example: Grassroots Quality controllers. Book-keepers, village Botanists • Infrastructure: Providing community infrastructure for value addition e.g.. Storage, warehousing, solar driers

8. Co - production model Federated institutions of the poor become partners with key players in the public/private sector acting as franchises Agribusiness Dairy and Livestock Services and Jobs Micro-enterprise Investments in Key Sectors

9. Potential role ICT in Rural Livelihoods Two Main Roles • Enabler – efficiency, knowledge dissemination, M&E, preservation of indigenous knowledge, improved service delivery • Transformational – Empowerment, participation, transparency & accountability leading to good governance and reduced inequality, two-way information flows, (reduced information barriers = changed patterns of living)

10. Diversity of approaches using flexible technologies • Profit for the Poor - Poverty reduction by leveraging ICT for the poor (Grameen) • Developing emerging markets – HP’s e-inclusion strategy (close the gap between technology-empowered communities and technology-excluded communities) ; beyond CSR and look at potential market opportunity • Information catalysts – concept of e-villages by increased access to information. Women entrepreneurs, demand driven hub training, livelihood diversification, localized services • Information as a public good – difficult to restrict (low excludability) and no loss in value when any have it (low extractability); Examples of this type information is – weather info, soil & cropping info, market prices & food safety, etc.

11. ICT for Rural Livelihoods – experiences from the field Mobile platform • Livestock & animal husbandry – SMS usage for disease surveillance ; veterinary checkups, periodic reports • Market linkages & information – cell phone usage for market & price information • Marketing Network for Women Entrepreneurs (FOOD – Foundation for Occupational Development, India) – low income women who make food products & household items or repackaged spices for sale (link across groups to - (a) compare prices across region (b) exchange goods (c) develop new markets, • Electronic marketplace – e-choupal • Transparency & Accountability – SMS • Mobile banking – low value money transfers, reduced transaction costs, increased convenience, increased credit, (Bangladesh & Kenya)

12. ICT for Rural Livelihoods – experiences from the field Grassroots innovations – database for grassroots innovations, protection of IPR, help file patents, add value to commercialize products, disseminate innovations using ICT (Honeybee Network & SRISHTI) Use of Smart cards – used in milk related livelihoods ; contains user information ; used for recording amount, quality & fat content of milk supplied, accurate & transparent recording system – digitally recorded & tamper proff ; secure payment & to procure inputs ; (India, Kenya & Tanzania) Community Information Centers(Ethiopia, Zambia & Tanzania) • Livestock prices in different markets, pineapple prices in nearby markets • agricultural inputs market prices, stock arrivals of commodities, daily market prices of fresh vegetables, daily stock of bio-fertilizers, bio-pesticides, etc E-commerce in Africa • Rural women artisan in Cape Verde – women display & sell handicrafts over web • Women’s groups in Ethiopia – capacity building, improved handicraft designs, sales information exchanged over the web

13. ICT for Rural Livelihoods – experiences from the field Village Information Centers • used for information (news,, doctors scheduling & appointments) • News displayed on board outside • Women operators –health care info, used to discuss women’s issues • Mechanisms for democratic participation (RIA, Government schemes) • Social capital & income generating activities (traditional medicine) Micro-Insurance • Use of cell phone, databases, SMS, ATM machine for SHG life insurance Participatory forest management - in-situ & ex-situ conservation of medicinal plants, nurseries, kitchen gardens, eco-regeneration & forestry management- ICT used for seed banks, forest produce collection & marketing Fisheries livelihoods (Veeripattinam, India) • Localized information available - US Navy website – weather & wave information, conversion in local language audio files, transmission & loudspeaker announcement

14. ICT for Rural Livelihoods – experiences from the field Solar Energy usage for cell phone towers – Sudan, Fantusam Foundation (Nigeria) ; charging cell phones used for rural livelihoods Health initiatives in rural areas – use of PDAs for pre-natal care & immunizations (Nalgonda district, India) Satellite uplinks – (Future Stations, Brazil) – economic alternatives for youth (15-29) - support services to community entrepreneurs including a development agent for group purchases, credit access, insurance & other services Innovative Internet & wireless E-services to fishermen – (Manobi, Senegal) – SMS usage for (a) input fish stock information (b) log departures & estimated arrivals (d) fishing unions alerted if fishing boats fail to return on time. WAP used to access central database in real time. Market prices determine landing points. Voice portal for Health– (Voxiva, Peru) – disease surveillance using cell phones; information dissemination to rural health professionals,

15. Lessons Learned - ICT for Rural Livelihoods General • Organized people sector – use as resource for data capture & lowering transaction costs (business or government) , empowerment (people) • MIS effectiveness – interleave into processes, incentives for usage • Public-private partnerships – assures that private sector has “skin in the game”; increases sustainability • Experience – greater impact by using women as “agents of change” • Sustainability – ICT to fit with pro-poor institutional structures • Going forward - Leverage the Mobile platform by using low cost devices • Innovation - Learn from the users ; democratization of technology & data, feedback cycles through PRAs & Social accountability approaches • Infrastructure/Broad band – work with what you have ; develop flexible business models • Uptake of ICT in rural development – accelerated by local language & context • Capacity development – focus on sector outcomes; keep technology simple Bank Operations • Bank operations – need for sector strategy & business model ; Bank to be catalyst and adapt off-the-shelf commercial solutions as far as possible • Digital divide within Bank - traditional way of thinking (Operations) versus techno-speak (GICT) • CDD operations – find practical & innovative ways to introduce ICT introduction into demand-driven operations • Staff client learning – C2C exchanges, South-South partnerships