Digitizing SRHR communication: some of the popular mobile phone apps currently used in India by the government and an NGO. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Stella Paul
LONDON, Jul 17 2017 (IPS)

Online shopping may have its pros and cons, but when it comes to buying products that have an invisible morality tag, it’s the safest possible option, believes Franklin Paul.

One of India’s most vocal advocates for youth rights to sexual health, education and products, Paul has spent over two years studying and introducing digital technologies to India’s rural youths. “One day soon, nobody will have to walk into a store to buy condoms, face the nosey chemist and feel embarrassed. They will just order it from their mobile phone or tablet or laptop and and get it delivered on their doorstep,” he says ."Health workers themselves feel embarrassed to talk of sex and contraceptives, but if that information is available on the mobile screen, nobody will have to be embarrassed." --Kamla Mukhi

Talking to IPS on the sidelines of the London Family Planning Summit held last week, Paul shared his personal experiences of talking to youths in the East Champaran district of Bihar, one of India’s most underdeveloped states. The government has just introduced sex education in the state’s schools, but for young men and women, it is difficult to get the correct information on reproductive health.

To help them, Paul and his fellow youths launched a cellphone application called M Sathi. Available now on Google Play, the app provides information in a fun and interactive way where users can learn about sex and related issues through games and quizzes.

Digitizing SRHR

In India, the government is currently running a special campaign on expanding digital connectivity and providing quality e-Governance. Named “Digital India”, the campaign envisions transforming India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy.

The campaign aligns well with the government’s plan to advance and improve sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in the country, says Chandra Kumar Mishra, India’s secretary of health. “We are digitising our communication all along our supply chain,” he said, right after announcing that India would spend an additional one billion dollars in the next five years to provide better reproductive health care to its population.

With the new announcement, India’s commitment now stands at an impressive sum of three billion dollars.

There are 100 million women in India who use contraceptives, according to government data. But not every one receives what she needs. This causes not just an imbalance in the demand and supply system, but also becomes a hurdle in achieving the overall SRHR goal of the government: providing contraceptives to an additional 48 million women and also reduce and eradicate diseases and deaths.

Digital tools can help bridge the gap between the demand and the supply, says Mishra.

Citing the example of E-mitra, a mobile phone based communication service launched by the government, Mishra says that the rapid expansion of digital network in India is sparking greater use of internet phones, especially in the urban and semi-urban belt. Health service providers should leverage this opportunity to reach out more people and provide them with credible information through mobile phones and internet tools, he feels.

Cellphones for Better Information

Mishra’s words resonate with Kamla Mukhi, a 24-year-old young tribal woman community health campaigner in Daltongunj, a coal mining district in east India’s Jharkhand state. In Daltongunj, tribal women have to travel 20-25 kilometers to reach the nearest health center for their need – whether it is for information or a product.

A year ago, Mukhi visited one such health center. “An elderly woman health worker secretly slipped a box of condoms into a young woman’s hand. Later, the woman asked me, ‘Didi, how do I eat this? This is rubber.‘ I did not know whether to laugh or cry. The woman had earlier received cereals and birth control pills here, so she thought this new product was also for swallowing,“ Mukhi recalls.

With mobile phones, such situations would not occur because women can receive the information directly, without any added confusion, Mukhi says.“The health workers themselves feel embarrassed to talk of sex and contraceptives, but if that information is available on the mobile screen, nobody will have to be embarrassed.”

The digitized information system can also be a big boon for women and young people who live in conflict areas, says Mukhi, whose own village falls in an area partially controlled by Naxals, an ultra-communist rebel outfit fighting against the government.

“Women walk long miles to a health center. Then they find out it’s been closed because there was a security threat or an attack. If such information is shared on a mobile phone, they need not undergo such unnecessary hassles,“ says the young health activist.

Investing in Data

But while it’s rather easy to share and give away information, collecting accurate statistics about how that knowledge is put to use remains a huge challenge.

“Credible data is a very crucial area,” says Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, who in 2016 had announced an 80-million-dollar fund for research and collection of reliable gender specific data. Such data, feels Gates, is vital to identify the economic and social issues affecting women and fulfill the UN Sustainable Development Goals, especially goals 3 and 5.

“When a woman health center worker uses and shares data with the women in her community, she knows its valuable because its credible,“ Gates says.

Mishra agrees: “One of the technologies that we are using is Supply Chain Management, a software that will track the purchases and supply of all the reproductive healthcare commodities. We also have a current database on levels of contraceptive use which we are now going to digitize. Soon we will have an enormous volume of data and most of it we will make available to the public,” he says.

Currently, the government is partnering with the Gates Foundation in developing Kilkari, a mobile application that will provide customized information to new mothers, including notifying them on next vaccination dates. The government also has two other mobile apps – Emitra and Anmol – that are used to give free information on family planning.

Youth-Friendly Technologies

None of the government’s technologies are specifically targeting youths, Mishra admits, but says that his department is planning to address it soon. Franklin Paul says that to encourage youths to use the technologies, they need to be ‘youth-friendly.‘

“The government apps are very text-heavy. But young people love something that is interactive and visually appealing and stimulating. This is why we are about to add videos to our Msathi apps. Just as we need to give them a basket of contraceptive products to choose from, we also need to give them a basket of technologies to pick. So, instead of just text messages, we should offer a bouquet of ecommerce, multimedia and social media that will help expand SRHR services among youths,“ says Paul.

There are concerns that Chinese dominance of Kenya’s digital migration process could be used to muzzle freedom of the press. Courtesy: Miriam Gathigah

By Miriam Gathigah
NAIROBI, Jan 14 2014 (IPS)

Controversy and confusion have marked Kenya’s transition from analogue to digital television in keeping with the 2015 International Telecommunication Union deadline when all analogue signal transmission will cease. 

Digital migration, intended to give consumers of media content more choice and better service quality, has faced various hurdles in this East African nation and the government has already postponed the switch several times.

While the fate of a court case filed by three major media houses challenging the government’s decision to deny them a digital licence is yet to be decided, there are increasing concerns that the Chinese are occupying too much space in the local media platforms – particularly the Chinese dominance of the digital migration process.Concerns have also been raised over the fact that though the government ICT policy bars foreign companies from operating telecommunications infrastructure, that policy was suspended during the tendering process for the digital licence.

Javas Bigambo, a political analyst with Interthoughts Consulting, a firm specialising in media, governance and policy, tells IPS it was no coincidence that a Chinese-owned company was given a digital licence and local media houses with significant infrastructure to transmit digitally were not. “We are still reeling from the controversial draconian Media Bill with heavy penalties for journalists and media houses, and now the government is auctioning media freedom to the highest bidder.”

Local TV broadcasters will be reduced to only producing content as Chinese-owned Pan-Africa Network Group’s (PANG) and SIGNET – a subsidiary of the national broadcaster – will serve as middlemen between local TV stations and consumers of media content. Both parties will provide all transmission at an agreed cost with the respective local media houses.

Alex Gakuru, the chair of ICT Consumers Association of Kenya and a member of the Digital Transition Committee multi-stakeholder task force established by the government, says that because China represses its domestic media there has developed in Kenya “the futuristic fear [that the Chinese will repress local media] ignore our constitution, laws and restructured judiciary.”

But Gakaru says such fears are misguided.

“The status of public communications is the legal and sole mandate of the Communications and Media Authority, rendering it illogical to conclude that all foreign companies ignore local laws opting to observe their home countries laws.”

Gakuru says that as the only digital signal distributors, “PANG and SIGNET are legally required to be neutral signal carriers – neither discriminating nor prioritising some broadcaster’s content over others, failure to which their licences risk revocation.”

But Gakuru tells IPS that one signal distributor would have been sufficient as a cost-saving measure as is the case with countries such as Australia.

“Two signal distributors were unnecessary and [financial and spectrally] resource wasteful in the first place. A third or further multiple distributors only aggravate the situation, if at all technically feasible.”

Grace Githaiga, an associate with Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet), tells IPS that although the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK), the independent regulatory authority for the communication industry in Kenya, argues that local media houses lost their bid to acquire a digital licence fairly, “local media houses have reason to be concerned over foreign control of the digital migration in the sense that we are mortgaging our rights.”

“CCK argues that it advised the local media companies to form a consortium and bid, which they did and lost. [But] there seems to be no affirmative action in supporting local entities,” she says.

But Gakuru says that the “fear the Chinese argument” is an exaggeration in this case since “mobile phone operators use Chinese technologies with millions of phones among other consumer electronics either manufactured or components assembled in China – including the iPhone, iPad and other Apple products.”

Government statistics show that China’s state news agency, Xinhua, provides news bulletins for 17 million Kenyan cell phones.

Concerns have also been raised over the fact that though the government ICT policy bars foreign companies from operating telecommunications infrastructure, that policy was suspended during the tendering process for the digital licence.

According to the government, the suspension was on condition that foreign companies commit to offload 20 percent of their shares to locals within three years of starting operations.

Gakuru says that the bone of contention between the government and local media houses is not media freedom but profit margins.

“The many new broadcasters will bite into the advertising spending previously enjoyed by a few. Advertising spending was 769 million dollars in 2011. Local TV stations previously enjoyed freedom to air whatever their profitability-friendly content they so desired.”

“We must recognise China as a superpower. Their dominance on Kenya’s digital migration landscape is a manifestation of their broader information and communications technologies ecology,” Gakuru says.

Gakuru adds that the current situation where media ownership has been the privilege of a few individuals to grant signal distribution to the same few is not an expression of media freedom.

According to Gakuru, challenging PANG as a signal distributor “would be an uphill task. They won an open and public tender bid and there is no need to insinuate favouritism, corruption or even that the media will be muzzled. Separate but associated StarTimes Media focuses on Set Top Boxes [which can be used to receive digital signals for analogue TV sets] and Pay TV business.”

Nonetheless, Githaiga cautions “there is need to understand the role of the signal carrier [in this case PANG and SIGNET].”

“Is the signal carrier for example allowed to edit content from any of the providers? Is it allowed to switch off a signal if content is considered harmful or even anti-government? This information needs to be made clear,” Githaiga says.

Today’s new world of digital communications presents public media outlets with a complex challenge: to conquer loyal and active audiences, with programming that is beholden neither to governments, their main funders, nor to market imperatives.

This was the conclusion reached on the first day of the 4th Latin American Forum on Public Media, held Thursday Aug. 29 and Friday Aug. 30 in Brasilia, organised by the World Bank and the Empresa Brasil de Comunicaçao (EBC) with the support of the Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency and the secretariat for social communication of the presidency of Brazil.

“There is no single recipe, but the important thing is that public media outlets must have an audience,” Sergio Jellinek, the World Bank’s external affairs manager in Latin America and the Caribbean, told IPS. “The main challenge is to identify the audience you want to attract and offer a really interesting service.”

To make this happen, however, there is a longstanding problem to overcome: public media outlets need alternative means of financing themselves to avoid dependence on state resources.

For instance, EBC, a Brazilian government-owned corporation created in 2007 to manage the government’s radio and TV stations, controls two TV channels, eight radio stations and Agência Brasil, which publishes news and videos on the Internet. It has an annual budget of 211 million dollars, 90 percent of which comes from the state coffers.

“Our hands are tied, we are hostages to the availability of budget funds,” said Nelson Breve, EBC’s president. “No business model is sustainable with a single source of revenue, because if it dries up one day, there is nowhere else to turn.”

This year, for example, EBC has had to cut its budget by nearly 17 million dollars, and will not be investing in new technology, according to Breve.

This kind of constraint does not only operate in Brazil. Dependence on state funding also occurs in Mexico, where a recent constitutional reform allows public media outlets to sell advertising.

The head of public broadcaster Once TV, journalist Enriqueta Cabrera y Cuarón, said: “Up to now, Once TV had been considered an official corporation and was not allowed to air commercials. Only now when it is regarded as a concession, will it be able to do so.”

Cabrera y Cuarón advocates a mixed model of financing, limiting revenue from commercials to a maximum of 30 percent of the budget, and with the option of banning advertising of products harmful to health and the environment, or that incite violence.

Breve told IPS: “The problem is that when we talk about diversifying income sources, we end up competing with private companies for the advertising pie, and there is a lack of dialogue between public and private media outlets.”

More complex still is the case of Telemedellín, the local TV channel in the Colombian city of Medellín, which receives nearly its entire annual budget of 18 million dollars from the city government.

But there are strings attached. Fabián Berro, the programming director, said: “The Secretariat hand over the money, but they demand programming tailored to their wishes. With the little time that is left to spare, we try to do something different.”

But some innovative solutions have emerged. Early this year, Telemedellín suspended its programming for 24 hours. Its team held a meeting and decided to film a mega-documentary, from noon on Feb. 22 to noon the next day, in order to portray life in the city.

With images they filmed themselves, footage from surveillance cameras placed in different locations, and above all, home videos sent by the general public via internet, Telemedellín produced M24, Colombia’s first collaborative programme.

The initiative, recently awarded a prize by the Centro Internacional de la TV Abierta (International Open TV Centre), was presented at the Forum Thursday as an example of the use of new platforms to attract and interest the public, and engage it in direct participation.

Berrío said, “At first we thought 300 user-generated videos would be enough. In the end, we received 1,900 clips of people dancing, eating, celebrating birthdays. We changed the trend of Twitter use in Colombia, and because of the large number of responses, we aired those images during the whole of the following week.”

But this initiative is still an exception. “I searched worldwide for a similar experience, and could not find one,” Berrío told IPS.

In Brazil there are many hurdles. “We came late to public communications,” said Breve, referring to EBC’s six-year history. “”We still have to explain to society what we are and why we are important.”

In the view of Carlos Tibúrcio, a special adviser to the cabinet of the Brazilian presidency, the issue is that there is a lack of awareness of public television programmes.

“I recently met with a communications director for a foundation in São Paulo. She did not know what the TV Brasil programmes were, or even what the channel number was. We have to improve our information,” he said.

IPS Director General Mario Lubetkin highlighted the need for dialogue between media outlets to avoid wasting efforts. “We don’t need to reinvent everything. We need an alliance, an effort that is not just of one agency, but of media outlets in general, that includes civil society and the private sector,” he said.

Communications also need to be handled differently, Lubetkin said. “The Internet completely changed our scope as a news agency. We no longer have a monopoly on technology, nor on content. What we need is to know what the added value of our enterprises is. It’s no longer a technological problem, but one of knowing what we are writing, and for whom,” he concluded.